'Speaking key to language fluency'
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Wendy Maxwell, a developer of Accelerative Integrated Methodology (AIM), gives a lecture about the teaching method to English teachers during a workshop on the subject at Korea National University of Education in Cheongwon, North Chungcheong Province, March 18. / Courtesy of AIM Korea
Using gestures is effective in learning English
A language teaching expert has stressed that speaking is the most crucial skill to master the fluency of a language.
“All four skills — reading, writing, listening and speaking — are very important, but speaking is the most important skill to enhance language fluency,” Wendy Maxwell, a developer of Accelerative Integrated Methodology (AIM), said.
Maxwell, a French teacher, developed AIM in 1999. It is a second-language methodology that uses gestures, music, dance and theater to help students learn. AIM was initially designed for French. Later she created it for Spanish, Mandarin and English.
“There are slightly different gestures for each language, but the methodology is the same, and Korean would be the same,” Maxwell said.
“For students to really learn the language, it has to become part of who they are — in AIM they live the language and produce the language in meaningful ways, every minute of every class. As a result, it becomes very natural for them,” she said.
She noted AIM suits the Korean way of thinking, which is very structured, while allowing creativity to happen in its structured methodology.
“For English-language learning in Korea, I believe that AIM can help students develop a great feeling of confidence and familiarity with English within the first year of instruction, building a strong foundation for the development of proficiency,” Maxwell said.
The whole idea of the method is that students can learn and remember way better when they do something that goes along with the vocabularies they are saying.
Teachers show gestures that convey the meaning of the words, and children recall the words by repeating the gestures. For example, while the students say “go,” they use middle and index fingers to make walking legs, and they say “open”, they use two hands together as if in prayer and then open hands facing upwards.
“It’s very repetitive and simple. Teachers are always gesturing and students are visualizing and speaking all the time. Students are allowed to practice discussing orally and writing while teachers ask so many questions,” Maxwell added.
The main purpose of AIM is, Maxwell said, to develop oral skills and make students understand and speak all the time, so even shy students can be encouraged by classmates.
“Great reading or writing skills don’t mean great speaking skills. Great speaking skills do mean great writing skills,” she said.
Q: What made you develop the Accelerative Integrated Method?
A:
When I began teaching basic French classes in Toronto, I was not happy with the fact that the students that I was teaching had not developed oral or written language skills after even five or six years of instruction, every day, for 30 minutes.
I was frustrated that they could not say a sentence to me or write a story (or even a few sentences). I looked for ways of improving my students’ proficiency that were based on my philosophy of teaching. Over 10 years, I carefully tested various techniques and strategies and as a result, created the methodology that is now AIM.
Q: What are strong points of AIM?
There is strong student engagement and motivation. It is highly accelerative — students learn the language very rapidly.
AIM is multi-modal approach that meets the learning needs of all students with different learning styles and multiple intelligences.
It is multidisciplinary — being a content-based approach, students learn much more than the language alone.
Q: How do think AIM can be applied to English learning?
AIM has been used to effectively accelerate language acquisition for students learning French, Spanish and Mandarin — the system is applicable across languages — with slight adjustments (especially with respect to the gestures and language patterns) that are specific to each language.
The methodology and its benefits remain the same for any language.
Q: Why do you think teachers should choose AIM when teaching foreign language?
AIM is the first methodology that draws from such a wide range of strategies that have proven to be elements of excellent teaching practice.
AIM’s unique, kinesthetic, gesture approach ensures that students are speaking constantly from the moment they enter the classroom, even from the first day. Shy and weak students are fully supported by the teacher — they, too, are speaking constantly.
The pared-down language ensures that students learn essential, high-frequency vocabulary and learn to recognize language patterns, to feel the language and what sounds right, much like a young first language learner does.
The contextualization of the pared-down language through story, theater, drama and choreography is highly engaging and draws the students into the language so that they lose their inhibitions and speak freely. It is truly a communicative language teaching approach.
Scaffolded language manipulation activities allow student to experience independent sentence creation very early — this is modeled extensively to ensure that students are successful when they are expected to do this independently with a partner.
The emphasis on creativity with the language — oral and written storytelling and story extension — ensures opportunities for students to proudly demonstrate their developing language skills.
AIM promotes positive reinforcement, cooperative learning to ensure constant opportunities for the development of oral skills, and high expectations of student achievement. It is a structured system within which students have the freedom to be creative.
AIM teachers who use the methodology in full have said that they have never experienced such success with their students before.
Q: Why do you think children give great reviews to AIM?
Children want to feel that the time spent in their foreign language class is worthwhile. When students realize that they are developing excellent, true communicative language skills, this is very motivating.
The activities that we use in AIM are fun and engaging, in addition to being very demanding. Students rise to the expectations and are amazed at, and proud of, what they accomplish.
They are learning much more than the language alone in an AIM class — skills that can transfer to other subject areas, such as dramatic arts, public speaking, choreography, story writing and editing skills.
Q: Koreans have difficulty achieving proficiency in speaking English, although they put so much time and effort into learning the language. What do you think Koreans have to do? Will AIM change their attitudes or methods of learning English?
The aspect of pleasant repetition to ensure that the language is truly embedded will help students make the language their own, rather than viewing it as something that we study and analyze, almost like a science.
For students to really learn the language, it has to become part of who they are — in AIM they live the language and produce the language in meaningful ways, every minute of every class! As a result, it becomes very natural for them.