Lower secondary education

Pupil’s age: 14-16

Level: elementary/lower intermediate/sometimes intermediate

Method used most commonly when teaching: communicative approach, grammar translation


Characteristics of age group.

Lower secondary education students are thought to be the most troublesome and rebellious age group. Children grow up to become teenagers and this process brings a lot of confusion and abstract ideas to their minds.

As far as teaching process goes, lower secondary education students are in the middle of the their way to good L2 use. They can do some demanding tasks, they know how to write in L2, they probably listened to natives speech. Yet they still have some major problems with self-correction, still make significant errors and their vocabulary is not very extended.

As they are very rebellious they tend to behave in a very abstract and odd way whenever something is not going the way they wished to. Teacher may than expect students to become offensive, over reactive, impatient and nervous. In consequence process of learning is interrupted and students are distracted. It then lies in teachers inborn ability to have a good relationship with his students. He should be able to soften any quarrels among students, find solution and a way to move their center of attention to the blackboard of books. Worth mentioning is also the fact that in most cases teachers will not be dealing with the whole group but one or two, up to five students who tend to be troublemakers. It is essential then to remember that teachers role is to be a mediator between conflict sides. If not, he might not succeed in continuing the lesson.

Variety of topics is also advisable. Lower sec education learners tend to have vast number of interests so teacher should come up with topics that will interest his pupils. Sometimes even problematic matters should be brought up to discuss – it’s vital for teacher to know his students opinion on some matters.

It goes without saying that teacher should treat pupils differently than primary school students. They’re more mature, and although their view on some cases is still not well motivated and not very specific they have a right to state their opinions and disagree when something is bothering them.

Use of methods

Lower secondary school learners are quite different from those of primary school but the process of learning and methods used is not that different. Teachers still tend to mix up different methods instead of using one. Depending on the group they would use parts of grammar-translation when introducing new structures or translating texts into L1 or communicative exercises or drills from communicative approach.

First and the most important thing to mention is that lower secondary learners are not kids anymore and they should not be treated in that way. Songs and games may be fairly good idea but in most cases it does not work out. Soon students will find songs either boring or not compatible with their own music taste and refuse to do the exercise or do it wrongly. Same goes for any sorts of games that are so popular among primary school teachers. Pupils will find games as a competition. In some cases it’s a good and desirable outcome, but in most it will only bring conflicts into the classroom.

The teachers role also shifts from that of a model to being just a nuisance, a distortion in teenager’s world. Pupils focus more on their peers than on the teacher so he should find a way to become of the peers.

The other essential part is that students creativity and capacity to learn should be used in a good way. Teacher’s role is to notice, undercover some student’s abilities and use them in such a way that pupils would find studying particular syllabus entertaining and meaningful. In order to achieve that certain steps should be made: whenever one wants to ignite a discussion on certain topic he or she should first encourage his pupils to speak aloud their opinion. The range of topics should also cover interests of students – in that way they will openly share their opinions, sometimes quarrel and disagree but they will also learn how to express themselves in the process.



My own thoughts and opinion:

Lower secondary education students are the most problematic age group due to the process of growing up and problems they encounter when facing adults world. For this reason teacher should be flexible enough to switch from strict syllabus teaching to loose discussion or exercise which is relaxing and not very demanding. There are no teachers who would use only one method when teaching, in most cases it is a mixture of other methods – teachers own ‘golden middle’.