Background

I. Vocabulary acquisition Vocabulary acquisition is seen by many researchers as a "central component" of Second Language Acquisition, Joe Barcroft; //Second Language Vocabulary Acqusition: A Lexical Input processing approach;// Foreign Language Annal, May 2004, Vol 37, issue 2. Joe Barcroft uses three main arguments to justify the importance of vocabulary acquisition. First, vocabulary acquisition allows communication whereas vocabulary errors forbid communication, in the grammatically wrong sentence :" it snow" communication is allowed but the sentence:" it nevs" has no meaning. He concludes that vocabulary knowledge is important in the transmission of meaning and in communication in general. His second argument is about students perceptions about the relative importance of vocabulary. According to him, if students have shown an interest in vocabulary acquisition, as time goes by they will sound more native-like. Finally, vocabulary knowledge has a role in grammatical competence:" the ability to use language correctly and fluently with regard to what one knows to be grammatical in nature depends on processing individual words and combinations of words over long period of time." His study tries to answer the question, should a second languge teacher focus on teaching vocabulary? Historically, until recently" there has been little emphasis placed on the acquisition of vocabulary". All the central focus was on grammar. Vocabulary acquisition can be the result of two kind of learning: accidental learning: learners acquiring new words from context without attending to do so. For instance they pick up a new word during free reading. intentional vocabulary learning: learners acquiring words while intending to do so. Of course, there are not only these two possibilities, vocabulary acquisition could be purely accidental or purely intentional or highly direct or highly indirect. In the case of our study, the learning was highly intentional since they were young learners and did not really had a choice. Joe Barcroft points out five principles of effective L2 vocabulary instruction. Presenting new words frequently and repeatedly in the input is one of them. Words are to be presented by means of direct or indirect instruction, or a combination of both. Learners need to process the new words as input, before asking them to use the word they have to be familiar with it. Then, it is important to present them frequently and on a regular basis: " all other things being equal, our memory for information will depend on the number of times that we have encountered or studied it." To conclude, the more a learner is in contact with a new word the more he will be able to learn it. Furthermore, Second Language Acquisition depends on L2 learners having access to meaning bearing comprehensible input, for instance, the meaning of the word "wax" might be easier to understand in a sentence such as candles are made of wax as opposed to wax is a viscous substance. The first sentence is called a vocabulary learning opportunity. It helps to modify input in ways that render it more comprehensible. Other techniques such as speaking at a slow pace, using visual to help, short sentences, repeating sentences ands gestures can make vocabulary acquisition easier. However, writing down new words in a sentence have bad effects and slow down the processing of learning. Finally it is important for the instruction to move from less demanding to more demanding activities over time. In conclusion, Vocabulary Acquisition is a complex and long process. If Joe Barcroft gives us advices as how to help learners in their L2 vocabulary acquisition, three researchers, Claudio Tonzar, Lorella Lotto and Remo Job worked together analyses which methods suit children the most and what words could they memorize easily. In their article entitled: " L2 Vocabulary Acquisition in Children: Effects of Learning Method and Cognate Status" published in Language Learning in Spetember 2009. They point out that several factors affect the learning of a second language. These factors are linguistic aspect including word-class and degree of similarity; teaching methods and learning startegy ; and learners ( age, motivation and their knowledge of other languages). The researchers compare two methods, a verbal approach and a picture-based approach. They reach the conclusion that for young learners it is better to use the pictorial representation that translation from L1 to L2. Children do not rely on L1 to L2 lexical association. They then focus on cognates. A word is considered a cognate when it is orthographically and /or phonologically similar to its translation in another language e.g.: the English word for lemon and the Italian one limone are cognate whereas the English for apple and the Italian mela are noncognate. Claudio Tonzo, Lorella Lotto and Remo Job let us remember that previous studies on L2 performance have shown that cognates are translated faster and more accurately than noncognates. The relate to the study of Sanchez-Casas et al which suggest that cognates share the same lexical representation, whereas noncognates are represented as separate entries in lexical memory. To summarize, the acquisition of a cognate word is less demanding than that of a noncognate one. Their study involved Italian children in both grade 4 and grade 8. During their phase one, they collected Ratings for name Agreement and Cognate Status. For the picture-naming exercise, one hundred and forty two pictures were used some of which were different versions of the same objects. The objects belong to twelve semantic categories (building, vehicles, weapons, musical, instruments, animals plants fish, kitchen, utensils, fruits, tools, clothes and vegetables) were depicted. Twenty students of grade four ( nine years old) were asked to write down the name of the depicted objects. Each pictures was presented in the classroom, collectively to all students, for 15 second. In the cognate-rating study, they presented sixty