Language Development Interview
Language Development Interview
Question 1. There are many approaches for working with preschool children learning a second language. Which approach do you believe works best?
I use communicative approach in my teaching preschool children to foreign languages. A communicative approach is the strategy modeling communication, directed at the creation of psychological and language readiness for communication, at conscious judgment of a material and ways of actions with it, and also at the understanding of the requirements to the efficiency of the statement.
The main goal of the English language training at the present stage is the formation of the communicative competence, which is understood as a certain level of the language development as well as speech, social cultural, compensatory, educational and informative competences which allow the trainees to vary speech behavior expediently depending on a functional factor of foreign-language communication. A communicative approach is the leading means of the achievement of this purpose. It provides the full and weighed coverage of all parties, aspects and operations of mastering by a foreign language in a complex of all its functions. This approach underlies the world concept of the English language training.
The purpose of the English language training is training in a free orientation in the foreign-language environment and ability to react to various situations adequately. A communicative approach is very motivated: its task to interest trainees in the accumulation and expansions of their knowledge and experience. Trainees should be ready to use the English language for a real communication out of lessons, for example, during the visit to the country of the English language, during the reception of foreign guests, at correspondence, etc. Thus, the term communicativeness is not consolidated only to the establishment by means of social contacts, this familiarizing of the personality with the cultural wealth of other cultures.
Question 2. Which abilities of children are developed by the approach you use at lessons?
Communicative competence as a methodical concept, acting as a required result of training, is a difficult and multicomponent phenomenon. The interconnected formation of all components of communicative competence provides:
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1. Development of communicative abilities (along with the development of language knowledge and skills), namely abilities to read and understand the content of the simple adapted texts of different genres and types; abilities to carry out dialogical communication in standard situations within educational and labor, household and cultural spheres of communication; abilities to do short oral monologic messages about own environment, retell the matter read with a direct support of the text; abilities to issue and transfer elementary information in writing.
2. Development of all-educational and special educational abilities (ability to learn - to work with a book, a textbook, reference book, etc).
3. Development of compensatory abilities (ability at deficiency of language means to overcome difficulty at the expense of, for example, periphrasis or synonym).
4. The education of preschool children, which is carried out through the development of personal relations to comprehended culture and process of mastering by this culture that assumes formation of the outlook system; attitude to the world; positive attitude to a foreign language, to culture of people, speaking their language, mutual understandings, and tolerance.
5. The development of trainees, which is carried out in the course of development of the experience of creative and search activity, understanding of the phenomena, their community and distinction that assumes the formation of the abilities of the transfer of knowledge and skills into a new situation on the basis of implementation of a wide range of problem and search activity; language, mental and informative abilities; valuable orientations, feelings and emotions; ability and readiness to enter foreign-language communication, requirements in the further self-education in the English language.
Question 3. Explain the forms of language assessment you use at the lessons with preschool children.
Language assessment is a measurement of the activity of preschool children, diagnostics of their problems and progresses made in the benevolent form. I use different forms of assessment at lessons: pair, group and individual work. I practice different types of lessons, such as virtual excursions, games, projects, etc. I accustom children to different types of the estimation of own achievements: self-assessment, group and pair assessment. There is a difficulty in my work - involvement of preschool children into the process of assessment of the activities at a lesson and at home.
It is necessary to teach children to assessment from preschool age, when the process of assessment is one of the effective factors of successful teaching. Assessment is important for all participants of educational process:
Parents want to see successes and failures of their child;
Preschool teacher wants to trace the progress of a child;
Preschool children should feel their successes;
The kindergarten administration wants to know the results of training.
Question 4. Which method prevails in your teaching to the foreign language?
I actively use role games as one of the main methods of teaching preschool children to the foreign languages. Role game is a leading type of activity of preschool children. Role game leads to the development of the preschool child. Role games model the communicative situations.
Communication in a foreign language should be motivated and purposeful. It is necessary to create the positive psychological mindset on foreign-language speech. Game is the method of creation of a positive motivation. Games at foreign language lessons of preschool children should not be episodic and isolated. The thorough game methodology, uniting and integrating the other kinds of activity in the process of foreign language teaching, is necessary. The game methodology is based on the imaginary situation and acceptations of this or that role by a child.
Question 5. What techniques or strategies do you use to encourage language development of preschool children?
In case of early learning of foreign languages, the contents and methods of training should be developed in such a way for every child to have an opportunity to watch himself and his behavior in case of learning of foreign language, to recognize own type of a pupil gradually and to clarify by means of what perception organs he studies quicker and more successfully. It is necessary to start training to the elementary strategy of communication from an early age (for example, to repeat ones question, to use gestures and a mimicry, etc.) and memory strategy. Preschool children should have opportunities to get familiar and test the main methods, which can gradually lead to their independent foreign language learning.
In my work I use the following strategies for the successful language development of preschool children:
Activity at the goal setting (a child should understand the necessity of exercises, he should control own behavior);
Motivation at the foreign language (a child should know the reasons why he studies the language and the possible results of his learning);
Role games (a child should want to practice in the situation of a real life);
Vocabulary extension, learning of more difficult words, pronunciation of more complicated sounds (a child should understand the importance of the language development).
The maximum effect can be achieved in the harmony of all above-mentioned strategies. The important factor, helping to achieve this purpose, includes the increase of the efficiency of the pedagogical influence of a teacher on a child, their communication at lessons in the conditions of a full socially - psychological compatibility. Every teacher wants to make his/her lessons most interesting and fascinating, to develop the cognitive interest and creativity of children.