I have some English classes now. I started this job a few months ago.
And I noticed some things.
Firstly, students need to start learning English from elementary school.
In my district, students have English classes from 5 grade.(from 10~11 years
old) They don't start writing from that period. Maybe that's because
there are not enough classes to learn things like learning Alphabet and
writing. They just learn listening. If there is chance to learn ALT( Teaching
assistant by native teacher), they can learn from native teacher. (They
are not always be able to learn from native because there are not so many
native teachers in the city)
I think students who start learning English(Alphabet, writing, reading, and
so on) from junior high school have difficulties to get used to English.
Especially, pronunciation is very hard for children. They tend to have
embarrassments from this period. And some students tend to think
they don't like "studying".
On the other hand, the students who started English from elementary school
don't have big barrier to pronounce unknown language. I focus on the pronunciation
skill in my class. So when I assign their homework, I ask students to listen to
CD many times. And I ask them for imitating the pronunciation many times.
If you missed the chance to get the sense of pronunciation
during this period, you would not be able to get better. I have heard that
children in this period can master the pronunciation almost perfectly.
It is said that the pronunciation by Japanese people are characteristic.
It's because their pronunciation is affected by Japanese pronunciation.
I think Japanese people can improve their pronunciation by starting learning
English from their early age.
4 comments:
I think that sounds very reasonable. Here in Denmark, kids start learning English in 0th grade (5-6 years old) - in that class they only learn songs and short stories and watch short funny movies in English. In 1st grade they start learning the alphabet and learning to write...
I have to say, kids pick up languages much better then grown ups do, and they don't have problems with making mistakes and getting embarrassed by that :)
The earlier - the better.
Shantal ForSD
There is a opinion:
First of all, it is important to
learn our mother tongue.
Children should learn second
language after they can handle
the words of their mother tongue.
But I think they need to
get used to the sound of English
when they are in early age.
They don't need to learn grammars.
My experience with children and how they pick up a second (or third) language only shows that kids are really good in this. They do have a dominant language, but they seem to catch on the other language easily when they are young.
My daughter is born in Denmark and her dominant language is Danish, but she has been listening and speaking Bulgarian since she was a baby, so she speaks that too. Now she is also studying English and I am impressed by how easily she switches between languages and how well she imitates English sounds and the "mellody" of the languages. So: spoken language - the earlier - the better.
As for written language - I am not sure how early it good - Danish and English alphabets are almost the same, so there is no big confusion there. But I remember that when she was learning the Bulgarian alphabet (which is cyrilic and not latin) there was confusion - instead of recognizing it as two different alphabets, she thought that it was one biiiiig alphabet. So, it took some effort to get her to understand that she maynot mix letters from the different languages in the same word or sentence :)
Shantal ForSD
Yes, it's easy for children
to gain speaking and listening ability.
I know some children from Peru
in my hometown.
They can speak Japanese.
But they have difficulties to
write or read Japanese.
Maybe those are the last steps
for everyone.
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