Teaching a foreign language to learners is dominated by the view that the teacher should maximize the use of the target language, the English language, and minimal use of the mother tongue. Usually, the mother tongue has been used as a last resort. For successful English language teaching as a foreign language, the teacher should consider using a balance of the target language and mother tongue as a means to support foreign language learning. For this paper, the main consideration is identifying the most suitable tools and approaches to teaching English as a foreign language to students who speak Spanish as their mother tongue (Littlewood & Yu, 2011). The use of the foreign language to facilitate learning will be dependent on the teacher’s ability to speak the mother tongue language. The paper describes the challenges that Spanish-speaking students are likely to face in an English language classroom, curriculum modification to support learning, and motivation approaches for the students.
Challenges Foreign Students Face
The three new students from El Salvador are likely to face numerous challenges, especially since they have been introduced to a new where class where the majority of the learners speak and understand English. Additionally, they attended school sporadically and lacked leaning materials. The lack of formal and consistent education is likely to influence their learning abilities in various subjects, including English.
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International students face numerous challenges when trying to learn a foreign language. One of the chief challenges, in this case, is learner anxiety, which is worsened by the introduction to a new and different culture. The students are anxious about the new environment and culture. Additionally, students also face anxiety during exams and fear negative assessment from the teacher. Anxiety is also determined by the teacher’s behavior towards the learners and different learning styles (Solak & Bayar, 2015). For the students considered in this case, anxiety is likely to influence their ability and willingness to learn the English language. Therefore, the teacher should try and become accommodative and culturally sensitive to the students. Additionally, he/she should also ensure that other students remain culturally sensitive to the students.
Though cultural differences act as challenges due to the anxiety the cultural practices cause, it also acts as a barrier to learning the English language as a second language. Various cultures have different expressions and sentences. Therefore, though students might apply themselves to master numerous vocabularies and develop a good command of comprehension, they face challenges in understanding various expressions that are unique to English speakers (Mohammed, 2018). Understanding these expressions takes time and interferes with their ability to communicate with other students and their teachers, leading to frustration. It might discourage them from trying to develop proficiency in the language.
Another challenge that the students are likely to face while learning English as a second language is interlanguage interference. Language interference is defined as the influence of the student’s first language, which in this case is Spanish, on the language that is being learned, English. Interlanguage is a linguistic system used by second language learners attempting to communicate in the English language. It is affected by the learners’ native tongue, where the learners, in this case, use Spanish language knowledge to comprehend and organize the second language. They also use Spanish to compensate for existing competence gaps in the English language (Trosborg, 2011). Though interlanguage interference acts as a challenge in acquiring competency, interlanguages can be used to facilitate learning.
Interlanguage transfer is similar to negative transfer, which also acts as a challenge to English language learners as a second language. Negative transfer refers to the use of the same structure of the source language (Spanish) when rendered into the target language (English). One of the ways that this challenge can be solved is by ensuring that learners are familiarized with the target language sentence structure. Using a wrong structure due to negative transfer causes the use of wrong sentence structure, and creates ambiguity in communication (Mohammed, 2018). It makes communication difficult and becomes a source of frustration for the students.
Another challenge that international students may face in learning the English language accents. An accent is a manner of pronouncing words. The English language has numerous accents, which might confuse learners. Additionally, it is characterized by numerous slang and colloquialism expressions, that make the learning process difficult. Colloquialism and slang are informal expressions used in the English language. It acts as a challenge since it becomes difficult for Spanish-speaking students to cover all the expressions. It can also be a source of frustration since the student may lack the ability to properly communicate and comprehend the language despite mastering all formal requirements (Mohammed, 2018).
Modifications to the Curriculum to Facilitate Learning
One of the modifications that can be made to the curriculum is the inclusion of the mother tongue in the learners’ curriculum as a means to facilitate learning. Using Spanish in the learners’ curriculum is likely to provide valuable support for learning. It provides support directly or directly. Spanish can provide support in mastering the English language by acting as an element in a teaching technique or as a tool to explain a difficult point. It is also more effective to introduce difficult concepts in the students’ mother tongue and translate them to the target language. Indirectly, incorporating Spanish in the learning curriculum builds positive relationships between the learner and the teacher, and among the students (Littlewood & Yu, 2011). It instils cultural sensitivity to the students, thus reducing the frustration they may face to the lack of a supportive environment. It also helps to manage to learn.
