Application of ESA in Teaching English as Foreign Language.docVIP

Application of ESA in Teaching English as Foreign Language 　　Abstract. According to Jeremy Harmer (2000), ESA (engage, study, activate) are three essential factors involved in TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language). In his book “How to Teach English”, Harmer put forward three different lesson patterns (straight arrows sequence, boomerang sequence, and patchwork sequence) with changing these three factors’ sequence with different teaching environment and different teaching planning and objectives. ESA theory is becoming increasingly popular in TEFL. The article makes an introduction to the theory and three different lesson patterns. In addition, the article highlights the application of the theory in teaching College English with specific examples in teaching practice. 　　Key words: ESA TEFL application teaching practice 　　1.Introduction 　　Teaching methodology has always been the focus of education study. In teaching practice, such teaching methods are very popular as Situational Teaching Method, Cooperative Learning Method, Communicative Approach and Task-based Learning. Year 1998, Jeremy Harmer, a prestigious international English language education expert published his book How to Teach English. In this book, Harmer first presented ESA (Engage, Study, and Activate) theory. According to Harmer, features of natural language acquisition are equally suitable for classroom language teaching. After years of painstaking research and practice, he summed up the success of natural language acquisition extra three things in common: first of all, a continuous exposure to a language which they more or less understand; Secondly, motivation to learn the language in order to be able to communicate; the last but not the least of course, opportunities to use the language. Language learning in classroom is different from natural language acquisition. But it doesn’t mean that language learner in class cannot learn language well if the right conditions apply. Like natura