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Pinsel. AR: Baroque sculpture in augmented and virtual realities

The Pinsel.AR project, implemented by Lviv-based NGO Dialog Arts Council in partnership with the Wise Cow online educational platform, presents artistic achievements of the baroque sculptor Johann Pinsel in a format not widely employed in Ukraine: augmented reality. The Culture Bridges grant created five 3D high-precision models by Pinzel's master, launched a project site and recorded video lectures on the artist's work. Culture Bridges enabled the production of five 3D high-precision models of Pinsel sculptures, launch our website and record of a video course on Pinsel's work which has been posted at WiseCow.Com.ua.

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Pinsel. AR: Baroque sculpture in augmented and virtual realities The Pinsel.AR project, implemented by Lviv-based NGO Dialog Arts Council in partnership with the Wise Cow online educational platform, presents artistic achievements of the baroque sculptor Johann Pinsel in a format not widely employed in Ukraine: augmented reality.

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You may be familiar with the idea that 'children learn through play', although in ELT this isn't as widely acknowledged as it is in many mainstream education contexts. However, I have found that integrating some of the approaches from the UK's Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) framework has greatly improved the teaching and learning that takes place in my early years English classes. Adopting a play-based approach is one of them.

This blog post will give an overview of the benefits of play and suggest four simple ideas to integrate play into your lessons.

Learning through play

According to the EYFS Framework, play "is essential for children's development", and it encourages children to "learn to explore, to think about problems, and relate to others" (EYFS Framework, 2017, 9). It also states that play may become more adult-led as the children get nearer to the age when they start school, so it can support their transition to a more formal learning setting.

I have found that play allows early years children to explore, take risks, make mistakes, communicate with each other, and create tangible meaning. This obviously has implications in our classrooms in terms of language teaching, but also for interpersonal relationships and self-awareness. I also believe that play-based learning improves memory, as the positive, multi-sensory play experience anchors any target language in the children's minds.

Of course, in early years ELT, we are dealing with more than simply language teaching. We may be trying to teach a language set which the children have not even experienced in their L1. For example, I recently taught a lesson about the parts of a flower. The children were not even aware of the names for stem, roots, etc. in their mother tongue! So as early years English teachers, we really are helping the children develop in a myriad of ways, including teaching them about the world around them. It just happens to be in English.

Types of play

I like to consider play in four categories. Adult-led play is completely planned and controlled by an adult (e.g. the teacher). The adult is fully involved, and there may be a specific 'end-point' the adult is trying to reach. In adult-initiated play, the adult provides children the tools to play, for example, a set of soft toys, or a doctor's dress up kit. The theme is pre-planned by the adult, but the children are free to play as they wish. The adult may talk to the children as they play, for example, asking about what they are doing. In free play the adult provides children with a safe space and materials with which to play. They monitor, and may engage with the children, for example, by asking them about what they are doing (or trying to do). Finally heuristic play, which I think of as a type of free play. The children are given access to small objects (e.g. buttons, marbles, plastic shapes, pieces of string) and items such as cups or buckets. Again, an adult may talk to the children as they play, or choose to play along with them.

Classroom application - play stages

In your teaching context, you may be restricted by a language-led coursebook and/or a scheme of work. So how can we implement play-based learning in our ELT lessons? My early years lessons have become a lot more meaningful and enjoyable for the children since I started planning for a short play stage every lesson. Here are some ideas to try:

At the start of your lesson, why not use adult-initiated play to demonstrate the context of the language you are teaching? For example, in a lesson about different jobs, bring in a range of toys and dress-up materials related to jobs. Lay out the items during circle time and ask the children questions about the different jobs. Play with the children, allowing them to pretend to be racing car drivers, cooks, film stars, pop singers or fire fighters, for example! Ensure the children are hearing the target language from your scheme of work, but also make sure the language is coming alive and is meaningful for them.

After introducing the target lexical set from your scheme of work, you could include an adult-initiated play stage. For example, if the target language of the lesson is daily routines, set up an area of your classroom like a house, with images tacked on the wall to demonstrate the different rooms. Show the children how they can play in the different 'rooms' of the house, for example, by miming brushing your teeth or eating breakfast. Once the children have seen you model this play, they will eagerly join in.

Allow the children to play as they wish, within the context you have set up. For example, you may find they start playing 'families'. Although this is not the aim of your lesson, it is demonstrating that they are developing an understanding of the meaning of your target lexical set.

At the end of your lessons, consider including a free play stage. Put a collection of toys and dress up materials in a place where the children can access them, and when the children are ready (for example, they have tidied up or have finished another activity), allow the children to play freely. You will no doubt want to observe closely, and as a language teacher, you may want to chat to the children in English as they play or feed in useful language. The children may not respond in English, which is fine.

Prepare a bag or box with a collection of items of different shapes, sizes, and textures. I like to use buttons, string, cardboard tubes from kitchen tissue rolls, plastic jars, marbles, building blocks, and pieces of felt. At the end of my lessons, I give the children time to play with these items in any way they please. I talk to them throughout this stage, but there is no explicit language focus. I am just helping them explore, experiment, and develop.

Considerations

L1 - It is important to remember that the children may not speak English when they are engaged with play. However, this does not mean it is not useful in the language classroom. Play can set a meaningful context for the target language which is essential in language learning for children. It also gives us the opportunity to teach words and phrases which the children actually need.

Parent / caregiver expectations - Bear in mind that parents and caregivers (or even your academic manager!) may not understand the value of play. Certainly, with parents and caregivers, it is worth communicating your rationale for integrating a play stage in your lessons at the start of the course. Helping them to understand how their children learn will help them feel confident in your teaching methods. It may even encourage them to play with their child in English at home, which will be beneficial.

Time - You may have little time with the children every week, or you may find 'covering' everything on the syllabus a challenge already. Why not see if you can swap some language-led (or worksheet-led) activities for some play-based ones? You will find the children will be actively engaged, and the only preparation required is for you to find some toys or objects related to your target language. It certainly is a more worthwhile use of fifteen minutes than giving them a worksheet to colour in!

Summary

Play is the way children explore, develop and learn. We can easily add a stage to our English lessons to allow for some play. Why not experiment and add a play stage to your next early years English lesson?

If you would like to find out more about the EYFS Framework, click here.

References

Statutory framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage, 2017. Retrieved from https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/596629/EYFS_STATUTORY_FRAMEWORK_2017.pdf

Blogger's Bio

Helen - Helen Chapman is a teacher, YL materials writer and occasional EAP consultant and editor. Currently based in Portugal, she has also taught in Spain, Poland and the UK. Her interests include Early Years, Primary (especially developing the whole child) and EAP. She is also fascinated with exploring teacher beliefs and with the integration of learner reflection in lessons. She writes an Early Years and Primary ELT blog (https://helenchapmanelt.wordpress.com) and tweets from @HelenChapmanELT. You can contact her at misshelenchapman84@gmail.com
https://helenchapmanelt.wordpress.com

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The Value of Play in Early Years ELT - YLT

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You may be familiar with the idea that 'children learn through play', although in ELT this isn't as widely acknowledged as it is in many mainstream education contexts. However, I have found that integrating some of the approaches from the UK's Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) framework has greatly improved the teaching and learning that takes place in my early years English classes.

