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We're a group of professional Spanish teachers working online through edufire.

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For further information, you can reach me at: eckates@aol.com
Skype:enrique.kates

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Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Welcome!

Welcome everybody to our space, where we can get together and share our language teaching/learning experiences

1 comment:

Enrique Kates said...

The art of teaching a foreign language.

By Enrique C. Kates

Teaching a foreign language to grown ups, is similar to how children learn to speak their own native language.

Follow the Natural Stairway of learning. First Children see and associate sounds and images. Probably the first and most important is the sound of MA, OR MAMA, and the image of a woman……with time, the child will associate the sound MA with his mother.

* Repeat sounds. Through repetition a child will be able to say Ma, and therefore other sounds, objects, expressions, feelings, etc…

* Read and write. When a child begins Primary School, he learns to read and write…but, by that time he already knows how to speak the language.

* Grammar. A child learns grammar after he speaks, reads, and writes the language. So, WHY does traditional teaching INVERT this NATURAL process?

For an adult to learn a new language, we must use his/her knowledge, but NOT invert the natural learning process as described above.

Why begin with grammar, then reading and writing, and leave SPEAKING for the end???