English as a second language

Since many years ago in Costa Rica has been implemented English as a second language in educational institutions. Thence, there have been a lot of teachers in order to teach this language to our students during elementary school and high school. However, this goal has been limited and in most cases is not met. This is because many of the teachers do not have basis and rationale for teaching, in many schools across the country many of them do not speak the language or by 50%, do not have good pronunciation, grammar is incoherent and they don´t have necessaries skills to teach. Taking this as a starting point we can reach the conclusion of the importance of linguistics and how some of its branches can help teachers improve their classes. Some of these branches that teachers must considered in order to improve their classes are the following: sociolinguistic, phonology linguistic and second language acquisition.

All teachers must know how people speak in the society, to understand this topic we have sociolinguistic that is precisely what is responsible for studying the way people speak in a specific society. Sociolinguistic contains many fields which is very important to know because it could help us improve the classes. Why? According with sociolinguistic one of the aspect that it consider is education, the more educated you are the better you speak that is really important; besides, gender is other aspect that you have to dominate especially when you need sort in which we are referring to man or woman, it said women speak better than men, they use more words and sentences it is something we should Consider when you are teaching. In other hands, the idioms should take into account, because we must know that in any region have idioms it means word that simplify a group of words, students must learn about it because may be they will be in contact with

foreign people in a job or they travel to another country. Also, is necessary to know about slangs, this is what is known as vulgar vocabulary, as we student usually ask about expressions that they hear, as a teacher we must direct them which of these expressions must use according to the context. In addition, there are phrases that people use to soften the real meaning of a word (euphemism) for example, make love – copulate, teachers should know about these concepts because are synonyms in which is a topic that is taught in Costa Rica´s educative system. Race is another aspect very important to know, it determine the way that some people speak a language, for example, if a teacher teach Spanish at USA, especially in a state where most of the people speak Black American English, he or she must know that they reduce vowels, verb to be is deleted, they use “you was and they was” instead of “you were and they were”, etc. in order to understand the phrases. Also in sociolinguistic there is an especial meaning which is evolution, this is divided into two categories one of them is “pidgin” (using a language that is not our language is just to survive) and the other is creole or native language, this one is very important to take account because here at Costa Rica we have Limón is a province where most of the people speak creole from Jamaica, this kind of language is not totally perfect for example; basolet – me I gu masolect – I is good and idiolect – I am good; if a teacher is teaching in Limón must of knowing interpreter these terms and try to correct them to speak at a correct way. Another aspect teachers must consider is profession, as we know occupations is another topic that needs to be taught at high school, according with professions people use technical words belong to a specific occupations, so teacher must teach to the student how to associate a specific word with an occupation, for example, legal-lower, trauma-doctor. To teach this topic the teacher can use cards, board games

combining words adapted to occupations related to the profession and the profession name.

Phonology study of phonemes-phoneme is the basic unit of sounds (pronunciation, accent, stress); with doubt, if a teacher has enough knowledge about their class will be improved considerably, now days most of the schools in Costa Rica must teach speaking English, to make students acquire a good pronunciation teachers have to emphasize vowel sounds. Also they need to know about diphthongs which is the combination of vowels. There are many kinds of activities to teach vowels especially in school, but the most effective one is audiovisual, fortunately now days the technology is closer to everyone, in most of the schools have video beam, laptops and speakers with these tools teachers can play, songs, videos in order to learn vowel sounds. In other hands, consonants are very important, remember that consonants are divided by two categories mainly which are the following: voiced (vocal cords vibrate) and voiceless (vocal cords don´t vibrate), one of the main challenges facing teachers is to get students learn the correctly pronounce the words, so they have to let students know about the differences between consonants; one technique to obtain good results is make students work in groups, where they repeat the words identifying what has vibration and what not. To make easier this teaching the teacher should watch and guide students with the sounds and indicate when are continuant or stop, interdental, alveolar-ridge, affricative or fricative and retroflex, certainly not due to give many details about this, but if we can do a little explanation just let students learn to identify sounds.

To end this essay, we must recognize that linguistic is very important and it should be known by teachers to make their lessons better, we know that to teach a second language teachers must know how do people speak in a society determined with all the fields of linguistic, such as, education, gender, idioms, slangs, race, evolution, profession, it is what we know as sociolinguistic. Also, teachers should implement techniques and activities such as audiovisual presentations to recognize the sounds of the vowels, in the other hand, for recognizing the consonant sounds one very effective technique is group formation where students learn to recognize when the consonants has vibration or not, of course, with the guidance and help of the teacher who must have extensive knowledge of all the implications in the pronunciation of consonants for example when are continuant or stop, interdental, alveolar-ridge, affricative or fricative and retroflex.