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When teachers complete their CELTA (or equivalent course), they are more than likely going to be teaching young learners. Something which is not necessarily covered in great detail during their course. You are expected to teach young learners of any age - and I have written a blog post about teaching primary aged learners - I hope this post is more focused on the teaching of learners which are from the ages of 10 years or above. I personally remember completing the CELTA course, only to return to teaching young learners. Much of what I learnt teaching young learners was through personal experience in the classroom and chatting to other young learner teachers. However, it can be quite daunting for any newly certified teacher to enter a YL class and expect to teach. Hopefully, this post will give teachers - no matter their experience - ten practical ideas to develop confidence when entering a young learner class.

1. Remember Names

When teaching any learners for the first time, it is vital to develop rapport with these students. The same can be said for young learners. One way to develop rapport is to remember the names of your students. This could be achieved by getting students to make name cards which could then be propped up at their desk or you could draw the classroom layout and write down the names of the students on this. When nominating students to answer a question, call them by their name. This will make the young learners feel that their teacher cares about them and is working with them.

2. Get To Know You (GTKY) Activities

Once you have got students to make a poster or create their own name cards, what do you do next? Well the most suitable thing to do next is to tell students a little more about yourself. There are many different GTKY activities which you could incorporate in class but here are some of my tasks.
What's The Question?
Write up ten answers about yourself on the whiteboard, such as things related to where you are from, your hobbies, family, age (if you wish), musical instruments you can play, any languages you can speak and anything else. Put the students into small groups of three or four students. The group of students then have to think of questions which will give the answers written on the whiteboard. For example, if I have written up "Tenor saxophone" the students will have to ask the question "What musical instrument can you play?" Should they ask the correct question, then you can tick it on the whiteboard. This activity lasts around 20-30 minutes. If students don't know each other, you could personalise the activity and get the students to do the same thing with their group. Students could then share anything that they found interesting in their group and share with the rest of the class.
Two Truths And One Lie
Write three sentences about yourself on the whiteboard with one of the sentences being false and the other two being true. You could write up:
I have lived in 6 countries I can read and write Korean I am 40 years old
I usually write (as I have written here) my age as false (I will not be telling anyone my real age as it's far too embarrassing) and the students have to guess which is true or false. It gives students a lot to talk about and share before deciding. Students could then ask follow up questions and feel free to personalise it for the students and they can do it in their groups or in pairs should they not know each other.
This Is Me
Before class, get some pictures to show to your class about your hometown, family, friends and hobbies. You could use this to tell them about yourself and then the students then retell each other using the pictures as prompts. Give them a worksheet with comprehension questions to answer and see if they can remember anything. Work together as a class to figure out the answers. The students could then do a similar activity by bringing in photos (or showing them on their smartphones) and telling others about themselves.
Important Object
Bring in an object to the first class which you consider to be important to you. It doesn't need to be anything large or clumsy. You could bring in a favourite CD or a toy you have had since you were very young. Before showing the object to the class, get the students to guess what is in the bag or box. Board up some ideas and review some functional language "I guess it might be ...", "It could be ...", etc. Once you have some ideas up on the whiteboard, show students the object and tell them why it is important to you. As with the other ideas, you could ask students to bring in an object next lesson which they consider to be important for themselves.

3. Rules For The Classroom

Once you know the names of your students, generated some rapport and feel comfortable with the learners, you could then progress towards classroom rules with students. This will lay the foundation for positive and appropriate behaviour in class and will reinforce what is acceptable and unacceptable in class. It is vital that teachers make students aware of what is expected. One way to do this is by developing classroom rules.
Students Created Rules
You could put students into small groups or pairs to work together and developing a poster based on classroom rules. Review some of the rules as a class and establish a final classroom poster based upon the input from all students. Put it up in one corner of the room and refer to it when reminding students of acceptable behaviour and whether they have broken a rule. You could ask students what would happen if a rule is broken while creating the final version of the rules poster.
Class Contract
This is quite a popular idea for creatively developing rules for the class. Instead of creating a list of rules to be displayed in the classroom, you work with the students to create a contract for the class: one for the Student Class Contract and another for Teacher Class Contract. Here is an example contract for both student and teacher below.

The students will ...

arrive to class on time.

speak English during the lesson.

refrain from using their smartphones in class.

put their hand up when asking a question.

The teacher will ...

start and finish class on time.

give homework on Wednesday and Thursday.

give students feedback on speaking activities.

have a game at the end of the class.

4. Set Up Routines

It is important for any young learner class to develop routines for the benefit of the students. It will make the delivering of lessons easier and students will feel at ease. There are a couple of things which will help you keep control of the classroom if you incorporate them into your routines. Here are some ideas to include throughout the lesson as part of a routine.

Before letting students into class, they could line up quietly outside the class.

When you let them enter the class, you could say hello to the student and ask a question such as "What did you do last night?" This will get students into English.

Once students enter the class, they must put their coat away and their bag under their chair, find their name on the desk and sit down quietly. This takes a bit of training but before you know it the students will be doing this automatically.

Start the lesson with a vocabulary review from the day before for five minutes. You could have a game or competitive activity (back to the board, picture and flashcard matching task, etc.).

Have a wind chime or whistle to indicate a change in activity or to get the attention of all learners. You could also get students' attention by saying "1, 2, 3 [teacher] eyes on me [all students]!"

Students sing a tidy up song or rhyme when clearing their desk and cleaning the classroom.

Before the students leave the classroom, stand by the door and say goodbye to each person and high five them.

5. Use Flashcards

One recommendation for any young learner teacher is to make and use lots of flashcards in your classes. If I had been told about using flashcards in class before teaching children, it would have made my life a lot easier. There are some great games you could include in class with flashcards and I would urge any new teacher to do this. It does take some preparation to compile your own flashcards: you have to print them out, maybe colour them, and laminate them so you can reuse them. However, here are some games and activities which you could include with flashcards below.
Flashcard Pairs (Pelmanism)
This is the first game many EFL teachers learn. You have two pairs of flashcards: usually one with a picture and another with a word. You place them all face down and students take two flashcards (one at a time) and if the picture and the word matches, then they score a point and keep the cards. The student with the most amount of flashcards is the winner.
Hit The Flashcard
Stick up all the flashcards on the whiteboard and put the class into two teams. Each team line up in single file facing the whiteboard and the two young learners at the front of the class have a piece of A4 paper rolled up into a long narrow piece which can then be used to hit the whiteboard. You call out the word and the student has to hit the corresponding flashcard. The team with the most amount of correct hits is the winner. This game can become quite competitive with students becoming rather energetic.

For more ideas for lesson activities with flashcards, then have a look at a previous blog post I wrote.