three Italian-English; Italian- German and English- German word pairs corresponding to the names of the pictures and they asked twenty third year middle school to evaluate the orthographic similarity within each word pair on a seven point scale. During phase two, they investigated the acquisition of L2 words and analysed the role of the learning method and the type of words for both fourth and 8th grade students. The study involved two groups of participants, one hundred and twenty three four graders, aged nine and one hundred and six height graders aged thirteen. They have been recruited from eight schools in the district of Treviso, Italy. They were native Italian speakers, four graders had not learned any foreign language whereas eight graders had learned some English during six and seven grade. Each child participated in four English sessions and four German session. Half of the classes involved were exposed to the word-learning method in which Italian words were paired with the corresponding word in English and in German. The other half were exposed to the picture-learning method, in which each picture was paired with the corresponding English and German words. For both methods, the learning phase included two learning sessions for English and two learning sessions for German held one week apart. In each learning phase, the 40 pairs of stimuli were presented three times ,each time in a different order. Participants were asked to pay attention because at the end of the session they would be asked to write them down. Participants performed four test sessions for each language. Immediate test was administrated at the end of the first learning session and another one at the end of the second learning session. Then a delayed test was given one week after the immediate test and another delayed test was given a month after the first delayed test. As a result, the researchers found that in general the picture -learning method led to better performance than the word-learning method. The superiority of the picture-learning method holds for both L2s and for both age groups. Cognates were easier to learn than noncognates.Finally, the best perfomance was reached in the second immediate test, the one after the second learning session whereas the worst scores were registered in the last session, one month later. During this study, the researchers have manipulated three factors which are: learning/ teaching methods, test session and cognate status. All three factors have been significant. The picture-learning method has given the best performance. Then words with a cognate translation in the foreign language were learned far better than those a noncognate translation leading to the conclusion that formal similarity of words in the two languages facilitates the acquisition of L2 words but it also shows that when learning has been achieved by means of repeated exposures, performance with noncognates approaches performance with cognates. The final step in vocabulary acquisition is pronunciation. Once one has processed a word, he needs to be able to pronounce it. Lara Ducate and Lara Lomicke tries to explore the new technology as a method to improve the pronunciation of second language learners. Their article is entitled //Podcasting: an effective Tool for honing language students' pronunciation?// and was published in the journal //Language Learning and Technology.// This article is not directly related with our study but since our participants have also been assess on pronunciation ,it could explain some of the reasons as why pronunciation is often neglected by the teacher. The first issue pointed out by the authors is that pronunciation is hard to teach. The second one is that teaching pronunciation is not possible in a typical language classroom because teachers often lack of skills. Consequently, learners quiet often do not learn pronunciation before an upper lever. Children are deprived of systematic pronunciation training until late in their language careers. That is the case in the two primary schools were my study takes place. Before the arrival of the French language assistants, the English native speaker teacher used to teach French without feeling confident and without having learn anything about pronunciation, this part has been totally forgotten. Lara Ducate and Lara Lomicke point out that " //Historically, with the advent of the communicative approach, there may have been some confusion as to the place and role of pronunciation in language learning. Terrell (1989), for example, suggests that those teaching from a communicative approach "have not known what to do with pronunciation" (p. 197). Likewise, Pennington and Richards (1986) discuss that pronunciation is often viewed as having "limited importance" in communicative curricula (p. 207).// //"// In the two primary schools, teachers tend to view pronunciation as superficial, they keep telling their students that the way a word is pronounced has no importance. The researchers quote. Elliott (1995) who maintains that "teachers tend to view pronunciation as the least useful of the basic language skills and therefore they generally sacrifice teaching pronunciation in order to spend valuable class time on other areas of the language"//.