Unterrichtssprache Englisch / Teaching in English

[MarieNo]

Wie kann ich den Unterricht in der Zielsprache gestalten?
How can I conduct lessons in English, the target language?

[DennisMeister]

You should use modified language with short sentences and simple words. The children need not necessarily understand every word you say. You should stress the words they have to understand to get the message. You can also support their understanding by accompanying your speech with gestures.

[viktor]

You should use modified language with short sentences and simple words.

While I agree with most of your statement, I wonder whether the idea of simple words may be a misunderstanding unless you mean something like "familiar words"?

And don't keep your sentences too simple - sometimes the key is "elaboration" (in Michael Long's words), that is, you add more information and use redundancy to enhance comprehensibility:

"Peter, put it in the dustbin, please - the yellow dustbin in the corner - by the window." - by expanding, you give more clues as to what is meant than by "simplifying".

[Annika84]

First of all you can introduce single words, but you can also show symbols with or without their meaning in a written form. The teacher could bring along objects like fruits, clothes or sports equipment, too. Another way of of keeping a lesson in English is to show how to do something, for example, to perform an action which is required, and let the students imitate it.

[Eva83]

In a period of practical training I had the chance to take part in English lessons at a primary school.
One problem I noticed was the teacher´s inappropriate pronunciation.
As the teacher is the main source of input for the pupils he or she should have a good command of the foreign language so that it is worth being imitated by the children. If the teacher pronounces the <th> in a wrong way for example, the children internalize this pattern and it will be hard or even impossible work for the teacher of the following school to solve this problem.
In my opinion teachers who want to teach English at primary school should be encouraged to reach an appropriate level of proficiency in using the English language.

[MissB]

As part of my last teaching intership I observed the English lessons of a class in third year. The teacher used different kinds of teaching techniques for keeping the lessons varied. For example at the beginnig of a lesson the teacher played certian kinds of "lerning-games" which introduced the upcoming lesson and to repeat vocabulary from the lessons before. She also attached great importance to keep the lessons monolingual. I think this is an important point becauce the students should get a feeling of the target language. The teacher also used simple sentence structures for instructions and to make sure that the students have understood she let one child explain the instructions in german again. But for the most part the lessons are teached in English.

[NiFi]

A very good way to introduce new vocabulary in primary school is to present the words with the help of a picture card on which the certain word is painted, e.g. for the word “tree” you show the pupils a picture card with a tree on it.
The teacher shows the pupils the different picture cards several times and tells them the new words for each new word picture.
After having practiced the vocabulary in this way the teacher chooses one pupil who gets one picture card and the other pupils have to guess what is on that card, e.g. with questions like “Do you have a tree on your card?” or “Is it a tree?”. The pupil who guessed the right word is the next who gets a picture card.
In practicing the vocabulary in this way you do not only practice the new words but also question structures. Another advantage of teaching new words in this way is that the children can learn the vocabulary better because it is easier to memorize new words if you connect them with pictures.

[DennisMeister]

@ victor: I agree with your answer. I meant that you should avoid words that might irritate the students, like complex technical terms and so on.
I would say that the structure of the sentence you gave as an example is still a simple one which can be understood easily.

[Steffi Bach]

To me a computer in a language classroom can never replace the teacher,
who still has to give instructions and explain and set further tasks
to get the students talking. It can be a great help to keep the
students attention high and furthermore make the lesson varied.
As I spent five months in the USA, I experienced how much a
student can learn just through listening and then trying to use the spoken
patterns herself. So my English would never be that good if I hadn't
had the possibility to talk without being afraid to make mistakes and just concentrate on getting the information across or just to get information.
That is why I thought jigsaw tasks were a really good idea to teach
English with a very low stress level. However,doing jigsaw tasks
will never be as efficient as going to another country ,as the students in the classroom won't feel a desperate need to communicate in English because they can communicate in German much more easily.
But if you as the teacher would allow the students to talk about topics
they are really interested in, eg. what they want to do after school, the
jigsaw task would be as close to real life as possible.