6. Promote Positive Behaviour

One of the more complicated issues surrounding young learners is classroom management and the promotion of positive behaviour. It is crucial for students to see that their positive behaviour is recognised and rewarded. You could reward students with a movie at the end of the week or with a game at the end of the class - when I was teaching in South Korea, one teacher rewarded the kids with sweets. Nowadays, there are some wonderful applications available now to monitor and encourage young learners.
Students Created Rules
As mentioned before, you could put students into small groups or pairs to work together and developing a poster based on classroom rules. Review some of the rules as a class and establish a final classroom poster based upon the input from all students. Put it up in one corner of the room and refer to it when reminding students of acceptable behaviour and whether they have broken a rule. You could ask students what would happen if a rule is broken while creating the final version of the rules poster.
Behaviour Chart
Another idea to promote positive behaviour is to create a behaviour chart (see image on the left) which will encourage students to work towards a goal. The idea behind a behaviour chart is to remind students what is acceptable and unacceptable behaviour. All students have a named clothes peg and they are all attached to "Ready to Learn". If a student works well and uses English to ask something to a friend, their peg moves up. If a student doesn't complete the task set or reverts back to L1 during a speaking activity, then their peg moves down. You could set an objective and say "If 15 students end on 'Super Student' by the end of the class, then you will be able to play a game/watch a movie/etc." This will motivate students and encourage learners to participate and use English in class.
Marble Jar
Another idea to promote positive behaviour is to use a jar and marbles. Select a small enough jar which will not take forever to fill with marbles but not too small. Each time a student completes a task, give that student a marble to place in the jar. You could remove marbles for inappropriate behaviour. Once the jar is full with marbles, the students could be rewarded.
ClassDojo
ClassDojo.com is an electronic version of the marble jar or the behaviour chart. You can organise classes with avatars with students, sync it with parents and also add points and recognise particular behaviour. You can also set a goal and arrange rewards much like the other ideas above. I would definitely recommend teachers to consider this and it would also engage those younger learners.

7. Use Games

One tip for any teachers is to include games in the class. If you are teaching vocabulary, use games. If you are promoting speaking fluency, use games. Young learners respond positively to any competitive activity set in class and will engage learners immediately. It is always best to train learners the games that you will use in class and there are some favourites among teachers. Below are some of the best games to use, which young learners will know.
Twenty Questions
This game is a really popular game, once young learners know what to do. You choose one student to sit at the front of the class and show them one vocabulary (preferably one for review) and the other students must ask the student at the front of the class closed questions ("Do you ...?" "Are you ...?" "Can you ...?"). The students have only 20 questions to ask the student and the only reply the student can say is "Yes" or "No". Students must calculate the word that the person has. If students guess the correct word, then they get a point. If they don't know the word, then the person sitting gains a point. You could make this activity more competitive by putting students into teams. The team to guess the word correctly, gets a point.
Back to the Board
Another popular activity is to put a student at the front of the class and write a word (preferably one that you are reviewing) on the whiteboard. The student selected to sit at the front of the class cannot see the word on the whiteboard but the other students in front of him must try to explain the word. If the student guesses the word correctly, then that student gets a point. As mentioned before, you could make the game more competitive by getting two students up to the front of the class and splitting the class into two teams. The team to guess the word correctly gets a point. The team with most points are the winners.
Chinese Whispers
This is a really popular game to get students to think about spelling and is a great task for learners to focus on listening and pronunciation. You get the students into two teams and lined up to the whiteboard. Make sure you write one word on a slip of paper prior to starting the lesson and it is always a good idea to review vocabulary or phrases which have been taught in previous classes. Anyhow, you get students lined up to the board in two teams and the two students nearest the board each has a board marker. You show the word to students at the back of the classroom and then they have to whisper the word to the student in front of them. The final student has to write the word on the whiteboard. If the student has written the word correctly, then they get one point. The team with the most points at the end of the task are the winners.
Hangman
This game is another popular vocabulary review activity. I don't necessarily need to explain the rule of this game as I am sure readers will know what to do. However, if you are still unsure, watch this video to see how to play this game.

So here we have a few of the popular games which I am sure almost all teachers have used in class. There are many other games and it would be good if you could share them in the comments section below.

8. Compliment Learners

This may not so obvious but learners, especially those who are younger, need constant encouragement and one way is to compliment the learners for anything: effort, participation, pronunciation, use of English, etc. If you are learning a language, if a teacher compliments you on one area, it will encourage you try harder. If you receive no recognition then it is likely to demotivate you. So I would highly recommend any teacher to compliment learners in class and do not just compliment one individual all the time as this will cause issues as well. Try to compliment all the students at the same time: "Juan, your speaking was really fluent this time and Jose your pronunciation was very good. Maria, I thought your accuracy was very very good."

9. Be Yourself

It is easy for teachers to fulfil the role as a teacher in the class but then lose sight of being themselves in class. For example, teachers could easily fall into the role of an autocratic teacher, telling students to complete worksheets, setting up tasks and then before you know it, the students are just automatically following what is set in class with minimal engagement. I would recommend teachers to be natural and themselves in class. This does not mean that you lose authority in class or the students end up dictating what is happening in class but the students learn more about the real you and then they can also be themselves. There are obviously times when you need to control the classroom or act in a particular role during the lesson.

10. Enjoy Teaching Children

Teachers could be doing everything right in class (games, routines, etc.) but still not really be connecting with the young learners. If you do not enjoy teaching children, then there is not a lot that can be done. There are some wonderful teachers who are very good at teaching adults but dislike children but then I have also met teachers who are wonderful with children and not very good teaching adults. If you enjoy teaching children, then you are already halfway there.

I hope you found this blog post useful and please share with teachers who are just starting their teaching career. What advice would you give newly certified teachers? What are your favourite EFL games?

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10 Tips for Teaching Young Learners - ELT Experiences

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When teachers complete their CELTA (or equivalent course), they are more than likely going to be teaching young learners. Something which is not necessarily covered in great detail during their course.

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Julie Danneberg

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Last year, I was surfing Pinterest hoping to find some interesting ideas to implement in my AP World History class. I came across several articles where individuals had used the classic tales animated by Walt Disney to encourage student learning.

After thinking on this, I had an epiphany: What if I had students use historical knowledge they had gained throughout the course to pick out inaccuracies in Disney films? This had the potential to be an interesting project for students to explore a movie of their choosing and develop a polished presentation to teach their peers about the selected time period and region. I wanted to create an assignment in which students harnessed and nurtured their creative abilities but also accomplished the goals.

After extensive planning, I was able to develop a project that embodied the analysis of historical context, a fun animated classic, and also primary sources. The parameters for the culminating project were as follows:

1. Summarize the story as portrayed by Disney.

2. Determine the origins of the fairy tale behind the movie. Where did the fairy tale originate in the world? How true to the tale did Disney stay?

3. Determine the setting of the movie (time and place) and whether the architecture is appropriate. For example, is Mulan set in Han China, when the Forbidden City had not yet been constructed?

Is the clothing congruent with the setting? How accurate is the appearance of the characters? Are there any geographic misrepresentations? For example, does Hercules mention visiting Mount Kilimanjaro in Greece?

4. Determine what was going on the world at this point in history. Consider all events globally and identify at least one major event from each continent (except Antarctica).

