by Juliana Manderico

Created on: November 20, 2009

ESL (English for Speakers of other Language) means a relation to teaching and learning English. ESL has a big impact to all the immigrants who come to the United States of America, especially to non-speaking English coming from other countries.

English is one of the essential languages around the world. We can say this, because through observation, Americans like to communicate to anybody, so this is difficult to them to communicate with non-speaking English people. Another instance that English language is important is during the Olympic competition. Some of the athletes or players have to come to this country for training and practice. Without speaking the English language is very difficult to communicate. How about business people from another country, without interpreter they could not present or introduce their products very well to Americans.

Teaching English as a second language is complicated, because there are several factors to reconsider, like their country of origin, their culture, their educational background, and their learning speed, how fast they can grasp to learn the language. Some country, their letters and words are not related or far away in comparison to the English words. In this situation, they really have to start from the ABC's before learning how to write and say a word.

Understanding the needs of the learner will give them chance to learn and they will develop trust to themselves that they can learn the language. Consequently, the ESL Teacher can develop techniques (by understanding their position and their background) to teach the slow learner or according to their phase. In doing this, the trust between the teacher and the learner will increase and learning takes place.

In some occasion, the problem is the accent, pronunciation, and diction. To some instances, the problems are their grammar, spelling and sentence construction. All these shall put emphasis to have clear understanding between the ESL teacher and the learner. A good system of teaching this group will help them learn fast and improve their English in the best way.

There are some immigrants who come to this country that speaks English already but their accent is different from American English, even the spelling of some words are different. This group is different from the previous mentioned above; therefore teacher shall utilize her expertise in words pronunciation and diction, as well as the spelling. The training emphasis should be more in the delivery or expressing the words and sentences.

As mentioned above, understanding the learners' weakness in speaking the language will stimulate learning and will develop trust to themselves as well as the teacher that they can do it.

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