Why start from be verb?
Don’t get conceptional. It’s just the phrase.
<A Mistake Story>
You’re here to teach students in Japan. Students who are starting English in 7th grade. In most schools, the first chapter would be “be verb.” Although you don’t really have much memory learning what a “be verb” is, you look at the textbook and understand and share the knowledge that you have just gained. Then you start lecturing to the students, “A be verb has the meaning of something that explains the subject, and …” Welcome to the pit of grammar teaching. The thing you would want to avoid, if you’re willing to teach practical language.
<Understand>
Before you make the same mistake, you want to understand that you don’t necessarily need to understand the grammatical function to start using a language. Especially at a primary stage, the focus should be on using the language, not understanding it. The fixed-idea of the needs to understand grammar is like riding a bicycle by just reading a book about how a bicycle works. No matter how well you understand it, you’re not going to succeed in riding it. What you need is practice. Surprisingly, the opposite can work. You can ride the bicycle without knowing how it works. It’s basically the same thing.
What is a be verb?
Be verbs are be, am, are, is, was, were, been. That’s it. They all have the same meaning. I didn’t even know that until I, myself, started teaching to my students. You’ll probably just introduce am, are and is for the first chapter. The other ones will be introduced later on. Here are the basic factors of a be verb.
BE VERB: be, am, are, is, was, were, being, been
MEANING: a verb that indicates to describe a target noun. You can replace it with the mathematical sign “=(equals)”
e.g) That is a panda. > That = a panda.
RULES: Which verbs to use depends on the subject.
(subject:be verb)
I:am, was
you: are, were
other singular: is, was
other plural: are, were
no subject: be
*being, been are combined with other verbs as participles
Self-introduction
The biggest reason a textbook starts with the be verb is because by using it, you can introduce yourself to other people. In a communication situation, that is the first thing you do after you say hello. Most dialogs will go as, ”Hi. I’m Kumi. I am a new student. Are you my English teacher?” It gives the opportunity for students to practice spelling their names using alphabet. One of the most popular first lessons is, 1: write your name in English, 2: practicing a dialogue, 3: walk around and introduce your names.
Introducing nouns
More importantly than learning the function of be verbs, this is a good chance to learn nouns. You can introduce “What’s/Who is this? - It’s a (noun). If you’re starting to learn a language you want to start by learning a lot of nouns because noun is an easy concept. Unlike verbs,especially English verbs, you don’t have to mind tenses or forms.
Nouns are the basics of words
Just imagine a baby starting to learn words. The first idea of words is a noun; mama, milk, booboo, doggy. As you can see from here, the basic of words or maybe the basic of perception is noun. When children start to enjoy the world of words, they start with nouns. It’s simply fun. By the way, the next type of word they will learn is adjective, not verbs. This comes from necessity; hungry, hot, bad. Perhaps these words which work to transport feelings are already born even before they know it is a word. They are survival signals.
Learn words not sentences
One of the factors that makes language learning complex and boring is the obligation to make a sentence. A child can communicate without completing a sentence.;“Water!”, “Oh, airplane!”, ”No!”, “Me!” Ohhh, chocolate cake! Somehow when it comes to learning a foreign language people start to generate a whole sentence. This makes the learning process slow and dreadful. A noun centered or emotion centered approach is lot more natural. Once the learner feels the limit of communicating in simple words, then you can go to extending the phrase and eventually go make a sentence. “Water” becomes “Water please.” then becomes “Cold water please.” Finally “ Could I have some water?”
