Teaching Them HOW to Learn Rather Than WHAT to Learn: the Why
Acquiring a language can be easily understood as the development and betterment of the four skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing. The strategies and technics used to acquire any language as a mother tongue are the very same one needs to acquire English as a second language. Another way of saying that is there are no listening strategies for only learning Chinese and different other strategies for learning English. In both situations, we use the very same strategies. And as anybody who has already successfully learned a second language can attest, learning a second language is really more of a skills transfer than a complete re-learning of a new system of communication. But for that, one needs to see English for what it really is, a language, a means of communication rather than a mere subject to study, be tested and graded for.
Students come to English classes already speaking Chinese. In order words, they have a track record of success in acquiring a language by using some strategies and technics. Some of these strategies and technics are unique to them as individuals and some others are common to all learners. However, many of these students are completely unaware of these strategies and therefore cannot leverage them on their own to acquire English. For them, they live in Taiwan and speaking Chinese just happened.
Our job as language teachers – and I believe as teachers in general – is to tap into this existing resource to help them achieve their learning goals. And we do so by teaching them HOW to learn rather than WHAT to learn: we help them become aware of their language learning strategies. By doing so, we help them feel safe and comfortable in learning as they discover they already know how to do it. They learn faster and easier. They easily gain confidence and become more successful in learning and most importantly, we help them become effective and autonomous learners. Helping students become effective and autonomous learners is the best gift a teacher can ever give to his students and the best compliment a student can ever make to his teacher.
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