// Different factors can affect pronunciation. They classify them in five categories : The Age has the largest effect on improving one pronunciation. Training can help to improve Being in contact with native speakers and listening to them, then comparing their speech. Second language learners have to be aware of phonetics, someone has to teach them. Prosody needs to be teach because learners tend to use their first language intonation patterns when speaking in the second language. They then wonder how can pronnunciation be improved. They answer by offering to different methods. The first one is the use of technology as Winlitch. It is an advantageous program because it does not rely on student's own perceptions of their pronunciation but it shows excatly how they sound compare to a Native Speaker. However they find that there is a huge lack of contextuality. Thus they promote thet second methods which is Podcasting. Podcasting is an audio file that anyone can create using a computer, a microphone and a software program. One posted to the Web, pod casts can be accessed, downloaded and played. Podcasting can empower students by giving them opportunities to create and publish for a real audience. They justify the use of podcasting by recognizing the output as essential for second language learners. One strategy they suggest is having students listen to themselves as they edit their own output, and then go back, listen again, and revise if necessary. This also allows them to receive feedbacks. Podcasting has a lot of advantages. It is not a pronunciation drills where children repeat after the teacher. It is meaningful and it uses more than just a word out of context. It contextualises. Finally, it is an easy way to have children memorize words when they can put them on their Ipod and listen to them whenever they want. Furthermore they justify their theory by using the study of Lord who points out in 2008 that it allows students to really improve they pronunciation. For their analysis, eight students, aged between eighteen and twenty two, had to podcast themselves after having listen to a Native Speaker talking about a foreign trip. Then they had to podcast themselves while speaking about any topics of their choice. Two judges evaluated them, a native speaker and a non native speaker. The focussed on two aspects, a comprehensibility scale ( completely, almost nativelike, between nativelike and nonnative, more nonnative and nonnative). They had to give them a note between one and five. The analysis was done in pairs: pre-test and post-test. They concluded that 30% of the German Students improved regarding comprehensibility and 44% of German students improved their accent from the pre- to post-test. However only 10% of the French students improved their accent from the pre-to post-test. From the students point of view, they liked to listen to Native Speaker before recording themselves, they found it more easier and they could work on words that they found difficult to pronounce. However they did not like the exercise where they had to speak by they own, they found it much more complicated. There are several explanations to why these participants did not really improve their pronunciation skills. The first one is a lack of time, sixteen weeks is not enough. Then their focus was not specifically dedicated to this task and finally they did not have enough practice. Learning a second language pronunciation needs a lot of time and a lot of focus. However the results may vary according the students. Not everyone follow the same route of learning. II. Students are not equal in front of a Second Language Acquisition. According to Florence Myles's article, //French Second Language Acquisition, setting the scene//., research in Second Language Acquisition has come with two main findings : Second language acquisition is highly systematic. Systematicity refers to what has been called the Route of development which is the nature and sequence of the stages all learners go through. This route is independent of both the learner's mother tongue and the context of learning. Second Language Acquisition is highly variable. Variability refers to either the Rate of the learning process ( the speed) or the Outcome of the learning process( how proficient learners become).Speed of learning and range of outcomes are highly variable from learner to learner. She explains that a defining moment for the field happened in the 1970s, when it became clear thet L2 learners follow a rigid development route, similar in many ways to the route followed by children learning their first Language. She quotes Brown (1973) who found that children acquired fourteen grammatical morphemes in English in the same order. His work has been the starting point of studier investigating the acquisition of the same morphemes in the context of second language acquisition. It was found that L2 learners acquire these morphemes in similar order, irrespective of their L1. The developmental route that learners follow is called Interlanguage and sometimes it bears little resemblance to either the L1 of the learner or the L2 being learnt. However the finding that learners follow developmental routes which are independent of both L1 and L2 had important implications for the field as a whole. It led to the demise of Constrastice Analysis, which aimed to compare pairs of languages in order to predict difficulty. What is different would be difficult and would therefore need to be taught explicitly, and what is similar would be easy to learn. However there are some variability in the Route despite the relative rigidity of the L2 learning route, each L2 learner is different. It is due to the first Language. The L1 could speed up the learning process if L1 and L2 are closely related languages or similar linguistic structures .But it could be an inhibitor of the learning process. However, all learners will go through the same stages, but move along the continuum more or less quickly depending on their L1. Their L1 structure would lead to the acquisition of the correct system. There is another source of apparent variability in the productions of the L2 learners, especially in early stages, is their reliance on unanalysed chunks. Before learners have generated the grammar necessary for producing target L2 structures, they tend to rely on a databank of set phrases and routines they have learned and which they have not analysed yet into their constituents. For example: comment t' appelles- tu? This structure is more complex than the language produced by learners. With time, these chunks become analysed and feed into the construction of grammar of learners ( Myles et al., 1998;19991.) This variability is also found in the rate and in the outcome. It remains difficult in Second