Practice makes perfect!
When I was still teaching in another country where English is not the language, I was always asked by many native English speakers why and how it was that my English was near native English? Yes why is that?
Practice makes perfect! I guess that is the answer to most things that are successful. Like most of my students and most of you reading this, I am not a native English speaker. I am a second language learner.
In School
In school, 90% of the time (except in Mandarin and Bahasa Indonesia classes), the children speak English. Most of them have shown very good progress since August when I started teaching them. For the children to pick up the language, they should become accustomed to listening in ENGLISH. One of the keys to speaking is listening. One has to get the rhythm, feel the beat of the language and practice it. As my Bahasa Indonesia is close to non-existent, the children are left with no choice but to speak English with me.
In my class, I do a lot of storytelling. Before the story is told, the children discuss and guess what the story is about, based on the title of the story and the cover of the book. They also improve their vocabulary by learning new words and using them. They get used to expressions heard from the story. They learn to put the right stress on words and phrases. Most importantly they learn to LISTEN.
Once I caught some children practicing “oh my goodness me!” an expression they hear from me a lot.
At Home
Once a mother commented to me that her son speaks less English than he did last year. Or another commented that her daughter spoke English when they were in Australia. Hmmm…let us look at the two scenarios. The second one is pretty obvious. In Australia, they speak English. The first one could probably be that the language at home is not English. Or possibly there is no one in the home who speaks English to. Or the child, like most children refuse or are shy to speak English to their parents. There could be a thousand and one probabilities.
What I suggest, not only as a teacher but primarily as a mother, is to expose the child to English materials. When my children were growing up, my pediatrician told me to teach my children as much as I could before they reach the age of 6. The child’s memory bank is still empty before that and would be able to retain it.
I bought a lot of nursery rhymes in English for my children to listen to, songs and rhymes that I have been sharing with my students. There are many movies for children available in the market and at very affordable prices. A personal copy would be helpful; the child can play it on his own time. Most households subscribe to cable TV, if you have one, it is very helpful to watch the edu-TV channels with your children. Watching TV is not all bad as long as it has limitations. Other than listening to storytelling in class, the child can also pick up the language, expressions and the proper stressing of words from music and TV.
Not to forget books and magazines. Read to your children. Read with them. Books are still our riches source of language.
Practice Makes Perfect
Sometimes we have very high expectations from our children. We want our children to speak English. We put them in special courses. But we forget to create that English-speaking environment for them where they are able to practice what they learned. No matter how much words they have learned, how much money we spent for special courses, when they cannot practice…all that will go puff ...futile. Like me, you too can speak like a near native English speaker. Practice makes perfect. (Ms. Stella Arungayan)