5. What historical inaccuracies can you find in the movie? Aside from talking animals and the magical powers of wands and genies, what fallacies are represented in the movie?

6. Select two primary sources from someone who would have been a contemporary during the time and in the location of the movie's setting. If Beauty and Beast takes place in Revolutionary France, you can use a letter from Robespierre. This source should be connected in some way to the movie. If you use Robespierre's letter, perhaps you want to relate it to Gaston in his attempt to raid the castle.

As with any new project, I had some trepidation about whether the outcome would be as desired. There were several potential flaws that occurred to me. "What if the students really just see this as an excuse to watch a movie and really don't analyze it as I envision? What if the students just decide to turn in poster paper? What if I haven't prepared my students to think about these movies in a global context and really analyze them? Have I really thought through any possible hiccups? With so little guidance into what the final product should look like, what should I expect?" Because my students had worked so hard to prepare for the AP test, I figured I would wing it. Trial and error, right?

At the end of this project, I was more than impressed. Of course, there are always modifications to be made, but essentially all of my students created final presentation products that were polished, analytical, and comprehensive. I received some Prezi presentations, video compilations, elaborate PowerPoints, and even a PowToon.

Several of my students reported that they had learned more from this project than any other assignment in their history classes. Others reported that the freedom they were given to search out resources and to create a product in a format other than a written report was refreshing.

I consider every lesson a learning experience, no matter how many times it has been implemented. This lesson with a select group of students has taught me that project-based learning encourages a deeper learning model. I have also learned that despite our best intentions to maintain a structured environment, there is something beneficial about letting students guide their own learning. We as teachers all know that our students learn more when they are interested in a topic, but letting them drive their own learning takes this to the next level.

I consider this assignment a success and plan to implement it again this spring. I'm still considering taking it even further into the redefinition category-for you fans of SAMR (substitution, augmentation, modification, and redefinition).

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Project-Based Learning Using Disney Movies | Edutopia

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Last year, I was surfing Pinterest hoping to find some interesting ideas to implement in my AP World History class. I came across several articles where individuals had used the classic tales animated by Walt Disney to encourage student learning.

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Soon, "ESL" will have a whole new meaning in your class:
Exciting, Stress-free Learning!
That's exactly the type of English learning you will see when your students play action-packed games.

Letting your students cut loose and have a bit of fun with their learning is a formula for success, growth and confidence.

Plus games are essential to the learning environment you create in your classroom. They promote fun, excitement, English language skills, and above all, a welcomed break from the traditional lesson.

With the five collaborative games we have for you below, your ESL students will be able to learn while having some hearty laughs.

Why Games Are Essential for the ESL Classroom

Promote communication. An emphasis on communication and collaboration is also present in well-developed ESL game lesson plans. Your students want to learn English in order to enjoy discussion with others in English. Games are an exceptional format for this specific learning goal. They will enjoy the games you implement and at the same time, enjoy the company and communication time they have with their fellow students.

Develop ESL skills. Students have the opportunity to learn vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, reading, English expression, conversation and collaboration when playing games. Your students will learn without feeling like they are learning, and these games often involve action and practical usage of English.

Build confidence and kick stress to the curb. Games are also essential for creating a stress-free atmosphere for your students to learn in. With textbooks closed and groups formed, the stress of learning dissipates. When stress is removed from the equation, individual confidence can begin to blossom in each of your students. Many aspects of ESL revolve around confidence and without it, most students would never utter a word.

Eliminating stress and creating a fun, exciting classroom activity that promotes learning and confidence are vital ingredients to wonderful games. Let's take a look at a few student and teacher favorites you can add to your weekly syllabus.

5 Collaborative Group Games for Your ESL Classroom
Here are a few example categories:

Words that start with C: car, cow, candle, couch, castle

Popular countries: USA, France, Canada, Germany, Mexico

Things you cannot see: love, friendship, sadness, guilt, thoughts

1. One Million Dollar Pyramid

This game promotes communication, collaboration, listening and English expression as students race to get as many words as they can. You will need to do a bit of prep work for this game, and need either an overhead projector or a projector connected to your computer. You will create 20 categories with five words relating to each category.
Here's how it works:
The student facing the screen (let's call them "Student S") will tell their teammate, Student A, three topics they can choose from.

Student A, the one facing away from the projector screen, will then choose a topic. Student S will now be able to see the five words for that specific topic on the screen.

Student S will try to get Student A to guess the first word on the list by describing it with single words-not complete sentences. Student S can use any word they like, as long as it is not the target word. Once Student A has guessed the first word, Student S will begin describing the second word, and so forth. They have one minute to get as many of the five words as they can.

Teams get money values for each right word guessed and the two teams take turns choosing, describing and guessing. The first team to $1 million wins.
Here's how it works:
Once the groups are formed, hand out their color-coordinated balloons.

Have students keep the balloons on the floor as they stand a few feet away. Once you say "go," they will grab a balloon and try to pop it only using their elbows or knees.

Once students pop a balloon, they can retrieve the word slip and place it to the side. Once a group has popped all their balloons, they will begin piecing together the sentence.

The first group to get the sentence correct wins.

Once you create your 20 categories with five words for each, you can put them into a presentation program (like PowerPoint) to make the game even more streamlined.

Divide your students into two teams and place two chairs between the teams. One chair will be facing the projected screen and the other chair will be facing away from the screen. Two players from one team will participate in one turn.
Here's how it works:
Separate your students into groups. An ideal number of students per group is four.

Once your students are in groups, give them one deck of 10-20 proverbs, designed as mentioned above. All cards should have the second part of the proverb facing up (blue color writing).

Using your master list of proverbs, say the first part of the first proverb aloud. Students should work together in their groups to choose the correct ending to the proverb. They will flip cards over until they find the right one.

The first group to get the correct proverb card gets a point. The game will continue in the same fun way until class time runs out or all proverbs are finished. The team with the most points wins.
Here's how it works:
Separate your class into groups of five or six students per group. Students should sit on the floor in a line, with each student having a designated spot.

The first student in the line for each group will have a pencil and paper. To begin, say a verb familiar to your students, maybe a verb you have recently gone over together.

Once the first student hears the verb, they will write a subject pronoun with the verb. For example, you if you say, "run" the first student could write "I run" on the paper.

After writing, the first student passes the paper down to the next student in the line. This student will write a different subject pronoun matching the verb-in any tense. For example, "She ran."

Once all students have written his or her subject pronoun with the target verb, the last student in the line stands up and copies all their answers on the board.
Here's how it works:
Divide your class into two teams. Have a student from team A pick a category, and then secretly choose an item which belongs in that category. This is the word that team B will have to guess in 20 questions.

I recommend that a student from team A writes down the word and shows it to you ahead of time, so you can decide if it is an appropriate choice (a common noun that has been discussed in class or is very familiar for the class).

Students from team B now begin asking yes-or-no questions one at a time, in order to guess the item.
Stephen Seifert is a writer, editor, professor of English and adventurer. With over 7 years of teaching experience to students worldwide, he enjoys the many aspects of culture and traditions different from his own. Stephen continues his search for writing inspiration, boldly enjoying life to the fullest.
If the answer to a question is yes, then that same student can ask another question. If the answer is no, then the next student on team B will ask a question.
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Be sure to also rotate which students answer the question on team A, to encourage participation.

