Tamara Herrera Flores Metodologa del Ingls para la Enseanza Media 11th April, 2012

How to convince students that English is important

Abstract Getting conscious about the importance of learning English in these globalized days has been an important issue for teachers and students. The importance of being aware of why we are learning it helps to have a better disposition when facing the language is inevitable. Because of that reason, teachers should enhance the benefits of learning English from students point of view. Key words Monitor model, affective filter, motivation, attitude, benefits, social networks, TICs

Nowadays English has become a common thing surrounding us, you can see it everywhere you
go, in the streets in advertisements, in your house in envelopes, when you rest and watch television, movies, music, and normal language. English is contained in our daily routines and we are getting more and more conscious about its presence, so learning this language is crucial, but how can we, as teachers, motivate and create the need of learning it with our students? During the past decades, many theories about second language acquisition and learning have been developed in order to understand the best way to teach them. One of the most recent theories is the Monitor Model by Stephen Krashen, it is divided in five hypothesis: AcquisitionLearning hypothesis, monitor hypothesis, natural order hypothesis, input hypothesis and affective filter hypothesis. All of them have contributed in a paradigm change from behaviorism in language teaching.

The fact that some people who are exposed to large quantities of comprehensible input do not necessarily acquire a language successfully is accounted for by Krashens affective filter hypothesis. The affective filter is a metaphorical barrier that prevents learners from acquiring language even when appropriate input is available. Affect refers to feelings, motives, needs, attitudes, and emotional states. A learner who is tense, anxious, or bored may filter out input, making it unavailable for acquisition.(How languages are learned. Third edition, 37) When motivation and self-confidence are high and anxiety barrier is low, these conduce to a better language acquisition, but in the contrary, these limits language acquisition. To bring down the affective filter in a class is something difficult but not impossible, that is why teachers must make clear the importance that English has but not just from his point of view, but their students. Six Reasons to learn English today: 1) Video Games: the amount of kids with a video console as play station, Nintendo wii or Xbox is extremely high and getting more and more to the population of students. More than fifty percent of the games created by the video games industry from international markets but the most of them are in English. Does this fact stop children from playing new video games? Of course not, they play anyway by making mistakes until they get the idea of what they have to do. If teachers were able to connect the topics of their classes to the vocabulary of new generation games, they would find out that students get more interested in the language, getting down the affective filter easy. 2) Pop culture: many of the most famous movies and songs are written in English. Pop stars, rock bands and almost any kind of music style have their root in this language. So why do not use this as an extrinsically motivation at the moment of teaching the English

to students? No matter how old they are, music has evolved during the years, so you can choose a band or a singer from any musical stage (60s,70s,80s,90s, etc) 3) English is not hard to be learned: compared to many other foreign languages English the one of the easiest languages to learn, actually if you pay special attention to cognates, several words are similar to Spanish, enabling students to understand faster the language. If the teacher proves to their students that they already know the language, the rest will be just complementing it. 4) Social Networks: the impact of internet and TICs in students has been aggressive in the creating of new social networks, as Facebook, Twitter and Skype. To have friends from abroad is easier than before, it is just a click and you can share information with many friends at the same time. A good exercise that might help is to have a conversation by Skype with a native speaker in classes, so students can prepare a set of questions that they would like to know. By showing how easy is to meet new people from other cultures, they can get more interested in learning English for they own reasons. 5) Secret communication: Many people do not know how to speak English jet, if the teacher highlights the fact that they can have their own secret messages with their friends, this would help them to get involved in the language learning. A good strategy in classes to do this is to create groups of people and ask them to write a secret that they would like to share with the other groups. As soon as they realize the advantages of knowing a new language, they can motivate themselves to learn faster what would be their secret code. 6) Popularity: to know another language makes you look like cool, in some point you are special because you know something that not many people do, even though if you just learn how to create basic statements, this will definitely improve the self-confidence bringing down the affective filter.

Ultimately, it is important to consider students personal beliefs and attitudes at the moment of teaching a second language, this will help them to improve their motivational skills, and their attitude to the language. If we enhance the importance of being aware of their interests during the process of acquiring a second language, they will be immerse in their own learning process, being part of its construction and adding a meaningful context to what it learned. Bibliography Lightbown P., Spada N. How languages are learned. Third edition. Oxford University Press (http://www.virginia.edu/mesa/Events/Pedagogy_Workshop/Pedagogy_Workshop_Documents/Pedagogy.l
ightbown.part1.pdf)