Teachers’ Problems in Teaching English as a 2 nd Language Teachers’ Problems in Teaching English as a 2 nd Language Presented by: Muhammad Kaseer Khan Course Coordinator English Language Section

Outline  1. Objectives  2. Video of 2 nd language learner  3. English as 2 nd language/ Teaching ESL  4. Important Issues  5. How to avoid these issues  6. General problems  7. Linguistic Problems  8. Suggestions  9. Discussion  10. Conclusion

Objectives  To increase understanding of current trends for learning and teaching English.  (Teaching English in Saudi Arabia, To Whom, When and How Should English Be Taught?  To highlight linguistic contrasts between English and Arabic.  To figure out potential learning barriers.  To use effective teaching techniques that can help ESL learner.  To use effective learning strategies to target specific learning needs.

Foreign Language Learner  Video of a 2 nd Language Learner

English as a Second Language (ESL) Teaching process and how hard it actually is to teach !!!!!! You can get an idea from the video you have just watched. Not Just Classroom Teaching  It soon became clear that, besides concerning myself with the issues of my actual teaching I needed to understand and make decisions about many other issues that surrounded and permeated ESL classroom instruction.”  -Helene Becker ….What are those issues Teachers have to keep in mind all those factors that retards students learning. e.g.

Important Issues Important Issues  a) Background knowledge  b) Culture  c) Linguistic challenges  d) Emotional Challenges  e) English, is the Tool, students need to succeed in all walks of life.

Problems   In past we didn’t have good listening aids.   Listening lab & headsets   Textbooks & our Students’ level   English, only in English classes?

  Teacher centered classes vs learner centered   Out dated teaching methodology   Lack of innovation   Heavy teaching load   Large classes   Insufficient credit hours   Carelessness

Linguistic Problems 1.Arabic alphabet and script:  right to left  cursive –1–1–1–1

Adjectives/ prepositions  Wrong use of Adjectives due to mother tongue influence as in Arabic Adjectives come after noun they modify.  Examples  He is a boy tall.( Incorrect)  He is a tall boy. ( correct)  Sea red ( Incorrect)  Red Sea ( Correct)  Staff English (incorrect)  English Staff (Correct)

Syntactic errors  In English, items in a series are separated by commas, and the coordinate conjunction 'and' is used just before the last word.  On the other hand, in Arabic, each item in a series is preceded by the conjunction 'wa' which is equivalent to 'and  Example  For, them not to hate me they need to respect me and realize how much I love them and how hard I work for them. (repetition of “wa”)

Capitalization  No concept of capital letters in Arabic.  afterwards i want to get a university level education in the united states  last but not least, if i was giving an animal a shot i have to make sure that i am giving it in the right place.

Pronunciation and spelling  Saudi students replace /p/ sound with /b/  e.g. bebsi instead of pepsi  Blay/ play  2. They pronounce letter (e) even when it is silent.  Come, people, cycle etc. knowledge,

Verbs No ‘be’ verb in Arabic (e.g. My teacher very smart) Instead of My teacher is very smart. I am go there ( Wrong use of “be”) Problem of regular & irregular verbs. Come, Comed, Comed

Discussion 1.What differences are you aware of between the Arabic and English language (vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, rhetoric, literacy, script, etc.)? 2.Do they create problems for the target language learners? 3.How might these differences affect English language learning of Arabic speakers? 4.What are other factors a teacher must focus on besides teaching the language?

Suggestions

Suggestions 1.Library & English newspaper 2.Original books 3.Access of internet in library ( to serf edu.sites.) 4.Study trips 5.Informal meetings of students & teachers. 6.Separate exam facility 7.Permission to give listening exam before writing portion.

Conclusion  In a nutshell, I must say we can be better teachers and impart better knowledge to our ESL learners if we can overcome all above mentioned problems.