If the answer isn't guessed within 20 questions, no point is given. After team B is finished, they will pick a category and noun, which team A will then try to guess in 20 questions or less.

The first team to complete all tasks wins. It is great to move the line order around, giving every student a chance to write on the board.

2. Balloon Sentence Buster

This game is perfect for vocabulary building, grammar and sentence structure with an added pop! To prepare you will create short sentences on paper, and then cut up the sentences-separating them into words or small groupings of words from the sentence. But don't get them mixed up! You will want to keep a sentence's parts together in a pile for the next step.

After everything is separated, place each slip into a balloon, blow it up and tie it. This game works best if you color-coordinate your balloons for each group of four students. For example, group one will have red balloons and group two will have green balloons. You will want each group to have a full sentence. Whether each group has a different sentence or the same is up to you when you prepare the game.

It is also fun to put a few words in balloons that do not relate to the target sentence-though in this case, let your students know that there will be extra words. This will create an opportunity for students to collaborate more as they put the sentence puzzle together.

3. Proverb Party

Proverbs are often used in English, and they are a fun way to begin implementing phrases, phrasal verbs and idioms into your students' vocabularies. This game promotes listening, quick English thinking, sentence structure, collaboration and communication.

To get your proverb party lesson ready, you will need a list of 10-20 proverbs and a big stack of 4×6 note cards. Write the first half of each proverb on one side of a card, and the second half on the other side. It is a good idea to separate the two sides by color. For example, the first part of the proverb will be in red and the second part in blue. This will keep things organized as your students begin flipping cards.

You will need two to four decks of these proverbs, depending how many groups you will have. It is recommended to have two to six students per group, depending on class size.

4. The Verb Boat Race

The verb boat race is an exciting game that involves connecting subject pronouns with verbs. The skills this game promotes are writing, collaboration, reading and quick English expression as groups race down the line, matching subject pronouns with verbs.

You will need just a pencil and paper for each group in this game. This activity is best if desks are removed and students can sit on the floor, changing the class environment in an exciting way.

To make the game more challenging, one variation would be to assign a specific verb tense that must be used.

5. 20 Questions

This game is a true student pleaser, evoking quick English thought, action, question and answer format, speaking, communication and listening. It is exciting and can be quite challenging for even your most studious ESL students.

Ahead of time, create a few categories for your students to choose from. Some example categories that work well are vegetables, animals and land features. Your students will have 20 questions to guess the correct noun a student is thinking of.

Games are an exceptional way to eliminate the stress that can arise from learning a new language, while promoting fun and vital ESL skills. These five excellent games all promote group cohesion and communication, and really put a fun spin on learning new English words, phrases, proverbs, and more.

Use these games with your students today to deliver practical English skills they will need in real life, while taking a much-welcomed break from classroom routine!

If you liked this post, something tells me that you'll love FluentU, the best way to teach English with real-world videos.

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Playful Packs: 5 Dynamic Games for Group Collaboration in the ESL Classroom

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Soon, "ESL" will have a whole new meaning in your class:Exciting, Stress-free Learning!That's exactly the type of English learning you will see when your students play action-packed games.Letting your students cut loose and have a bit of fun with their learning is a formula for success,

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Engaging group activities

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Who doesn't love games?
Working together can be a great way for shy students to get more involved with classmates in an easygoing atmosphere.

During group activities, ESL students can engage in authentic vocabulary practice while having a great time.

There are many ways to bring group work into your ESL classroom, even when you're on a tight budget. Games and group activities can focus on materials you already have, like cards and music.

Students who are tactile or kinesthetic learners will benefit greatly from learning through games and group work. Students of varying English levels can work together to support each other, make decisions together and learning from one another. Games and group work can involve all of the aspects of language-listening, speaking, reading and writing.

Totally convinced that group activities need to be part of your next lesson plan?

Then here are some great ways to get your ESL students working together!

1. Who Am I? What Am I?

Using sticky notes or index cards, list common household or school-related objects on each one. Have each student pick a card without looking at what it says. Then have them stick it to his or her own forehead.

Students then ask their fellow students questions that have "yes" or "no" answers in order to figure out what their card says. Before beginning the activity, you may want to brainstorm the types of questions that will help students figure out their cards.

For more advanced students, cards can list literary characters, book titles or even idioms. Another option is to keep all of the cards related to one theme-like health words, clothing, colors or even slang. Check out the flashcards at FluentU to help make creating the word cards even easier.

This group activity allows ESL students to practice vocabulary, comprehension, speaking and listening skills. It can be modified to include writing if you ask the students to create the cards, rather than doing it yourself.

2. Oral Storytelling

Have students sit in a circle. Begin telling a story by speaking one sentence aloud.

The student on your left should add to the story by speaking a second sentence aloud. The student to his or her left should speak the next sentence aloud, and so on. Keep the story going around the circle one sentence at a time until it comes to a logical conclusion.

Remind students that each sentence should build on the one before it. It's easy for students to add in something offbeat or random to try to be silly, but the goal of this lesson is to create a logical story. One way to keep the story on track might be to record it. For beginning ESL students, consider speaking sentences out loud and asking them to add one word at a time. They could even draw or hold up pictures to add to the story.

This group activity helps students develop listening comprehension and speaking skills. Students have to be able to follow along with the story, listening closely to what the people before them just said, and they have to think critically to build a correct sentence of their own.

In addition to language skills, you can choose topics for the story that revolve around cultural symbols, like the White House, or about cultural norms, like timeliness. For example, you could start the story with the sentence, "My name is President Barack Obama and I live in the White House."

3. Written Storytelling

Divide the class into small groups. Each group gets to choose three random words from a bag and must incorporate each word into a short story. Depending on your students' levels of English acquisition, you can assign specific numbers of characters, amount of dialogue, length, etc. to be included in the story.

At the end of the lesson, groups can take turns reading stories aloud. For increased participation and extra practice with speaking, you can ask the students who are listening to the story to comment on their classmates' work. For beginning students, sentence starters like, "I liked...." or "what did you mean by...?" can be helpful to encourage feedback.

Both the written storytelling and the small group discussion that follows are valuable practice time. Together, they'll help students practice written and spoken English in one swoop. As in the oral storytelling suggestion above, assign topics that require students to discuss American customs or cultural norms, like privacy, personal space, hygiene or dining. This adds an additional challenge for more advanced students and gets all students to improve their cultural literacy.

4. What's the Question? Quiz Game

Show students a clip from the television game show, "Jeopardy." Ask them to discuss what makes this show different from other quiz shows. If some frame of reference is needed, you can also play clips of shows like "The Price is Right" and "Family Feud." For more support, direct them to listen carefully to how the host asks a question.

Students should discover that in "Jeopardy," contestants have to ask a question in response to being given the answer. Put students in teams and play a few rounds of "Jeopardy." You can find free, premade "Jeopardy" games in PowerPoint format all over the Internet on sites like Kids' ESL Games. Or, you can download a free "Jeopardy" template and create your own game based on whatever topics your students are learning.

