Teaching Children Foreign Languages

In this globalizing world, dreaming a good future, of course, brings some necessities. One of them is job opportunities to be provided. We are all aware that a young person who wants to increase his / her job opportunities should be conscious of the fact that they should improve themselves. Knowing a foreign language is taking the lead in this regard again. It is apparent that educators are generally aware of this in the country.  The fact that foreign language education is given to young students starting from the second grade is also an indication of this. But, in fact; this is not the case. The following sentences circulate in the tongues of our young people who are educated from primary school to undergraduate:  “I understand things but I cannot speak.” It seems that there is a serious mistake in language education. This is a mistake coming from the base. If we look at this cursory; it is worth mentioning how education should be provided.

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How Should Foreign Language Teaching Be?

Our pre-service teachers who are graduates of education faculty, English language teaching department are addressing the title “How are young learners educated for learning a foreign language?” in detail in pedagogical terms. Contrary to focus on grammar, educators are sensitive to focusing on four basic skills; listening, reading (receptive skills), speaking and writing (productive skills), respectively. Young students should be exposed to language itself, not its grammar, they say. In the process of learning to speak the mother tongue of newborn babies, the parents expose their children to simplified sentences, and even primarily words. Teaching grammar to young students is as meaningless as teaching a 1-year-old baby the rules of language. So the sympathy for the language is also disappearing and everything is getting to be complicated for them.

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Perhaps you have seen, heard the phrase that we have been focusing more on grammar in the education we have heard in recent years too much. However, mentioning a lot may raise awareness and make us understand that practice is actually important and even more important. We need creative teachers for fun and active language education through games, stories, dramas, and songs. If this became the case, learning a language would not be too difficult. So I say let’s we don't make keeping up with the new world harder. For language education, let’s give our support to human species and Turkey reality through more creative ways. Don't you think we should?