TEACHING ACROSS PROFICIENCY LEVELS

·        Teaching beginning levels

In this level the students have little knowledge of the target language and their capacity of retention is limited that is why teachers must not overwhelm their students because they will not understand anything.

It is really important that the teacher design a classroom technique in order to help them, giving them activities that help them to develop their hide skills. You have to be patient, maybe you will se that your students are not progressing but you have to know that they are going to learn little by little; they will always depend on the teacher because he is the center of attention and a model to follow.

The teacher talk has to be very clear because if not the students will not get what you want and it will be a big problem not only for you but also for them. It is a good idea to use a slow speech for the comprehension of the student; also you can use simple structures according to their level.

Teaching intermediate levels

In this level the students are supposed to participate in short conversations, ask and answer questions, they can work in pairs or groups to develop theirs skills like speaking, that is why the teacher has to let the students talk and they can use the native language in some situations.

In this level the teacher can start talking about some grammar points so that the student get accustom to that.

Teaching advanced levels

In this level the student has the sufficient fluency to speak they like to participate and give some short explanations. The job for the teacher is little because he let the students do the tasks by themselves. They know a lot of vocabulary, idioms and other language features. People in this level is able to participate in debates, argumentation, complex role-plays, scanning and skimming and so on.

TEACHING ACROSS AGE LEVELS

Many people think that adults have many problems to learn and to understand but the truth is that children are far superior to adults. The thing is that children have a spontaneous attention, and adults focus their attention on a single thing.

Each of them has something good because each of them has its own characteristics. For example, adults can retain information better, they learn more vocabulary and they use it. On the other hand, children have special skills and intuitions that help them in the learning process.

There are five categories that may help when teaching children:

1.     INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT

The teacher must know the limitations of his students. As they are children, it is not a good idea to give grammar explanations because they will not understand. What is important here is the repetition so that they will get the meaning.

2.     ATTENTION SPAM

The teaches has to know how to catch the attention of the children because they get bored very quickly, that is why the activities must be applied and designed to catch their attention and interest, therefore the teacher needs to be active with much enthusiastic when presenting an activity and do not forget to keep the children laughing and of course learning.

3.     SENSORY INPUT

Stimulate the senses of the students to have better results in the process learning. You have to maintain your students active all the time by giving them activities like role-play, hands-on, or play games for example.

4.     AFFECTIVE FACTORS

We know that children are very sensible that is why they need special attention. The teacher has to help the students to laugh with each other when making a mistake so they feel comfortable. Another thing is that you have to be patient with them.

5.     AUTHENTIC, MEANINGFUL LANGUAGE

In this part the context is really important because you take advantage of it and you can give them tasks like: real life conversation, familiar situations or story lines.

In addition we have to know that some adults have superior abilities and skills, also they acquire self-confidence that is really important because they ask and answer questions, in other words their relationship is better.