Source: magazine Parents
Agni Mariakiaki， Psychologist - Researcher
Foreign languages today are an investment in children's future. We all know that proficiency in at least one foreign language is an indispensable asset for life and for professional career.
In our times, it is a prerequisite for development and success. With this in mind, the concern of parents is becoming more and more intense. Particularly at this time they wonder what is the ideal way for their child to learn a foreign language. They are concerned about the learning time, the learning system, how many languages their child should master, at the same time or not, and even more so in combination with so many school tasks and extracurricular activities. They think about the financial cost but also the quality of the education, the proper training of the teachers and what will be in the end what their child will gain overall. They wonder if they will have helped their child in the future by investing time and money.
Greece is one of the countries with the highest language proficiency! Greeks are finally learning foreign languages. The language proficiency of Greeks among the citizens of the European Community is statistically proven by the latest surveys that have recently been published.
Although our educational system provides for compulsory foreign language learning already from primary education, this seems to be underperforming and not effective, nor is it enough. There is no possibility for a student to get a foreign language certification from a public school. Thus, two extracurricular institutions have been established: private lessons and Language Schools. The vast majority of parents resort to these solutions to ensure language learning. But what is the right choice for the child? How will they learn better and benefit more?
CHOOSING THE PARTICULAR
More and more parents are choosing the private lesson, with the teacher coming to the home. But is this the ideal way for the child to learn and progress?
Parents are served by the home tutor because they don't have the worry of the "come and go" from the language school, they don't have the worry of watching the child at home. The parent says "...it's enough that I have to monitor the child in so many classes at his school, let's not have to monitor English on top of that...". And so he assigns the teacher who comes to the house all this care. Moreover, today she can find a tutor at a relatively low hourly cost. He can find a student, a new graduate looking for a job, a teacher who wants to supplement his income, and they charge relatively low hourly rates.
But is this the right solution?
Let's look at some factors that parents need to evaluate in order to decide when a home teacher is necessary and when school is necessary.
Personalisation in the lesson.
One of the main advantages of the private lesson is considered to be the personalised teaching, tailored to the needs of the child. However this is a double-edged sword in the end. What most commonly happens, especially when the private teacher is inexperienced or not properly trained, is that the child sets a learning pace for himself, depending on his diligence. That is, the child learns as quickly and efficiently as he or she is diligent. The teacher is forced to follow his pace, which is more often than not slower than faster.
In small language school classes, the student will be forced to speed up his pace to keep up with the class, and the teacher will ensure that there are no gaps, or make up those gaps with some extra hours of study. Individualization in the lesson is an advantage of the language school, and it is a hindrance to the particular. In earlier years tutoring was done by the student who did not do well in school. Today it is especially common for the student who is bored with reading or whose parents cannot afford to shuttle him back and forth to school.
The pace of the lesson and lesson planning.
In school, the pace of learning is set by the teacher. The organization of the curriculum within the school year is determined by the tutorial system that has studied what the curriculum should be for the year. The tutor of the private walks arbitrarily, without a plan and without a learning plan for his student. What he usually does is follow the lesson plan of a core textbook he uses in the classroom. But that is not planning a learning plan. We cannot simply follow a book. Language learning means writing, listening, speaking, composing, ... In school this is achieved by a synthesis of learning processes, not simply by following a book.
The training and experience of the teacher.
And how can the teacher of the particular learning plans, when in practice he is not even adequately trained himself, and he only knows how to speak the language! Certification that one has mastered the language does not make one a teacher, nor does it make one competent to teach it.
Some of them :
- They do not know how to plan a lesson effectively.
- They do not know what learning objectives to set for the school year.
- They do not know how to encourage the child to assimilate immediately.
- They do not know how to address and work on the child's learning weaknesses. Sure, they know how to parrot irregular verbs to him, but is that the point?
The educational system followed.
Usually a school follows a system. It has refined it over time, worked on many children, developed it and evolved it every year. It has systematized into it experience over many children over many years. He has led this system to many children getting their foreign language diplomas. In the private there is no such experience and no such system. On the contrary, there is no system at all, in the vast majority of teachers. Of course there are bright exceptions, but the vast majority of private teachers neither follow nor apply any teaching system or teaching philosophy. That is why it is rare to find cases of children who pass the language diploma exams having attended exclusively private lessons without ever having been to a language school.
The value of the classmates' group.
It is very important to give proper importance to the group of classmates with whom the child learns the foreign language.
- In the classroom the child will accelerate his/her effort, because the class has an overall rhythm of its own to which he/she will adapt. He has the best student in front of him, the one who does a little better in the oral, or a little better in the essay, and ambition and rivalry are sparked.
- In the classroom the child will not get bored, because he has his friends, he learns with his friends.
- In the classroom the child is exposed to different learning styles, through his classmates. So he learns in multiple ways, listening to his classmates, studying with them, doing homework with them.
- In the classroom he will see the right rewarded and the wrong corrected many times, repeatedly, to his classmates, so he cannot fail to learn and progress.
Social skills.
School is not just about learning and training in knowledge. It is learning and education in life itself. In the social environment of the language school the child is exposed to human relationships and all their stages. He learns to participate, to discriminate, to assert, to be patient, to tolerate, to argue and forgive, to disagree and reconcile, to join a group. These are all life skills as important or more important than diplomas. They are the traits that tomorrow will help the child survive in his profession, in his own family, with his partners, with his superiors. School is the ideal place where he learns all these lessons safely, while the special isolates him, "sterilizes" him from all this life learning.
So when is the special necessary?
Clearly there are cases where the special is necessary. It is valuable and insurmountable in cases where the child has significant learning difficulties, such as severe forms of dyslexia or other specific difficulties. In such cases, however, it is still advisable for the parent to find specially trained specialists and teachers to ensure proper education and supervision for their child.
Especially, when parents evaluate a language school, apart from the classrooms, the building, the classroom, the accessibility at home, they should evaluate the professionalism and experience of the teaching staff, the passion and interest for the child.
And still, inspiring language schools, apart from the foreign language, teach children to think, to concentrate, to prioritize, to compose, to cooperate. To understand others, to make friends, to compete.
''Because foreign languages are the canvas on which the most essential life skills are built.''