More than two years have passed, and Qiqi is currently in the third foreign teacher class. The former one is in an educational institution, with teaching assistants, and each class is about 140+, one week; The other is in a foreign teacher's home, there is no teaching assistant, and each class is 70 (later increased to 80), once a week; What we are attending now is to invite foreign teachers by ourselves &; Rent a venue and work as a teaching assistant. Each class costs 70 yuan, twice a week.
At first, we just wanted to get to know foreigners, and thought learning English was a fun thing. When we came into contact with pure English pronunciation, we could have simple interactive communication in English. So at that time, sending her to a foreign teacher's class meant sending her in, and she didn't review after going home, just having fun.
Now, I think teaching foreign languages is not just for fun. It needs a step-by-step process, so you can climb up systematically and see the accumulated effect. I don't know if it's because Kiki has grown up or because we pay more attention to her English study. The effect of foreign teachers' classes this semester is quite obvious. We have accumulated a lot of vocabulary, learned to make some simple sentences, and sometimes popped up a few English expressions that surprised us.
Friends often ask questions about foreign teacher courses. I choose people who ask more questions and tell me my opinion.
1. Is it necessary to teach as a foreign language?
I wrote my English enlightenment in the article "China Children's English Roadmap", and listened to English nursery rhymes to make her ears pricked up. If we can insist on listening to English children's songs and reading English stories with her, we should be able to meet the requirements of pre-school English enlightenment.
However, there are two difficulties.
First, it is difficult to persist. The environment at home is more casual. Listening to English children's songs and reading English stories are often done one by one, so it is difficult to finish them regularly every day or week. If you sign up for a foreign teacher's class, you must attend classes regularly, forcing us to insist on it, so that the children's time investment in learning English is more secure.
Second, the pronunciation is not accurate. Although many experts encourage mothers to read English stories to their children, they will emphasize that it doesn't matter whether their pronunciation is correct or not, but we know that their pronunciation is incorrect, so we have no confidence to teach them English words over and over again as we teach children to learn to speak. Foreign teachers have this confidence, but also let children look at her mouth and listen to her pronunciation. I'm afraid of leading children astray, and it's hard to correct them.
In fact, after attending foreign teachers' classes in order, I often correct my pronunciation, and the tone of many sentences is very similar to that of foreign teachers. In the sensitive period of language learning, learning English with a foreign teacher whose mother tongue is English is believed to lay a good foundation for her English listening and speaking.
2. Which English institution does Qiqi teach in?
Qiqi is now in our own foreign teacher class. She hired a foreign teacher, rented the venue by herself, and shared the expenses equally. Because we think that children's English education institutions are worry-free, but the cost performance is too low.
Among the English training institutions for children, large and small, Disney English is one of the best, and it is obviously superior to other institutions in terms of hardware environment, teachers and curriculum. So the tuition is also considerable. If a class costs two or three hundred, you have to attend two classes a week. The cost of English training alone is more than two thousand a month, which is really expensive. We didn't choose Disney, of course, not only because it was too expensive, but also for other reasons, which will be discussed later. )
EF is cheaper, but only half of them are foreign teachers and the other half are teachers from China. Isn't the original intention of letting our children teach foreign languages to expose them to the accent of pure native English speakers? I don't think it's worth spending so much money to teach Chinese.
Reese's characteristic is subject English, that is, teaching mathematics, science and other subject knowledge in English. She is China's teacher. Foreign teachers' classes are free, and only a dozen classes a year are foreign teachers. This obviously doesn't meet my needs.
Qiqi's first foreign teacher class is in Zhujiang New Town. It is a very small educational institution, and the price is much cheaper. The cost of a class is only half that of Disney English. Rao is still twice as expensive as hiring a foreign teacher himself.
3. How many children does Qiqi Foreign Teacher 1 Class * * have?
Six children. Foreign teachers must have small classes to ensure that every child has a chance to practice.
The class I auditioned in Disney is an ordinary class, not a specially organized audition class. More than a dozen children, the teacher can't take care of every one. Those children with higher level and initiative will obviously have more opportunities to practice.
I sat inside and saw a little girl playing the whole class. I didn't listen to the teacher at all, and no one cared about her. How would her parents feel if they knew that they only spent two or three hundred dollars at a time to send their children to play? Anyway, I feel sorry for the tuition.
