Flóra Zsigmond

Topic 1 Review

In this short essay, I am going to introduce, analyze and review the main aspects of
ELT methodology by covering the different activities, methodologies, and concepts in a
logical structural way. As mentioned before, ELT (English Language Teaching) is a wide
category which collects different teaching methods for specifically teaching English as a
foreign language. Even though English can be taught at any age, in this case, the following
paragraphs are focusing on teaching English particularly in pre-school.

First of all, to understand the idea behind teaching a second language, the teacher has
to be aware of the given conditions, such as the learning environment (the classroom as a
positive learning environment), and also the financial, cultural backgrounds and age-
appropriate interests of the students. Even though, creating a positive learning environment,
which requires having a deeper understanding of the student, are not always an easy task, as a
teacher, there are some useful tools to get to know the class, such as some fun activities so
called icebreakers or Get to Know You games. These games contain playing, having
meaningful interactions and an opportunity to build not just connections but language skills.

These activities lead us to a smaller category, an important method which called CLT (short
for Content-based Language teaching) which based of the idea that, the best way to learn a
new language is by using it. However, mistakes are allowed in this method, both building
vocabulary and learning the right use of grammar are important.

Moreover, in CLT the students are the center of the learning process, rather than the teacher,
which allows them to practice the new language more freely and participate actively
throughout the class. Whereas, this method requires a relatively new outlook of preparing the
class activities, there are a lot of research around this topic which provides the teachers some
rather interesting and effective ideas to implant CLT to their teaching styles. These activities
(for example Learning Boxes) usually rely on building functional language, group projects,
making interactions throughout dialogues and so on.

To summarize this topic, using different teaching methods is always beneficial, but
specifically speaking about CLT, it can help the students to gain confidence and basic
understanding of the new language by building a functional vocabulary and grammar, also
developing speaking, listening, and reading skills at the same time.
Flóra Zsigmond
Flóra Zsigmond