8/17/2019 How Should We Expose Students to Language

1/3

How should we expose students to language.

In a classroom, a major part of the teacher’s job is to expose students to

language so that they can use it later. Here are some examples of how we can do

this.

Example 1 : it’s a pen complete beginners!

 "eh teacher is with a group of complete beginners. #he wants them to be abla to

say what objects are called. #he holds up a pen, points to it and says

pen....loo$....pen... pen’as many times as she thin$s it necessary. "he students

ha%e han a chance to hear the word.

&ater, seh may want to go beyond single words, she can hold up the pen and say

'listen...it’s a pen.... it’s a pen.... it’s a pen. (nce again, she is gi%ing students a

chance to hear the sound of the new language before they try to use it

themsel%es. &ater still, she may start as$ing the )uestion’ what is it * pointing to

the pen!... what is it * so that student get a chance to hear what the )uestion

sound li$e.

+ecause many people ac)uire language by hearing them rst, many

teachers prefer to expose students to the spo$en form rst as in this example !.

Howe%er, some student may need the reassurance of the written word as well

Example - : in%itations elementary!

 "he teacher wants her elementary students to be able to in%ite each other and

respond ti in%itatios. #he plays a tape on which the following dialogue is heard.

#arah : joe helllo

 /oe : oh hello, sarah

#arah : 0mm, How are you :

 /oe : ine, why *

#arah : er, no reason.... pause....ner%ously ! are you doing anything this e%ening

*

8/17/2019 How Should We Expose Students to Language

2/3

 /oe : 2o. 3hy *

#arah : would you li$e come to the cinema *

 /oe : yes, that would be great. 3ell, it depends. 3hat’s on *

#arah : the new tarantino lm.

 /oe : i suppose, it’s all %iolent.

#arah : yeah, probably. +ut it’s meant to be really good

 /oe : i don’t usually li$e %iolent lms.

#arah : (h, (4. 3ell, we could go to pi55a place or something

 /oe : i’m only jo$ing ,i’d lo%e to come.

 "he teacher plays the tape more than once so that students get a good chance

to hear the in%itation language6 some of which the present continuous,

%ocabulary items ! they probably already $now. #he may also say the in%itation

part of the dialogue herself and she may feel it is a good idea to show the

students a written %ersion.

Why students make mistake ?

7ll students ma$e mista$es at %arious stages of their language learning. It is part

of the natural process they are going through and accurs for a number of 

reasons. In the rts place, the students own language may get in the way. "his is

most ob%iously the case with false friends6 those word which sound or loo$ the

same buat mean something di8erent such as’assistir’ in #panish which means

'attend’in Engling and not 'assist’. alse friends are more common where the

learners language share a commmon heritage with english.i.e. 9omancelanguage!.

rammatical considerations matter too: japanese students fre)uenlty ha%e

trouble with article usage, ermans ha%e to get used to positioning the %erb

correctly, 7rabic students ha%e to deal with a completely di8erent written system

etc.

Interference form students own language in not the only reason for ma$ing

mista$es. "here is a cattegory which a number of people call de%elopmental

8/17/2019 How Should We Expose Students to Language

3/3

errors. "hese are the result of conscious or subconscious processing which

fre)uently o%ergeneralises a rule, as, the starts saying’i must to go; , not

realising that the use of to is not permitted with must.

#ome mista$es are deep seated and need constant attention as$ experiencedteachers about the third person singular of the present simple!. 3hile these are

examples of error, others seem to be more li$e