XI Международная студенческая научная конференция Студенческий научный форум - 2019

With approximately 380 million native English speakers, the English language is a highly viable and useful language to master. Many opt to learn the language to better their career prospects or to communicate in a more efficient way with others. Learning any new activity, be it driving a car, cooking, or a new language, comes with its own set of challenges. Learning a new language is tricky and the English language is not an exception. However, there are some challenges exclusive to the English language that new learners may face and should be prepared for:

Grammar

English Grammar is complex and has different variations, such as the past, present and future tenses. There are added variations in these principle tenses, as well as adding to a whopping amount of grammar rules in order to learn and master the language. Grammatical errors may change the derivative and context of your statement and hence, any such mistakes should be avoided. In very simple words, if you tell someone “I ate” instead of “I will eat” he/she will misunderstand that you have already eaten and not offer you any food!

Those who have learned English as their first language have heard, spoken and studied the rules since they were mere toddlers. However, starting the learning process from an older age is challenging and may take time, patience and a lot of dedication on your part.

Solution

The best way to overcome the grammar challenge is by reading books/newspapers or watching English shows and movies. Exposing yourself more to the English language will ensure that the right grammar becomes second nature to you. The aim is to speak grammatically correct without having to make a conscious effort to remember the tenses and other grammar rules.

Written verses spoken English

For native English speakers, knowing how to pronounce written words is second nature. However, to someone just getting the hang of the language, there may be many differences in spoken verses written English. Elephant is read as “Elefant”. The “K” in Knight is silent. The letter “C” is pronounced as an ‘S’ sometimes and as a K in other times. For instance, ‘cat’ verses ‘cylinder’. The list is never ending and only those who go through these challenges can express how confusing it is to write and read the same word differently.

Solution

For an easy way to master your written verses in spoken English, watch movies and shows with subtitles. Pay close attention to the subtitles and try to spot the right way to pronounce and spell different words.

Fast speakers

When one is in a classroom setting, teachers are usually cautious by speaking slowly and enunciating the vowels for the benefit of the students. However, in the real world, native English speakers talk very fast and slur together 2-3 words. This fast paced speaking is very hard for new learners to comprehend and reply to at the same speed.

Solution

If you are not able to understand fully what the other person is saying, do not get confused. Just try to capture the key words and the actual essence of what the other person is saying. Also, watching rapidly spoken TV shows such as Scrubs can really help you to counter this challenge.

Colloquialism and slang

The English language is full of slang words that are actually not part of the language. However, the slang words are spoken so much by English speakers that they might as well be included in the Oxford dictionary. Words like ‘hang out’, ‘creep’, ‘lighten-up’, etc. are so commonly used that one may not believe they are actually slang words!

Moreover, there are also informal and formal words in the English speech. For instance, kid is an informal way to refer to children; the latter being a more formal word.

Solution

Slang and informal words are acceptable in a casual to semi-formal setting; so, knowing them is no harm. However, not using them in a formal setting like in meetings or during presentations is the real challenge. For this, try to read the newspaper every day or watch more formal talk shows to get the hang of it.

Vocabulary

The English language comes with a vast vocabulary and every word can have multiple synonyms. Just the word big can be defined as large, huge, colossal, gigantic, vast, immense, massive, etc. With so many words with the same meaning; a new English learner can get confused on coming across a difficult word which otherwise has a simple meaning.

Solution

The best way to enhance your English vocabulary is to read, read, and read! Reading will help enhance your vocabulary by leaps and bounds.

As mentioned previously, learning any new skill is tricky and comes with its own set of challenges. However, for learning anything new such as the English language, your mantra should be ‘practice makes perfect!’

Keep practicing your written and spoken English through different sources, and pretty soon, you will speak like a native English speaker!.

Challenges in a process

First example of challenge is that students had to complete their homework through website. It’s an online learning, which is considered very crucial and modern in our contemporary life. To illustrate, I asked about challenges my lecturer, and she said that she gave her students a task, to watch movies everyday through an online platform. Devoting special time to finish watching movies is actually very challenging, especially if student’s schedule is very tight. Yet it is a very intersting way of doing homework.

This method have got benefits and drawbacks. The benefits are:

It’s very motivating for students, especially if the movie is intersting.

Movies can provide teachable moments. Sometimes a movie can include moments that go beyond what you are teaching in a lesson and allow you to highlight other important topics. For example, the movie Gandhi provides information that can help students to discuss world religions, imperialism, non-violent protest, personal freedoms, rights and responsibilities, gender relations, India as a country, and so much more.

Drawbacks:

Movies can sometimes be very long. A showing of a film such as "Schindler's List" with every 10th grade class (with their parent's permission of course) will take an entire week of classroom time. Even a short movie can take up 2-3 days of classroom time. Further, it can be difficult if different classes have to start and stop at different spots of a movie.

The educational part of the film may only be a small portion of the overall. There may be only a few parts of the movie that would be appropriate for the classroom setting and truly provide an educational benefit. In these cases, it is best to just show the clips if you feel that they truly add to the lesson you are teaching.

There is a perception that watching movies is a bad method of teaching. That is why it is key that if movies are part of a curriculum unit's resources that they are selected purposefully and that there are properly created lessons that highlight the information the students are learning. You do not want to get a reputation as the teacher who shows all those full-length movies like "Finding Nemo" which serve little to no purpose other than as a reward within the classroom setting.

Next challenge is connected with learning texts by heart, which is called as “Rote Learning”. Rote learning is defined as the memorization of information based on repetition. I actually experienced this myself and can truly say that it was very challenging for me. In particular, one of my teachers used to give me a homework for independent work for a particular theme. For istance, it could be “environmental problems”. And I had to find a random topic from the internet, and that text had to be approximately 300 or more words. Basically a whole sheet of A4 paper. But I do think that this was very beneficial to me in order to learn the necessary vocabulary and complex forms of sentences and helped me to improve my speaking abilities.

Another challenge is alco connected with online learning. One of our teachers gives us a task for independent work weekly or once in 2 weeks. It is challenging, because at first we were not familiar with the site and with the platform itself. At first we had some issues with grades and problems with sending our tasks. In addition, the amount of homework and tasks to be done is pretty big, moreover we have deadlines and it’s very problematic, considering our present schedule. If I were to choose, I wouldn’t pass my homework through sites, because I don’t think it is beneficial for us.

CONCLUSION

One of the major problems of language learning in Kazakhstan is that most of our students do not have the capacity to express themselves in the foreign language fluently after studying English at school for eleven years. In other words, they cannot communicate in English. I tried to examine the reasons behind the failures of the Kazakh students to acquire the expected level of proficiency in English in spite of learning English for about 9 years.

Knowing about the students' needs is one critical matter for the teachers to teach and authors to write school books. Most of students in Kazakhstan tend to participate in communicative activities type to learn English. Some students tend to have more opportunities to participate in free conversation classes, expressing their wish towards a more communicatively oriented approach. On the other hand, there are those who prefer more emphasis on grammar teaching and learning. Thus, the syllabuses should be observed based on all students' requirements and interests.

References

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