This game allows groups to work together to form grammatically correct questions. Because the format of the game forces students to work backwards and make connections between the topic and the given answer, it's helping them to build critical thinking skills. Though it feels like a game, this type of language work is challenging. To simplify it for beginning ESL students, consider using pictures as the answers and question stems like "What is a...?" written on sentence strips for students to easily use for reference.

5. Unscramble the Song

Print multiple copies of the lyrics to a popular song. Cut the lyrics into small sections or, for more advanced students, into individual words. Divide the class into teams. Give each team a set of cut up lyrics.

Play the song as many times as needed while teams race to unscramble the lyrics and paste them together in the correct order. Bonus points to you if you can play the song and sing it yourself. Your students would love that!

Many ESL students credit their language acquisition to pop culture media like movies and songs. Bringing popular music into the classroom is a great way to engage students in this group activity. In addition, each student in the group has to use careful listening skills and employ precise word order, especially if you choose a fast song or one with commonly misheard lyrics.

Once students have completed the task, you can begin to incorporate more advanced English instruction around musical vocabulary, by teaching words like bridge, chorus and hook.
Group work benefits all students.
It gets students talking to each other about their classwork and it helps them learn to listen to one another's ideas. Group work benefits you, the teacher, too. It helps you come up with meaningful, authentic lesson ideas that engage students in ways that are most beneficial to them.

Group work ignites different parts of the brain and allows different types of learners to be successful. Group work gives you a way to assess both formal and informal language skills, as students work socially to complete something academic in nature.

As the inspirational Helen Keller once said, "Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much."

Oh, and One More Thing...

If you liked these fun activities, you'll love using FluentU in your classroom. FluentU takes real-world videos-like music videos, cartoons, documentaries and more-and turns them into personalized language learning lessons for you and your students.

It's got a huge collection of authentic English videos that people in the English-speaking world actually watch on the regular. There are tons of great choices there when you're looking for songs for in-class activities.

You'll find music videos, musical numbers from cinema and theater, kids' singalongs, commercial jingles and much, much more.

On FluentU, all the videos are sorted by skill level and are carefully annotated for students. Words come with example sentences and definitions. Students will be able to add them to their own vocabulary lists, and even see how the words are used in other videos.

For example, if a student taps on the word "brought," they'll see this:

Plus, these great videos are all accompanied by interactive features and active learning tools for students, like multimedia flashcards and fun games like "fill in the blank."

It's perfect for in-class activities, group projects and solo homework assignments. Not to mention, it's guaranteed to get your students excited about English!

If you liked this post, something tells me that you'll love FluentU, the best way to teach English with real-world videos.
Bring English immersion to your classroom!

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Learning Together: 5 Engaging Group Activities for Your ESL Classroom

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Who doesn't love games?Working together can be a great way for shy students to get more involved with classmates in an easygoing atmosphere.During group activities, ESL students can engage in authentic vocabulary practice while having a great time.There are many ways to bring group work

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5 Ways to Find Great ESL Teaching Materials on a Budget

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5 Ways to Find Great ESL Teaching Materials on a Budget

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Are you having a tough time finding reasonably priced ESL teaching materials?

Sick of discovering the perfect lesson plan, only to realize that they're charging an arm and a leg for it?

Fancy books and lesson plans are often overpriced, and for most English teachers, the budget just doesn't allow for big splurges.

Fortunately, it's fairly easy to find affordable ESL teaching materials. From worksheets and lesson plans to video and audio resources, there is plenty available for every budget. You just need to know where to look.

1. Talk to Other ESL Teachers

Your fellow teachers can be wonderful resources, both online and off. Even if you've been teaching for a while, coming up with new techniques and ideas can be hard sometimes. Why not network with others who know what you're dealing with?

Forums

An ESL teaching forum is an excellent place to find resources and materials that are freely available. Sometimes, people will offer their own lesson plans for free, or they might link to materials online. Even if you come away with nothing but new ideas, it's well worth getting involved on a forum or two. Dave's ESL Cafe forum and Waygook, which is primarily used by ESL teachers in South Korea, are two great active forums to start with.

Teacher Exchanges

Exchanges, swaps or whatever you want to call them let teachers mix it up a little. Bring along the lesson plans or books that you have but don't need anymore, and swap them for something more exciting. These exchanges can also be held online, so keep an eye out. You'll probably hear about online exchanges on teaching forums first, but don't be afraid to take initiative and start one near you!

2. Take Advantage of the Internet

The Internet will quickly become your best friend when you need a new lesson plan. There are so many useful sites that you can work with in class, and most of them are free or very low cost.

YouTube, FluentU and Other Video Sites

Videos are a valuable resource if you're trying to give your students a broad range of listening activities. For shorter clips, YouTube is a good resource. You'll find everything from television shows to nature videos and everything in between. To save you from hours of YouTube browsing and for more effective video clips, a fantastic resource is FluentU. FluentU takes real-world videos-like music videos, movie trailers, news and inspiring talks-and turns them into personalized English learning lessons. Every word comes with an in-context definition, image and multiple example sentences. You can even click on a word to see how it's used in other videos across the site. Perhaps the most interesting part of FluentU is its "learn mode," which takes the student's learning history into account when presenting questions related to videos. FluentU's algorithm sets students up for success by teaching them based on what they know.

Apart from YouTube and FluentU, you can watch videos on Amazon, Hulu or Netflix if you have an account, which are all great options for movies and full length TV shows. With access to such a wide variety of clips, it is very simple to find something that is appropriate for your classroom.

Teaching Resource Websites

Check out sites like education.com or Teachers Pay Teachers to find plenty of options for your classroom. Some of the materials are offered free, but even if you choose the materials that require payment, the price is usually fairly low. You can stock up on excellent resources for cheap. Online printables are widely available and work well for those times when you want your students to practice reading or writing. However, there are also entire sites dedicated to games and activities that you can do with your students. Take advantage of the myriad of ideas and never get bored teaching your class.

3. Check Out the Discards

You'd be surprised at how much great stuff gets thrown out or given away. What other people want to get rid of could be the perfect teaching tool for an ESL teacher. Think of all the magazines that get tossed when people are done with them. What could your students do with those discarded magazines?

Library Sales

Libraries routinely get rid of old books that have either been damaged or are simply not used. Depending on the library, a sale each year allows the general public to get their hands on dirt cheap books. Check with your local library to see when they are having a sale, or take a look at BookSaleFinder to find library sales near your area, if you are in the United States.

School Book Sales

Schools also sell off their old textbooks, which can be very helpful if you have higher level ESL students. For English teachers, readers are some of the best options. They come in all grade levels and offer a large number of writing styles in one book. It's worth picking up a few to keep on hand for those times when you need some extra activities. Reading is something that every ESL student needs to do well, so having extra books for your class to read can be useful. Keep an eye out for spelling books, unused workbooks and storybooks to use in class.

