How can children develop pure spoken English pronunciation?
How can children develop pure spoken English pronunciation?
Parent’s name: Shermyn
Child’s name: Sky, 7 years old
It has been a long time since I updated you on the progress of your child’s education. Since Sky has joined the Chinese Primary School, I have to travel to two different primary and secondary schools every day. Although I have my work, I still manage my children’s education through self learning. After my last experience with 51Talk’s online English learning programme, I enrolled my child in a formal course.
As I talk to my child in Mandarin at home, and as Sky is currently studying in a Chinese primary school, he lacks the environment to “speak English”. Although he listens to some English Audio Stories and reads English story books every day, he still needs to improve his oral English pronunciation.
Then, Sky likes English very much and he also participated in the English storytelling competition in school. Pronunciation in English storytelling accounts for the highest marks. We hoped to strengthen his English accent and help him speak standard English through professional online English courses or teaching materials.
We let Sky to experience several online English courses and also tried different English online courses. In the end, I chose the 51Talk for Sky.
1-to-1, bidirectional interactive learning
Through the online English course, the 1 to 1 online tutoring method not only gives Sky sufficient opportunities to speak, but also lets him learn to think in English. The most important thing is that the teacher’s pronunciation is very accurate. I can also choose a suitable teacher for Sky by looking at the teaching style of the tutors on the platform through the tutor’s introduction video.
You can also choose several teachers to expose your child to different accents. Sky prefers male teachers. He would like to choose Micheal Cop for his next class. As we know, teachers can influence children’s behaviour in class. By choosing their favourite teacher, they will be more active in answering the teacher’s questions and interacting with the teacher.
Step-by-step teaching material design
After the trial lesson, the consultant sent us a report on the learning outcomes. Sky is currently at Level 4, and he is weak in sentence construction. Therefore, this lesson was tailor-made according to his level of speaking English. The theme of the lesson was What Do They Call You? We like the way the material is designed to be graded from simple to advanced. The graphic design is vibrant and colourful, which is definitely appealing to children.
Flexible Class Appointments
That’s the part which I really like; with just a computer and the internet, we can make appointments wherever we want. It’s like this time during the school holidays, and we can still have lessons when we’re back in our hometown. In this way, the child can learn English on an on-going basis.
Providing an environment for children to learn English is a very important aspect. As a Chinese Primary School student, my English accent was not good because I did not have an environment to speak English. Nowadays, children are very lucky because they can learn English anywhere, anytime with just a tablet or mobile phone. I really recommend 51Talk 1-on-1 English learning platform to all parents.