ENGLISH LANGUAGE TRAINING CONFERENCE
  Jagodina , Serbia

16 – 17 May 2008  

University of Kragujevac

Faculty of Education in Jagodina

 International Conference

 Responding to Diversity in Teaching Young Learners

 
This page provides conference objectives, conference activities and TWI for the Children background activities that support teaching English as a second language to children and teenagers.

PROGRAM:  TWI for the Children has been asked to participate at the English Language Training  Conference (ELT) titled Responding to Diversity in Teaching Young Learners due to take place at the Faculty of Education in Jagodina , Serbia  on 16-17 May 2008. The conference is supported by the Embassy of Finland in Belgrade, Serbia within the project Curriculum Reform: Development of Practice Teaching and Research. Bobby Houser  prepared a paper and handouts for presentation at the conference. A report of conference by Emily Hill provides the results of the conference.

TWI EXPERIENCE: TWI for the Children has been active in teaching English to orphans both in Mostar, Bosnia and in Montenegro. Emily Hill, a graduate of The University of Michigan,  has worked with the TWI English Language Program for the past 4 years and is excellent with children. As a requirement of this month-long program, she lived at the orphanage in Bijela , Montenegro and set up the classroom there. For the school program in the middle school in Gradacac , Bosnia and Herzegovina, we adjusted the program to a 2-week format that took place at the end of the school year and before families left on vacation. When the Director of the orphanage in Montenegro asked TWI to organize a program, he explained that the children were having problems with their English homework and speaking skills. He selected the month of May, because this would give our TWI team an opportunity to help them with their English homework and he knew that once the summer vacation began the thoughts of the children would not be on learning. In 2008, TWI for the Children sent two volunteers with a Bosnian partner to work with children at the orphanage in Mostar, Bosnia.

Because the children didn't speak English well enough to talk to each other in English, they had no one to practice with and they forgot the lessons learned. With this in mind, TWI developed a program that worked in harmony with their English studies at school and one that would not compete with the work of the English teachers. We organized activities that put the emphasis on speaking and listening - not on reading or writing. This way, it complemented the grammar and spelling activities taught in the classroom. Because the TWI classes were held in the morning before school for some and for others in the afternoon after school - and for the teenagers after dinner, learning English speaking skills had to be fun fun and it couldn't "feel like a classroom". We designed an informal atmosphere in an "English Only" room that came to life with activities, music and games.

Teens are the most resistant to "learning outside the school day", so we had to be creative and engage them in conversations that were about their interests. While Emily taught them English, they taught her about fishing and soccer, fashion and hair styles. We brought learning how to converse in a new language "to" them where they had an interest. By the second year of the TWI program, the children were eager to see Emily arrive and it was at this time that the Director of the orphanage began to notice that the children's English grades had dramatically improved.

The same system was set up for the two-week program for the school in Gradacac and it has been a wonderful success. In both cases, we had caretakers at the orphanages, teachers and parents at the school asking if we could arrange a class for them. The success of the program was in giving the children the ability to talk to each other outside the classroom, where they took ownership of this second language and began speaking English with ease. We call this the "I leaned to speak English when I was having fun" program.

We are big believers in making learning fun for the children. If it could work out for us to do this, the teacher participants may be interested in seeing this style of teaching, as well as, seeing how to use students who are proficient in English to help them teach other children

Pictures from Conference