Language Acquisition to predict what makes some people learn faster and better than other. Some factors as age could be the beginning of an answer. Yet believing that children are better L2 learners is an oversimplification, differences have been found between children and adults in term of outcome. Although teenagers and adults have been found to be better and faster L2 learners than young children in the initial stage of the process, children carry on progressing until they become undistinguishable from native speakers, whereas adults do not. In order to explain variability in rate and outcome, Second Language Acquisition researchers have focused on the role of external factors in the acquisition process. One line of research inquiry has addressed questions about the nature of the input and the role of interaction in the learning process. Other lines of inquiry have investigated the role of learners variables, such as intelligence, aptitude, phonological memory, motivation, attitude, as well as the social and sociolinguistic variables which impact on them. Florence Myles points out the fact the research in motivation are now a myriad. Motivation is now seen as an important factor that could explain variability. Some works have been done investigating issues such as the role of tasks in motivating learners, the role of the teacher in motivating learners, or the role of learning strategies in enhancing motivation. However motivation does not justify everything. Sometimes motivated children do not reach a good level or some structures. Some structures are very difficult to acquire in the L2, even when there is plenty of input, suggesting that some aspects of the language resist spontaneous acquisition no matter how motivated the learner is. As a conclusion to the first part of her article Florence Myles summarizes. There are some Similarities: Learners go through well-defined stages when acquiring the L1/L2 These stages are similar across learners However there also are some differences: L2 learners are highly variable in speed of acquisition and ultimate attainment there is transfer of some L1 properties L2 learners do not usually become native-like, especially in some areas of grammar or language use like pronunciation. The second part of her article focuses on the Theoretical Paradigms. Theoretical approaches are classified into two groups, approaches which aims to explain the nature of the L2 linguistic system, in term of what is similar across L1 and L2 and what is different. These are referred to as property theories. The second group focuses on the development of the learner system and what has an impact upon it, it is referred to as transition theories. The approach which has contributes the most to the understanding of the L2 linguistic system has been Universal Grammar. The Universal Grammar approaches applies the Chomskyan paradigm to the study of L2 development. The linguistic theory claims that human inherit a mental language faculty. Thanks to this mental faculty children acquire their first language easily and speedily, in spite of its complexity and abstractness, at their young age. If the L2 developmental route is similar to the L1 route, then it must be because the innate Universal Grammar constrains L2 development. Researchers generally agree that L2 learners do not produce " wild grammar" which violates the Universal Grammar. Consequently, L2 acquisition seems to be Universal Grammar-constrained. The Universal Grammar approach has been very influential, and has helped in the understanding of the L2 linguistic system, by providing a sophisticated analytical tool, as well as specific hypotheses about the nature of interlanguages. The other approach is called processing, it investigates how second languages learners process linguistic information, and how their ability to process the second language develops over time. Cognitive and information processing models claim that language learning is no different from other types of learning, and is the result of the human brain building up networks of associations on the basis of input. In both, Universal Grammar and cognitive models, the focus is on explaining learner-internal mechanisms, and how they interact with the input in order to give rise to learning. The other group of theoretical paradigms focus on the functional and pragmatic approaches. Researchers are concerned with the ways in which L2 learners set about making meaning and achieving their personal communicative goals. They argue that interlanguage forms produced by second language learners cannot be sensibly interpreted unless we pay attention also to the speech acts which learners are seeking to perform, and to the ways they exploit the immediate social, physical and discourse context to help them making meaning. These meaning-making efforts on the part of the learner are a driving force ongoing second language development, which interact with the development of formal grammatical systems. Another group of researchers focuses on the role of the input and output, it is called the interactionist approach. It has paid particular attention to the nature of the interactions L2 learners typically engage in. The last approach is a Sociocultural and Sociolinguistic approach. Researchers follow Vygotsky who believed that all learning was essentially social. Learners first need the help of experts in order to " scaffold" them into the next developmental stages before they can appropriate the newly acquired knowledge. Interaction plays a central role, not as a source of input, but as a sharper of development. The Vygotskian approach has been warmly received by educators, who view it as an exciting alternative for the renewal of the classroom. Sociolinguistic' work has focused in two areas. The first concerned with the quantitative study of variability in second language use. How learners acquired (or not ) the varied sociolinguistics registers typical of native varieties. Additionally, sociolinguists have given account of internal