Teaching english as a second language

Universidade do Grande Rio
Unigranrio

TEACHING ENGLISH AS A SECOND OR FOREIGN LANGUAGE

Duque de Caxias – RJ
2013

- Introduction

English is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world. According to esl-languages website, it reaches number one as the world’s most spoken language by total of speakers, number of countries where the language is official or the second most important, languages of the internet and publishing. Nowadays, especially in Brazil, the amount of people interested in learning English has increased considerably in the past 10 years, and even more now because of the upcoming World Cup 2014 and the Olympic Games 2016 which will be held in our country.

We cannot deny that English is a difficult language to learn and to teach and nowadays it is up to the teachers to use a methodology that will help each and every one of the students. Many methods for teaching English as a second language have developed over the years, which has ultimately aided the progression of teaching methods as a whole. An approach to teach is a theory, a perception based on multiple assumptions about how people learn and how they respond to new languages. It is the “method”, how those theories are put into practice, which sets objectives and presents an organized role for both teacher and student.

There is no single “best” way of teaching English as each method has some advantages and disadvantages. The successful language teacher will not limit themselves to one single method, excluding all the others, on the other hand, they will know how to use the appropriate method based on what they think the student will learn more and the feedback will be better, since it is obvious that what may work for one, may not work for others as well.

The most used methods and approaches for English language teaching are: The grammar translation method, the direct method, the audio-lingual method, communicative language teaching, language immersion and