English Language Human Factors

Other sources state that there is not a high demand for the use and learning of Sign Language in lots of lower education schools. Michael Johnson, a teaching and learning consultant declares, “You cannot just offer it and there will be a demand for it.” If not many students do not show an interest in the class, there is not a point in offering the class and spending lots of time finding the staffing and resources for the class. Schools are trying to prepare students the best they can for their future, so schools teach the languages that a majority of people are speaking. If more people are speaking a certain language, schools will try to offer that language to prepare the students (Johnson). Although there are several reasons why more schools do not offer it, there are more benefits of learning Sign Language in all levels of

All over the United States, public schools are opening their doors to more English Language Learners. There are more than 150 different languages spoken in the United States. The English Language Learners come in with very limited English speaking and literacy skills, but then again, they bring in a wealth of culture. The first year in an American school is probably the hardest year for these English Language Learners. The students need to know that their experiences are valued.

The importance of critical thinking couldn’t be more highly prioritized in academia, even when its application faces much constraint in English language development. What could be so important about a non-linguistic skill in classrooms that are generally devoted to improving linguistic abilities? Critical thinking might play an extra-linguistic role in the context of English language learning, and writing could be one of several modalities used to realize this role in secondary classrooms. It is stated that in the 1970’s, many sociologists and cognitive scientists were interested in the acts of composing as a way to observe how students learn (Sokolik, 2003). Subsequent teaching developments in writing that emphasized problem solving build upon the foundation of these findings.

Since learners bring in their own experience into the classroom and develop relations with others, the analysis of interactions should not be limited to linguistic ones. Besides, despite the emphasis on communicative ability and students’ active participation in the current New Syllabuses for English in China (Jin and Cortazzi, 1998a), a great many schools still refrain from using interactive activities in classroom. From my experience in schools, some teachers were concerned about the practicality and effectiveness of using group work. I also found out that learners were not equally engaged in group work and it was sometimes difficult to manage activities. For my MA report, I have looked into how learners interact with each other in group work and discovered that learners’ community, the relationship between learners, learner autonomy, and the role of teacher contributed to the success of group work.

Many teachers fail to differentiate what is important and what is not. To be easy to grade, tests cannot measure higher order thinking. Critical thinking often gets left behind and memorization has taken over. Many students just simply don’t perform well on tests, but with these standards schools are held to it puts alot of stress on teachers who then push it onto their students. According to a psychology teacher, Melissa Hurst states that standardized test scores are greatly influenced by non academic factors, such as fatigue and attention span.

Under IELTS, English language proficiency in the schools is measured individually and in group for the four language skills (speaking, listening, reading and writing). The purpose is to enhance English learners’ proficiency where structural and sociolinguistics contents are both required to shape the learning process (Coleman, 2010). Meanwhile, in Malaysia, where our education system is based on exam-oriented system, one may score the best in examination but are incompetent in practicing the language learned. For instance, most of the students scored good result in public examination of English subject. However, for practicing English, more than half of them do not perform well (Rohaizat, 2009).

However, there are some obvious reasons why pronunciation is not often taught in the classroom. The reasons include lack of class time or general uncertainty of teachers’ own pronunciation skills. Students find difficulty in learning and differentiating between British English (RP) and American English (GA). They find themselves unfamiliar with or indifferent to the kind of English they would like to acquire. When introduced to both kinds of English, students perceive British English as formal and conservative.

(corestandards.org) The study showed that the non-mathematics teachers were less familiar with the standards than were the mathematics teachers. (Hamilton, Kaufman, Steeher, Naftel, Robbins, Tompson, Garber, Faxon-Mills, Opfter, 2016) That showed that there is a need for professional guidance to explicitly show teachers of other subjects what the expectations are from CCSS to make sure that they are addressing the necessary

This program in theory would very beneficial to a lot of English language learners but the way the course is set up the main focus is not teaching the students content rather than teaching them english. Due to this students are falling behind with learning and don’t have the same opportunities to do as well in school as non ELL students. The bilingual education system doesn 't offer English language learners the same opportunities english speaking students get, the standards for English language learners do not promote their improvement of content retention therefore causing lower test scores, a separation between peers and cause an inequitable system. Bilingual

Even when they involve students in peer assessment they did not take it seriously as an important assessment activity. As noted in chapter 2, the active involvement of students in taking responsibility for their learning is central to the theory of formative assessment. (Black & William, 2004). Therefore, we can conclude that despite the importance of self-peer assessment in learning, teachers rarely implemented it in teaching. Even they used it; it was not as effective as expected.