End-of-the-year School Discards

Check your local schools just before the end of the school year, to see if you can browse what teachers throw in the trash and recycle as they clean out their classrooms. You could also get in touch with local schools/teachers at any point during the year to inquire about any old or unused materials. Tell them you'd love to be contacted whenever they're getting rid of materials, perhaps when someone retires or any time throughout the year.

Thrift Stores

Take a regular tour of nearby thrift stores and watch for items that could be used in your classroom. Children's books are often found for under a dollar. Sometimes, games like Scrabble or other teaching games will pop up and can be had for a nice, low price. Just check for missing pieces before purchasing such a game.

eBay

eBay and similar auction sites contain a wealth of materials for ESL teachers. Do a search for ESL teaching materials, or simply check for English supplies. You'll find books, used flashcards and spelling/grammar games, usually for a very good price. Even better, they'll ship right to your doorstep, though shipping can be a little much if you live overseas. One man's junk is another man's treasure, as they say, and this is particularly true when it comes to teaching materials.

4. Use Everyday Items

You probably already have quite a few things that you can use in your ESL classroom. If you don't, consider having students bring in the necessary items. Newspapers/Magazines: Grab a daily paper on the way to school and you have everything you need for a fact-filled lesson that day. Even better, have each student bring in a newspaper or English language magazine to read from. Children's Books: Picture books are very handy for teaching reading. Beginners will find simple books easier to work with, but you can move up to more advanced books as your students gain vocabulary. Recipes: Even if you don't have a cookbook, recipes can be found online and printed out. Students can bring in their own recipes and translate them as well. If you have access to a kitchen, cooking can be a fun way to test vocabulary; if they don't read carefully, the cake won't turn out! Board Games: Playing nearly any game can be an English lesson, provided students only speak English while playing. However, spelling or word games are even better, so bring in your old Scrabble or Boggle games.

5. DIY ESL Teaching Materials

Of course, you can always come up with your own teaching materials. You may even want to share these with other ESL teachers, either for free or for a fee.

Create Your Own Worksheets

All you need is a word processor and a printer to come up with your own worksheets. For teachers who have been doing their own lessons all along, this is a good way to come up with a test, as well.

Make an Audio Clip

Can't find a great audio clip anywhere? Make your own! It's very simple to record a voice file to your computer or a simple recorder. In fact, you don't have to do it yourself, you can recruit friends. Get a couple of people to hold a simple conversation while you record them, and then use that with your students.

Have Students Bring Clippings

While not exactly something you do yourself, having students bring in interesting articles that they have read can be hassle free. Have them write or talk about the article and reach each other's clippings and discuss the issues involved. Teaching materials don't have to be crazy expensive. Look for used ones, find lesson plans that are already made up and don't be afraid to get creative with the items you have around you!

If you liked this post, something tells me that you'll love FluentU, the best way to teach English with real-world videos.
Bring English immersion to your classroom!

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5 Ways to Find Great ESL Teaching Materials on a Budget

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Are you having a tough time finding reasonably priced ESL teaching materials?Sick of discovering the perfect lesson plan, only to realize that they're charging an arm and a leg for it?Fancy books and lesson plans are often overpriced, and for most English teachers, the budget just doesn't al

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Teaching English with Music: 4 Effective Ways to Use Music in the ESL Classroom

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Do you have a CD player in your ESL classroom?

Or how about any other music-playing device?

All right, those of you who answered yes: Could you ever see yourself getting rid of your music player?

I hope you screamed no!

Most ESL teachers find music CDs and songs such an indispensable part of their classroom that they often buy their own-rather than depend on the school's.

CD players and music have become a vital part of most modern classrooms.

With that being said, there are times when the use of music in the classroom is inappropriate or perhaps even harmful. One of my earliest memories of teaching students was having to correct a young high school student who, with good pronunciation, proceeded to tell me-in a vulgar and crude way that would require far too many expletives and asterisks to write out-what he was going to do over the weekend.

When I asked him where he had learned such language, he revealed that he was a big fan of the Wu-Tang Clan. In fact, the young man owned every single Wu-Tang family CD ever released. While the music had taught him a vast amount of vocabulary, and his pronunciation was very New York-esque, his inappropriate usage and understanding of the meaning of some of the words was a large drawback.

While the above is an extreme example, most teachers who have been working with music and English for a long time can think of their own cringeworthy moments involving music, foreign language and students. Whether it be overly contrived corny songs, inappropriate maturity levels (both high and low) or songs that leave students feeling shy and self conscious, the stories are endless.

The first hint for any teacher regarding the use of music is that it is a tool, not a panacea. Just like any other tool, it can be used appropriately for great benefit, or if used inappropriately it could be useless or perhaps even harmful. Just as a carpenter wouldn't use a power saw to drive a nail, don't use music where it shouldn't be used.

So, where should it be used? Here are four effective ways to incorporate music into your ESL lessons.

1. Use Music as an ESL Warm-up

This tactic is especially useful when you have students who are coming in from a very static period, a boring period or one that was very stressful. For example, I had one class that I would consistently teach immediately following Japanese calligraphy class. For those who are familiar with Japanese calligraphy, the motions are supposed to be very exact, and the students spend the whole time sitting at their desks working on nothing but getting one particular figure or phrase perfect.

When you combine that with a teacher who required silence during this period, you can see the situation my students were in. They had been kept seated statically for the past hour-almost silently-and needed a change of pace before being able to do anything useful in terms of English.

In warm-up situations, keep in mind the mood you want to set for your period. Since I tend to prefer a class that is active but not frantic, I use lots of music that has a "rock" edge to it. When working with students that are already overly frantic, I choose slower, more mellow music. Either way, I choose the music to bring the students into the mood that I want them to be for that class period.

When choosing a song for warm-up, while mood of the music is paramount, do not forget about lyrics. Students need a few minutes at least to switch their minds from their native language into English. Try to find something with a decent "hook" or chorus that students can at least repeat consistently without feeling stressed. Queen's "We Will Rock You," comes to mind, and while it may have very fast verses (many native speakers cannot even keep up, especially if you have a few beers in you), the iconic "we will, we will rock you," combined with the back beat make it a fun song.

Group singing is perhaps the easiest way to implement music as a warm-up. Remember, you want something that is quick, easy to understand and can be explained in just a few minutes at most. If you have to spend five minutes explaining how, you're going to miss your window of opportunity. If you have a lower level class, just having them sing the "hook"/chorus is perfectly fine.

I prefer to let students move around as they like with this; a little dance or a little jive is great to set the proper mood. For lyrics, choose music that you have previously introduced, or something so simple that they can pick it up on the fly. Remember, we're trying to get your students' heads out of their books and papers in this instance-not having them read lyrics sheets.

Personal Favorite ESL Warm-up Songs:

Queen - "We Will Rock You"

Naughty By Nature - "Hip Hop Hooray" (Note: There are adult lyrics at points, but even native speakers never know what these guys are saying until the famous "Hey, ho" chorus.)

The Beatles - "Yeah, Yeah, Yeah"

ESL Warm-up Songs for Younger Children:

2. Teach Natural Speed and Flow of English Speaking with Music

Once students have a basic grasp of your target language or the structure that you want to practice, a perfect way to work on speed and delivery of English is to use music. In this instance, I think using the numerous ESL-targeted music CDs is ideal.

