Leave us Kids Alone

Acquiring a large vocabulary can benefit you in school, at work, and socially. It will enable you to understand others' ideas better and to have the satisfaction of getting your thoughts and ideas across more effectively.  While there are not any magic shortcuts to learning words, the larger your vocabulary becomes, the easier it will be to connect a new word with words you already know, and thus remember its meaning.  Reading alone may not be enough to make you learn new words.  Often people don't enjoy reading at all. It's more of a chore for them than a pleasure because they don't understand many of the words. If this is the way you feel about reading, t here is no point in trying to read something you simply are not able to understand or are not interested in. The important idea is to m ake a daily practice of noting words of interest to you for further study whenever you are reading, listening to the radio, talking to friends, or watching television.  Once yo...

Grammar teaching can work, but the magic formula still awaits discovery. Harsh criticism of traditional grammar teaching has continued over the last few decades, which has resulted in lack of confidence among language teachers.  The proponents of audiolingualism argue that immediate error correction is necessary and grammatical errors should be avoided at all costs. On the other hand, the theorists of natural approach persist that teachers who focus only on accuracy may sacrifice learners’ fluency. However, if no attention is paid to accuracy, then learners will not be accurate enough in using language in real context.  Even though  there may be  differences of opinion,  the general consensus is that g rammar teaching is necessary to help students possess greater command of the target language. This does not, however, mean that traditional grammar teaching is effective. English language teachers have always resorted to using course books when teaching gra...

Considerable attention is given to the question: What knowledge should a teacher have?. Besides general knowledge, culture and standard pedagogical competencies, the teacher of the future will need new skills and personal characteristics in order to meet contemporary challenges. As information becomes more easily accessible, the role of the teacher is changing. Teachers of the future will need both more authority… and, paradoxically, less authority. In order to achieve these demands we need a new world of ideas and methods in education. Many of us think a lot about the future, what it will be like to live a world where many of the existing jobs have disappeared. Some people think that technology will replace teachers. Others think that teaching will continue exactly as it’s done for the last one hundred and fifty years – question and answer, homework, and tests. Even today we are starting to experience a slow - or sometimes dramatic - change. Knowledge or fact can be looked up in an ...

School discipline presents enormous challenges for teachers. Getting it right takes balance, judgment, and wisdom. As an education professional who has been studying discipline in an educational setting for years, I am concerned by the lack of  theoretical grounding  in this realm. Given how much research goes into all other areas of a teacher’s job, this deficiency in what many see as a key part of their role is certainly the one that causes most sleepless nights. The general consensus is that the ways that you can use discipline will change as your child grows and develops. Under the age of one year, babies  don’t really understand right from wrong.  So when your baby pulls your hair, you might say ‘no’. You’ll probably need to do this over and over again. Punishing or using negative consequences for babies doesn’t work, because they don’t understand what they’ve done. From around the age of one year, toddlers start to understand a bit more about caus...

M. Montessori has unquestionably influenced the perspective of approaching education, considering the freedom of child’s manifestation as a fundamental condition of pedagogy; defining the very nature of teaching practice. According to her pedagogical theory, the school itself becomes “the house of children” and it seems to be the land of pleasure, of freedom and wonderful discoveries. Not surprisingly, all educational approaches face criticism. Despite her efforts to promote freedom in expressing the child’s nature, Montessori ended to exaggerate the pedagogical value of the method. After all, it might not be the right fit for your child. To start with, the freer structure of the classroom can be intimidating. Children tend to like routine and structure.  The hierarchy of traditional classrooms allows less freedom to the students, but it can also ensure a class environment that feels ordered and safe. Down the rabbit hole, many of the ...

Silent period refers to the phenomenon, when children remain silent, or say very little even after considerable exposure to the target language. In many cases, children may remain silent in the class, but after coming home, they reveal to their parents what they have learned. If there is any output it oftentimes consists of memorized phrases that are usually learned as a whole word and the child may not understand their meaning completely. On a bright note, silent period is not anything pathological, but normal pre-production stage of language acquisition. Much to our surprise, the explanation of the silent period is not mind-boggling. Second language learners are either unable or unwilling to produce their developing second language. The children are simply building up competence via listening. After developing enough competence, speaking ability emerges on its own like a fountain of delight. The length of silent period can be impinged upon by many factors, including psychological wi...