The Beginning Stage (Language Development)

The beginning stage is a period when children develop the ability to get meaning from words and phrases and gradually begin to produce the language that they hear around them. Some of the characteristics of the beginning stage include:

Ø  Associating the new speech sounds with meaning.

Ø  Having a silent period. It is common for beginners to experience a period during which they do not

Ø  feel comfortable speaking in the second language. Children may not initially make attempts to communicate verbally; instead, they will indicate their comprehension nonverbally.

Ø  Grasping the idea of a phrase without understanding all of the words—children do this by focusing on key words.

Ø  Relying on contextual clues for understanding key words.

Ø  Gradually beginning to respond using one, then two or three-word phrases. Students at this stage may experience a silent period, lasting anywhere from a few weeks to a few months. During this silent stage they are developing listening strategies that will form the basis for speaking skills. When students do begin to speak, accept and encourage all efforts. Obviously, your students’ early attempts at communication will not be perfect; however, pronunciation and other aspects will improve gradually as they have more practice. We do not recommend exercises to correct pronunciation and grammar at this point.

You can use a variety of teaching strategies with your students at the beginning stage. One of these is Total Physical Response (TPR). Developed by James Asher (1982), TPR is very useful for teaching comprehension at this stage and for teaching new vocabulary at any stage. The basic premise is that language will be acquired more easily if it is associated with body movement. Essentially, the method consists of the teacher giving commands and the students following them. It is important that children

have many opportunities to follow the command as they observe the teacher modeling it before they are asked to follow the command without any modeling. Inability to follow the command without modeling means they need more practice listening to it and observing the teacher model it. TPR requires no verbal response, which makes it ideal for beginners, although some children may repeat

the commands and may eventually want to lead others in a TPR activity. TPR can be used to introduce students to basic classroom routines and vocabulary (stand up, sit down, get in line, open the book, pick up the red paper, pick up the green paper, etc.). However, you should use it along with

other approaches since at this stage students need to be exposed to as much comprehensible input as possible. So, a modified TPR approach should be incorporated into other language activities to teach vocabulary (Krashen & Terrell, 1983). For example, you might have the students draw a picture of their faces and then ask the students to touch various parts of the face. Your teacher talk would include commands as well as a wider range of sentence types. During this teacher talk, vocabulary needs to be made comprehensible by means of gestures, drawings, pictures, and visual clues. Your students will not necessarily understand every single word, but they should understand the key words.

Important Points to Remember for Beginning Stage

Ø  Provide comprehensible language input by using gestures, pictures, or real objects.

Ø  Repeat key vocabulary in a systematic way.

Ø  Focus attention on the activity so children become interested and motivated to communicate in English.

Ø  Allow for non-verbal responses until children feel comfortable with speaking.

When children do begin to respond, accept and praise their responses and expand on them.