Of course, there are also particularly powerful children in the class. But I really can't guarantee that Qiqi is the great one, not the one who hit the whole class.
Qiqi's three classes are all small classes of six people organized by kindergarten students. At first she was a little introverted when she was in a small class. When she saw that the children next to her didn't know each other, she immediately ran out and dragged her back. She cried. Several foreign teachers' audition failed. But she enjoyed the audition class with her classmates, and there was nothing we could do.
Six children, the teacher can take care of everyone. In the course of 1 hour, there is enough time to correct each child's pronunciation, and no child will keep playing.
In this foreign teacher class we are attending now, sometimes there are five children in a class, and the practice time of each child is obviously increased. At the beginning of the class, there were still children who wanted to join, so the mother in charge of the organization insisted that six children were the limit and refused the one who wanted to join. It is wise to think about it now.
4. Send your child to a foreign teacher's class. Is English ok?
Children's English learning can't be completely handed over to foreign teachers, so they should practice at home by themselves.
Parents don't have to go in the first two foreign teacher classes. When the children were in class, we chatted outside, but we made a group of good parents and friends. But we have no idea what the children learned and how they learned it, and we haven't reviewed it since we got home.
Two years later, Kiki really doesn't care about foreigners. She thinks learning English is fun, but her vocabulary and English expression ability have not made great progress. In this class, we used an organization textbook. She should have reached the second level at this age, but she didn't master many words and expressions in the first level. It is too simple to teach only the first level, so the teacher has to teach only the first level and the second level together.
This time, because we hired our own teachers and rented our own venues, I volunteered to be a teaching assistant in the classroom to help teachers keep order and watch how teachers teach their children.
Just like learning Chinese at the beginning, learning English is also a pronunciation learning from words to sentences. Teachers will teach them to learn words by playing games and check and correct their pronunciation one by one. I will also write down the content of each class and send it to other parents for review at home.
The textbook used this time has a matching word card. I will use these cards to review for Qi Qi when I'm not teaching foreign classes at night, and practice making sentences with some cards. Qi's father also lamented that this time I felt that the foreign teacher's class was much better.
5. What are the contents of foreign teachers' classes? What textbooks are used?
Every foreign teacher institution will have its own teaching materials. Foreign teachers who start their own classes generally use textbooks such as Cambridge and Longman. And if we hire our own teachers, we can adjust the course content as needed.
I also think today's foreign teacher class is better than the first two, although I spent the whole evening communicating with teachers who can only speak English because of various twists and turns in the initial class arrangement. The spoken English is too poor, but fortunately there is WeChat, which can be translated and sorted out by Baidu before sending it out, haha!
After such communication, the teacher understood our needs, adjusted her original course content, spent all the time writing words in the audition class on teaching listening and speaking, and the theme of each class was relatively concentrated, which also increased the time for learning English nursery rhymes and reading English graded books, which was rich in content.
Of course, teachers also have their own professional qualities, and they don't follow my suggestions completely. Instead, they take the form of new lessons and review. A topic should be taught five or six times to ensure that the child has mastered it before entering the next topic. I obviously feel that Qiqi has mastered these themes in a down-to-earth way this time. After a long time, I asked her again, and she was still able to say it, and it was right.
6. Where can I invite foreign teachers?
At present, there are special foreign teachers' brokers who act as intermediaries between parents and foreign teachers. We contact foreign teachers through such brokers. Many school teachers will know brokers in this field. Several parents in Qiqi Kindergarten are primary school teachers, and they all have access to this information.
7. Are there any precautions for organizing classes?
Pay attention to children's personality and gender collocation when organizing classes.
Because the foreign teacher in the last class didn't tell us in time that he wouldn't come back after returning to the United States, two children in the last class joined another class, and this time there were only two girls in our class. I always remind those naughty boys to listen to the teacher quietly, otherwise the class will be chaotic.
Fortunately, these four little boys are not very lively. A little boy with great athletic talent participated in the audition, which was really annoying. There is not enough time for all the audience to revolve around him alone. Maybe he is more suitable for one-on-one foreign teacher classes.
Learning needs atmosphere, and many children are strong. Why not organize some better study partners for children by organizing their own classes?
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English learning is a long-term task, interest is the best teacher, and persistence is also essential. Exploring a suitable learning method, I think I will continue to stick to it, work harder every day with Qiqi, master English as a powerful tool, open the door to western culture and see a more colorful world!