TESOL Courses Virginia

This unit focused on language production, i.e. speaking and writing. In order for students to develop these skills, they need to be very comfortable making mistakes. This is a sensitive part of language acquisition because this is the part where mistakes can suddenly be seen. The lesson mentions using games to help practice speaking and writing techniques, and I couldn't agree more. Games help break the tension of the classroom and mistakes are downplayed in the interest of continuing the flow of the game. I found it interesting how the lesson mentions that writing is becoming the most neglected skill in modern ESL classrooms because of the teacher's dislike of too much \"quiet time.\" As a teacher in Japan, I used to think that Japanese students are pressured to write too much and only focused on speaking. But, then I realized that the students weren't used to writing long texts whatsoever, so I have been putting more effort into helping them understand the structure of an essay. Every aspect of language reception and production is important and needs to be considered carefully, even some of the more boring parts. After all, it is our job as teachers to make the boring parts more interesting!