Teaching Of English as a Second Language Research Paper

Teaching Of English as a Second Language - Research Paper Example To determine the stages of reading development, the researcher takes Joshua age 15 who is the 6th standard. Joshua is an immigrant to America. Joshua has difficulties in comprehending written words and his vocabulary is equivalent to a second grader. He is quite eager to learn when we first met him and this enthusiasm can be seen throughout the course. He does not understand most the words and he cannot express himself. He is an eager student and is quite determined to learn English. In his first session, the instructor accesses his English and she finds that his fluency in English is equal to the second-grade student. While assessing his language learning vocabulary progress, the instructor assesses Joshua’s power of vocabulary by observing him closely and monitors whether his use of technical vocabulary is good. This encourages Joshua to identify words that are connected in meaning. The influence of the primary language is always is very strong in Joshua. So when the instruc tor indicates a word in English, he tries to correlate its meaning in the primary language, the meaning is in one word. The teacher and the student refer dictionary often, to verify the similarities and differences among words in the various languages. The instructor also makes a list of words, to enrich his vocabulary. At first, Joshua struggle, but as it is quite difficult to nonnative English learners. In addition to assessing vocabulary, the instructor also uses traditional means such as multiple choice tests and matching items. While tracing the different strategies in learning vocabulary, the levels of difficulty also vary. Beginners can only observe things around them and name them, as they are known to them. Students in the second stage can describe verbally the meanings of the words in context, as they are more advanced in â€Å"target vocabulary.† The next stage is itch for advanced knowledge and finding related ideas to target vocabularies, using the choicest words .†