Teaching across proficiency levels

Proficiency levels become a fundamental factor when teaching a target language. A teacher must be prepared in any of the three levels: Beginning, Intermediate and Advanced.

Beginning level

Teaching beginners can be a difficult step for teachers because teachers will be the ones who will create a good insight of English in their students` mind. Students at this level don`t need to be so focused in grammar and other complex sides of the target language. In this level, the teacher should use students´ native language in a measured way because they don´t have any knowledge about their target language; therefore, they need to get meanings, pronunciations, and spelling of the words they are learning. Furthermore, in this level the teacher has to teach students simple greetings, and instructions as well as choral repetition, short and simple activities. However, the material the teacher uses has to be related with the real life situation, and the teacher´s pronunciation and correction must be clearly visible during the class so that they are a model to be followed by his/her students.

Intermediate level

At this level, students are capable to hold some easy conversations, structures, and sentences and one of the teacher´s task is to help students continue automatizing their learning process of the target language. Now, students are able to do better in activities such as: working in pairs or groups, fluency exercises, chain stories, short role-plays, and many others. The teacher´s task at this level is to continue improving students´ understanding, listening, reading, writing, and speaking skills, obviously adequated in the level they are. Moreover, the teacher now is able to give some sorts of short grammar explanations and pronunciation is more emphasized. A last point to take into consideration is that Student Talking Time (STT) should take place instead of the vague overuse of Teacher Talking Time (TTT).

Advanced level

Advanced students are capable to stand long conversations, understand more grammar complex explanations, and comprehend complex listening and reading practices. The natural language must be taught in its natural fluency, pronunciation and flow. The teacher must be ready with his working- material in the classroom for students are demanding lots of activities in order to improve their target language knowledge. Activities such as: complex role-plays, skimming ad scanning reading practices, and others should be implemented in the class. At this level, students are more likely native speakers. Consequently, they need to be involved in a context where they can put into practice all the knowledge they have acquired.

Teaching across age levels

Teachers are not supposed to teach just children but adults and teens as well. It is uncertain what age level the teacher might face; and for that reason, he has to be always ready to work with any person.

Teaching children is a big step to start the awesome labor of being a teacher, but the teacher must have a wide knowledge about children behavior; if not, this would lead the teacher into many classroom troubles. Children are mostly involved in both cognition and effective effort. So, the teacher´s task is to keep them motivated on their learning by stimulating their attention spans, sensory inputs, affective factors, and the authentic, meaningful language.

Teaching adults is treating with mature-cognition- persons. Though adults are older than children, it doesn`t mean that they are not able to learn a target language. Actually, adults count with a mature cognition that can be a beneficial factor for teachers because this raw material can be mold quickly and better than children´s way of learning. Moreover, adults have to be performing activities in which real-life situations are involved. Because they are adults, they are expected to be treated as so in the classroom. Not treating them as kids, not belittling them, and respecting them are good ways for keeping a great classroom interaction.

On the other hand, we have teaching teens which is a good age to work with. Teens are in an age that they change a lot not only psychologically but also physically. Teachers have to know that teens are in an age in which life changes. Therefore, they tend to be more curious with new things, more interested in their appearance, and so picky with their classmates as well as with their teacher. Teachers need to motivate teenagers for keeping them active in the classroom and thirsty in getting new knowledge because teens, somehow, are thinking in their future life and want to get prepared for it.