learner variability ( linguistic context, linguistic markedness). External factors and their impact on learner variability have also been studied ( gender-based variation). Sociolinguistic factors have been shown to play an important role, especially as learners become more advanced. The L2 ethnographers engaged in this work, like the sociocultural theorists, believe that language learning is socially constructed through interaction. But whereas sociocultural theorists pay great attention to the linguistic detail of expert/novive intraction, L2 ethnographers adopt a more "macro" approach to studying the learning context and learners' social engagement with it, and how these factors can speed up the learning process. They have been concerned with analying learners' changing identities as they engage with the L2 learning process, seeing constructs such as self-esteem, motivation... as changeable during the course of L2 interaction. Sociolinguistic approaches have been influential in helping the researchers understand learner variability and its many dimension.

Finally, even if one accepts the view that language development is highly constrained, for example by the Universal Grammar, it is not the whole picture. Moreover, if developmental sequences show how learners construct the L2 linguistic system, they do not tell anything about how learners develop their ability to access in real time the system they have constructed. According to Florence Myles," the fact that these two endeavours are independent is clearly evident when we think of learners who are good system builders, they are accurate in their productions, but not necessarily good at accessing this system in real time, they are very non-fluent." She points out that the reverse is also true, with some learners developing high levels of fluency quickly, but remaining very inaccurate in their productions. After having seen that the method chosen by a Foreign Language teacher has an impact on the learning as well as the words chosen and pointing out that all child is different in front of a Foreign Language. Lets now focus on the external factors that could influence the learning process. In 2008, in the journal Language Teaching Research was published an article entitled: //" A comparative study of Croatian and Hungarian EFL Students"// by Jetena Mihaljevic, Djigunovic, Marianne Nikolov and Istvan Otto. This article could help us understand why the results are so different between the two classes but also between the children. The authors point out some factors that might influence the result as the age, the sooner you start the better result you can achieve. However most experts reach the conclusion that gains in early Foreign Language programs are as important in the affective domain as in strictly linguistic gains and they manifest themselves only in the long run if conditions are favourable and the continuity is ensured. Intensity of teaching is also one of the factors. Many researchers agree to say that to learn a Foreign Language it is important to have, more then once a week, short regular lessons. The authors quote a study made by Curtain, she proves, in her study on young learners of Spanish in the United States of America, that learners in more intensive program score significantly higher on both achievement and proficiency tests than those in less intensive programs. Then, the groups size was also found to be irrelevant. In a smaller group, learners have more chance to interact in the Foreign Language with both peers and the teacher. Whereas in bigger groups, pupil can sometimes wait for a long time for their turn to interact and to participate in the classroom activities. Furthermore, the approach to teaching is teacher-centred which created a distance between the teacher and the pupils. The last factor is the educational context, Croats mostly need and use English both in their personal and professional lives. They also have qualified EFL teachers for a long time, an university level teaching degrees have been required.. Hungarian people are not that much interested in a Foreign Language. They ask three different questions, how do Croatian and Hungarian 8th grader's performances compare on EFL tests ; how do Croatian and Hungarian student's performances compare on EFL tests by groups and within groups and how do performances compare according to length of study, number of weekly classes and size of groups? The participants included seven hundred and seventeen learners, distributed in thirty nine groups. The students were aged fourteen and were in their last year of primary school. To make their study, the researchers used two test booklets in which there were activities such as reading comprehension, listening comprehension, writing and pragmatics. They also made a speaking test. The tests were meaning focused and were based on the levels learners were expected to reach at the end of year eight. The result clearly proved that Croatian students outperformed their Hungarian counterparts in all skill areas and consequently their total scores are also higher. This result is the consequence of three key factors. The first one is the years that students have participated in a Foreign Language classes. Hungarians starts earlier, fifty per cent of the population starts before grade four. The vast majority of the Croatian learners studied English from grade four. Consequently, an early start do not seem to guarantee higher achievement in year eight. Another key factor is the number of class per week. Hungarian learners get more English instruction in terms of time per week and finally Hungarian students learn English in small group whereas Croatian learners study English in whole classes. All the former theories have been proved wrong, Hungarians seem to have all the criterions to succeed but they failed. The difference in language learning outcomes must be caused by some other factors like the quality of English Language Teaching or the influence outside the classroom in the two