Home

What do you think: does English use in the classroom help or hinder beginning-level language learning?

Janice Holter Kittok | 02:18:10 08:54pm
Language acquisition occurs when the learner understands the message. If the input is jibberish, the brain doesn't know how to file and organize that information for later retrieval. Many teachers stay in the target language just because they are told to stay in the target language. As language teachers we ask ourselves how much of the class is in the target language. A second question, "How much of the class did the learners understand?" is not often asked. It's the answer to this second question that makes the difference for the students' language acquisition and proficiency development.
Anonymous | 10:03:09 04:19am
Even though complete elimination of use of English is probably not realistic, students learn more and faster with more use of target language (Chinese) even at the beginners level, much more than most of us can imagine.

Post new comment

Your comments are welcome, please adhere to our guidelines

Be respectful. Personal attacks will not be tolerated; nor will profane, abusive or threatening posts.

Keep it short (150 words or less), Stay on topic.

Asia Society reserves the right to moderate all comments and remove or edit for guideline violations. Thank you.

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
Type the characters you see in this picture. (verify using audio)
Type the characters you see in the picture above; if you can't read them, submit the form and a new image will be generated. Not case sensitive.