Teaching English as a Second Language: Personal Reflection

Teaching English as a Second Language: Personal Reflection

Introduction

Teaching English as a second language is a not an easy task because most of the times, the students belong to different nations or background and have their own set of perceptions and rules (Oderinde, 2005). I taught English as a second language at different institutions among which the most distinct yet advantageous was the one I taught to seventh grade students in a community school. Most of the children were Asian and were enthusiastic about learning English. The provided content helped me a lot to teach them and prepare the lessons and activities for them.

Discussion

“Intensive English Book” was the content through which I had to teach the students. It contained all the important elements required to teach English to foreign students no matter from which part of the world they belong. The elements included comprehension, vocabulary development grammatical structure, written and spoken English and literature. The idea of the content assimilation is to encourage a systematic development of both the literary knowledge and language skills among students that are thought to be significant for efficient use of English in both written and oral communication (Gebhard, 2006). The content is prepared considering the secondary level education level, which impacts the selection of stuff incorporated in the book.

Through my experience, I am aware of the fact that every systematic instruction has certain common objective that is to enable students, particularly of second language to gain the working knowledge of grammar rules and the structural patterns of the language as a support towards written and speaking skills development (Broughton, et al. 2013). Owing to this fact, the book also had particular objectives:

Providing students with strong linguistic foundation

Equip them with adequate level of proficiency in the English language

Kindle the habit of reading in them as a pleasant activity.

Encouraging the art of spoken English as a medium for international and national communication

Improve and expand number of already acquired competencies and skills.

Linking of the concepts and its division in different chapters is very important because it indicates the suitability and efficiency of the content (Broughton, et al. 2013). This very book is also divided into four different sections. Each of them has different goals, methods and exercises, but all of them are linked because each one teaches the next significant lesson. The four sections are:

speech

comprehension

language structure

composition

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