This chapter was an attempt to provide a number of factors for you to consider carefully as you attend to the age of your learners. At this point, these factors have come out as a series of pointers and reminders rather than anecdotal or observational references to classrooms full of students. You can make those references yourself as you observe and as you begin to teach. The next time you're in an ESL classroom, notice how someone you're observing (or how you yourself) accounted for age variables in the overall lesson, in the type of techniques that were used, in the management of the classroom, in verbal registers as well as body language, in the teacher-student exchanges, and in the relationship that those exchanges conveyed. You may actually surprise yourself by how much of what we do and say as teachers is a factor of age!

TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION, ACTION, AND RESEARCH
1. Think back to the ESL lesson that was described in Chapter 1. That was an adult class. In a small group, talk about how you would go about teaching virtually the same grammar and discourse to children of, say, ages 7 and 8. Would the general topic fit? Would the same grammatical and communicative goals apply? What would you do differently? What would you delete and what would you add? How would you alter the various techniques?
2. Can you think of other considerations-beyond those mentioned in this chapter-that should be brought to bear on teaching ESL to children? to adults? to teenagers?, In -a group, brainstorm ideas then share them with the rest of the class.
3. Look again at the five major categories of things to consider as you teach children (pp. 91-94). With a partner, go through each category and come up with some specific classroom examples that illustrate the factor under consideration. For example, it was suggested that you have a sense of humor, that you use sensory aids, that you be patient and supportive, and that use context-embedded language. Give some examples of each of these and other suggestions in that section.
4. Are there any of the five factors regarding teaching ESL to children that you would like to take issue with? For example, it was noted that children do indeed have inhibitions and fragile egos. Do you agree? How do adults' and children's inhibitions differ? See if there are other factors you might want to debate. Defend your assertions with examples or research.

5. Why teach language to children at all? Aren't their innate capacities sufficient without having to be instructed? What would happen if children (in a context you specify) were just "exposed" to English with no classroom? What would they gain? What would they lose? You might want to debate this issue by assigning one group to argue for the "noclassroom" position and another group to defend the contention that language classes for children are beneficial.
6. In groups of three people each, arrange to make a series of three ESL observations: one person goes to an elementary school, another to a secondary school, and a third to a class for adults. Take careful note of the following:
•topic or subject matter of the lesson
•teacher talk and student talk
•variety and type of techniques
•discipline or behavior problems
•physical activity and sensory input
•apparent motivation and interestAfter the observation, share your perceptions in your group of three. Compare differences and see what insights you garnered about teaching at the different age levels. Share your group's findings with the rest of the class.

FOR YOUR FURTHER READING
Garvie, Edie.1990. Story as Vehicle: Teaching English to Young Children. Clevedon, U.K.: Multilingual Matters.
Intended primarily for teachers and teacher-trainers, this book presents an approach to language t‚aching that is firmly grounded in principles of second language acquisition. The story, whether it be a published story or teacher-created or student-created, is exploited as a way of promoting intrinsic motivation, interest, and language development.

Enright, D. Scott. 1991. "Supporting children's English language development in grade-level and language classrooms." In Celce-Murcia, Marianne, Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language. Second Edition. Newbury House.
This chapter summarizes several recent developments in the education of school-age ESL students. It is especially useful as an overview of methodological considerations in teaching children. An excellent comprehensive annotated bibliography is appended to the chapter.
Rigg, Pat, and Enright, D. Scott. 1982. Children and ESL: Integrating Perspectives. TESOL.
A very useful anthology of relatively recent research on teaching ESL to children, this book features articles by well-known scholars in the field: Courtney Cazden, Sarah Huddelson, Pat Rigg, Carole Urzua, and Scott Enright. Holding the articles together is a common commitment to wholelanguage, contextual instruction of the second language.

Ventriglia, L.1982. Conversotions with Miguel and Maria: How Children Learn a Second Language. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. The author offers both a description of her own study of children's second language acquisition and an excellent review of the literature. This book is more research-oriented than pedagogical, but can serve as a good resource book. Among her recommendations are providing children with many sensory modalities for learning language.
3.6 Teachers' beliefs
There is a growing body of evidence to indicate that teachers are highly influenced by their beliefs, which in turn are closely linked to their values, to their views of the world and to their conceptions of their place within it. One comprehensive review of the literature on teachers' beliefs concluded that these had a greater influence than teachers' knowledge on the way they planned their lessons, on the kinds of decisions they made and on their general classroom practice (Pajares 1992). Beliefs were also found to be far more influential than knowledge in determining how individuals organise and define tasks and problems, and were better predictors of how teachers behaved in the classroom.