Modifying the curriculum is dependent on whether the classroom is the only source of student’s exposure to the target language. The aim of teaching English to Spanish-speaking students is to facilitate communication in monolingual target language situations. The student should learn to be bilingual, thus developing their ability to switch between the two languages as appropriate. While using the mother tongue is encouraged to facilitate learning, the focus should be on the teacher’s use of the mother tongue language, and not the students. When students use their mother tongue in the classroom setup, they fail to initiate target language interactions themselves, thus hurting the learning process. They also fail to develop confidence in their communication abilities (Littlewood & Yu, 2011). Therefore, as much as the teacher is encouraged to use the mother tongue language to facilitate learning, it should be limited to the teacher’s use.
Another modification that can be made to the curriculum is the use of a flipped classroom, especially for the new foreign students. Using a flipped classroom is an innovative approach to teach a foreign language. It supports the efficient use and extension of classroom hours, thus supporting learning. Students can watch instructional videos outside the classroom. Adopting this approach allows the teacher to allocate more classroom hours to interactive tasks that would facilitate learning, and change the foreign learners’ attitude about the English language and the difficulties associated with learning it (Basal, 2015). Integrating technology in the learning process enriches the learning environment, thus offering better learning opportunities. Using instructional videos outside the classroom can allow the teacher to focus on the special needs of students who are learning English as a second language. The videos can be customized to the student’s needs, such as incorporating Spanish in the videos.
During the classroom interactive activities, there can be a shift of emphasis from grammatical competence to communicative competence. It helps international students understand the English accent and the use of colloquialism and slang in the language (Trosborg, 2011). It will also help the students to understand the cultural context of various expressions, thus facilitating learning. It will enable the students to develop the willingness to express themselves in English and create a supportive environment for international students.
Motivating Students to Learn the English Language
One of the approaches that can be used to motivate international students to want to learn is by using incentives. Special gifts such as special pencils can be used as prizes to reward students for learning several vocabularies. Additionally, students who learn new vocabularies can be rewarded by being assigned tasks that other students consider to be special. During the classroom interactive sessions, learners can also be encouraged to learn by making the learning process seem like a game. Students can be divided into groups with names where they are awarded points for getting the right word definitions or learning new vocabularies.
Music can also be used as a tool to facilitate and incentivize learning English. The teacher can create and incorporate catchy songs to help students learn various aspects of the language, such as the parts of speech. It can also be used as a reward on one day of the week for having a successful week filled with learning. Music is a universal language that can be understood despite the existence of language barriers. As an activity, international students can be asked to translate some of their favorite songs into English and vice versa to facilitate learning.
Conclusion
International students face numerous challenges while learning English as their second language. Some of the challenges include learner anxiety and frustration, which are as a result of the sudden immersion into a new culture. Students also face anxiety about negative assessment and examinations. Other challenges include cultural differences, interlanguage interference/transfer, accent, and the use of colloquialism and slang in the English language. Some modifications that can be made to the curriculum to facilitate learning are including mother tongue as a teaching tool and using a flipped-classroom approach. Learners can be motivated to learn by introducing learning incentives and utilizing music as a teaching tool.
References
Basal, A. (2015). The implementation of a flipped classroom in foreign language teaching. Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education , 16 (4), 28-37.
Littlewood, W., & Yu, B. (2011). First language and target language in the foreign language classroom. Language teaching , 44 (1), 64. 10.1017/S0261444809990310
Mohammed, M. H. (2018). Challenges of learning English as a foreign language (EFL) by non-native learners. International Journal of Social Science and Economic Research , 3 (4), 1381-1400.
Solak, E., & Bayar, A. (2015). Current Challenges in English Language Learning in Turkish EFL Context. Online Submission , 2 (1), 106-115. http://dx.doi.org/10.17275/per.15.09.2.1
Trosborg, A. (2011). Interlanguage pragmatics: Requests, complaints, and apologies (Vol. 7). Walter de Gruyter.