educational contexts. In Hungary, teachers most often apply techniques of audio-lingual and grammar translation. Furthermore, if the students in good in the other subjects, he or she will start English sooner. In Croatia there is a wide use of the communicative approach and exposure to authentic materials in the class like films in Original Version. Their teachers have high proficiency levels. Croatian learners are exposed to a wide range of English input outside school. Yet, Croatian learners were better in listening and reading comprehension but the difference in speaking and writing achievement were not significant. Consequently, exposure does not necessarily guarantee development of productive skills. The most important factors are the quality of teaching and the exposure to and practice in the target language. Yet, the quality of teaching and the context are not the only key for proficiency. Children 's motivation is relevant. That a topic Juliana Shak and Sheena Gardner explore in the article: " //Young learner perspectives on four focus-on form task//" published in the Language Teaching Research in 2008. They focus on four focus-on form( Fonf). These focus on form allow learner with limited L2 experience to communicate. They have a positive effect on L2 acquisition for children aged twelve or bellow. A study made in 2002 by Ellis suggests that without focus -on forms, L2 children will continue to experience problems with basic structures. Harley noted in 1998 the importance of using stimulating and visually attractive Fonf activities and material for primary school children in order to promote attention. Yet learning activities are not directly influenced by the aspect of the tasks, children will only persist in learning tasks if they see them as worthwhile. Juliana Shak and Sheena Gardner used four different focus-on form tasks: consciousness raising, dictogloss, grammar interpretation and grammaring. The key feature of Consciousness raising tasks is the provision of data to learners which illustrate a specific linguistics form. Using the data, learners are required to understand the target form and may be asked to verbalize a language rule. During the dictogloss task, learners are required to listen to a short text read to them at normal speed, and have to reconstruct their version of the original text, first individually and then in small groups. Thanks to this exercise, learners become aware of their current language competence as they attempt text reconstruction. Grammar interpretation tasks engage the learners in the process of "noticing the gap" by making salient distinctions in meaning and use between related forms. Learners interpret the meaning of the texts leading to the reconstruction of their mental grammar. As for grammaring task, learners are required to extend he use of grammatical structure to attain communicative clarity. They were given a text with words only and were asked to reconstruct the text. The four tasks required children to discover rules for themselves through meaningful communication. Seventy eight students participated from three classes of primary schools. Three different schools were involved. Teachers were provided with lesson plans and task materials. The experience last for four weeks. Each week, the three groups of children were introduced to a different fonf task type. Each focus- on- form task type was taught over two days. Lesson on day one and two were similar, except that day one focused on providing comprehensible input for learners and day two usually required more learner production. Lessons took one hour. An attitude questionnaire was administrated to all children immediately after each Fonf lesson. The results found by the two researchers prove that children were motivated for all tasks but there was a marked preference for Grammar Interpretation task in terms of enjoyment, ease, performance and motivation. When the task was familiar, children reacted positively to it. Yet, children seem to dislike the written production. On one hand, children love activities which take place in groups or pair. They found pairs work easier and preferable to individual work. On the other hand, individual writing skill were last preferred because writing skill is often perceived as the most difficult language skill since it requires a higher level of productivity. The material design played a vital role on attracting children's interest even if it is not the only one. The seventy eight students report that they found the lessons enjoyable and easy. They were able to perform well, were motivated to do more focus-on-form tasks. Thus, through all those studies, it clearly appears that the acquisition of a second language goes through many stages and might be affected by a lot of factors, one of them is stress. An observation was made by Lori.A Jackson: " //Observing Children's Stress behaviors in a Kindergarten Classroom"// and was published in Early Childhood Research and Practice in Spring 2009, Vol 11. The researcher observes sixteen children aged five or six. Among those sixteen children, nine exhibited stress behaviours at some point. Stress expresses itself through nail biting, thumb or finger sucking, hair twirling and physical hostility. In the study, children show sign of stress when interacting with their teacher, Ms. Walker, in a one-on-one situation or when they were asked to either perform a task in front of a large group, or reading the word-wall or standing in front of the class retelling a story. They were also stressed during individual work time or when the teacher compliments or reprimands them, when he or she is the centre of attention. The origin of stress could be the task itself, if it is too difficult or performing it in front of other children. The teacher's words, tone or expressed expectation can caused the child to feel embarrassed. To avoid stress, researchers recommend highly structures classes, large group work, paper tasks, rote learning and direct teaching of discrete skills.