While to a native speaker these songs can sometimes come off as a bit hokey or contrived, with a bit of gusto they can readily be used to get students repeating target structures and grammar in a faster, more flowing manner. Make sure you try to pick CDs that are marketed towards the age group you are working with, to minimize the "hokiness."

When you use music to teach speed and flow, keep your body movements to a minimum. While sitting in their desks or standing in choral rows isn't helpful, if students are spending as much brain power worrying about movements and dancing as they are about singing, something is going to get lost. This happens even for professional singers in their native language. When you add in the foreign language aspect, students will often let the unfamiliar language slip in order to embrace the somewhat more familiar physical movement. This is especially true when talking about large groups, where students will try to hide in the anonymity of the crowd.

After trying a new song through group practice, there are tons of variations you can do. Songs with multiple parts can be reviewed by breaking up the class into groups, or you could even try a full-on choir style of singing if you have experience. I've also used it as a game with younger children, pausing the CD at random points and having them fill in the blanks by singing the next phrase of the song.

Personal Favorite ESL Songs for Natural Speech:

3. Review Previously Learned ESL Vocabulary and Grammar Using Music

This is great for all ages, from children through adults. Recently, anyone who's been anywhere near a child can listen to them singing Disney's "Let It Go," a runaway hit song that has been recorded in 42 different languages. Thanks to this song's popularity-at least in Japan-there are now millions of children who can sing at least bits of the English version, as well as the Japanese version.

The main difference between the warm-up repetition and using music for previous vocabulary and grammar is that in this instance, the song can vary more like a normal song. The key is that the students are already familiar with the words and the grammar ideas. This means they're using the song for review, enjoyment and exposure to new variations on familiar themes.

Disney Songs - These songs are familiar in most countries and enjoyed by all ages. Also, the song lyrics are invariably safe. "Toy Story," "Tarzan," "Winnie The Pooh" and others have spawned dozens of great songs to use.

When using music in this way, it's so important to pick music that fits the temperament of the class or the student. Again, ESL CDs can be useful, but familiar children's songs, holiday tunes (at that time of year) or even popular music can also be used. As a caveat, try to use selective editing when it comes to language. While adult or older students may be able to "handle" adult language, keep the lyrics clean to safely avoid cultural problems or potential future faux pas.

Personal Favorite ESL Music for Vocabulary Review:

4. Increase Cultural Understanding with Music

Communication is as much about language as it is about culture. Often times, miscommunication occurs not because of the words said, but because of cultural assumptions by the parties on all sides that conflict or are not understood. Music stands as the one nearly universal cultural expression. Every culture through history has had music in some form or another.

By breaking down and analyzing the lyrics and the message of a song, students can gain a greater understanding of foreign culture. This application is best used with older or more advanced students, but even middle school students can gain understanding if they have guided help with the translation. When this is your goal, a word-for-word translation is sometimes the best idea, although this is not always possible. If a word-for-word translation is not possible, explaining the meaning of the phrase is best.

Leonard Cohen - "Hallelujah" (Note: This song is recommended only for adult students, as the meanings behind the lyrics can be rather racy, but the slow delivery is helpful.)

Pink Floyd - "Another Brick in the Wall"

Dire Straits - "Working for a Living"

First and foremost, for this type of lesson activity make sure to be flexible. The discussion can often go in unexpected directions, and sometimes these tangents can bear great fruit. Again, as with activity type #3, try to pick songs that are an appropriate maturity level for your class. Second of all, be willing to devote the entire class period to the activity if necessary. Between listening, reading, discussing and then trying to perhaps sing, you can easily fill an hour long class or more.

Personal Favorite Songs for ESL Cultural Understanding:
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Music can both bridge gaps and help educate. Songs have been a part of human expression since our caveman days, and there's no doubt that they help us learn.

Add that to its global impact, and it's clear music is a key tool for any ESL instructor.

So whether you regularly use music in the classroom, or have only ventured there once in a while, try using music in any of these four ways-and enjoy the results!

If you liked this post, something tells me that you'll love FluentU, the best way to teach English with real-world videos.

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Teaching English with Music: 4 Effective Ways to Use Music in the ESL Classroom

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Do you have a CD player in your ESL classroom?Or how about any other music-playing device?All right, those of you who answered yes: Could you ever see yourself getting rid of your music player?I hope you screamed no!Most ESL teachers find music CDs and songs such an indispensable pa

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7 Irresistibly Fun ESL Video Activities to Teach Listening Comprehension

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7 Irresistibly Fun ESL Video Activities to Teach Listening Comprehension

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Teaching a classroom full of students to read English is one thing.

Teaching them to listen and understand what they're hearing is much tougher.

When the words are on the page, it's possible to sound them out and take some time to come up with the definition.

But if you want your students to be able to carry on a conversation, they must practice. Yet practicing with more than a couple of students at a time is challenging.

So how can you teach listening comprehension to entire classes?

Luckily, we can use ESL video activities!

Why Videos Are So Important for ESL Students

Videos are one of the best ways to boost listening comprehension in a classroom setting (though they work well for individuals, too!). Here's why:

Students love visual stimulation. Remember the special days when you watched a movie during science class in high school? It was exciting and different from the usual drone of the teacher. Watching videos makes class more interesting and will really stimulate students' imaginations.

Real-life scenes are played out. In a classroom setting, you might not always have the opportunity to discuss real-life issues and scenarios. But with video, students will find themselves listening to scenes they could actually face in their own lives-making it really valuable and meaningful practice.

Realistic dialogue exposes students to common sayings and phrases. It's raining cats and dogs! I'm happy as a clam! These are just two of the wonderfully weird sayings we have in English, which can be very confusing for ESL students. Even if you're already teaching your class some colorful idioms, nothing compares to hearing and seeing them in context. This makes videos the perfect medium to teach such sayings.

Considerations When Choosing Videos for Your ESL Students

There are four main considerations to keep in mind when selecting a video or clip for your students to watch:

Age Appropriate

Adults can appreciate a wide range of video types, whereas younger students will find themselves bored with long monologues. Choose appropriate clips that don't contain any foul language, excessive violence, sexual actions or possibly offensive material.

Language Level

Presenting a Shakespearean play on video to a class of beginning students will simply cause confusion. It's very important to select videos that will stick to mostly known vocabulary. Animated videos for younger children tend to have simpler words, but may be dull for older students, so keep an eye out for appropriate options.

Humor

Funny videos are not only more interesting to watch, but they also teach students about humor in their new language. It can be difficult for those from a different culture to get used to the jokes that abound in English, so give them a head start with a comedy.

Interest Levels

How exciting is an episode of "Thomas the Train Engine" for you, as an adult? When you were a child, would you have been content to sit through a long documentary on coral reefs? Take your students' interests into consideration when deciding on a good video to show them.

7 Fun ESL Video Activities to Teach Listening Comprehension

Once you've selected a video clip, don't just roll the video and leave it at that! Use the following activities or come up with your own to really engage the students and get them listening.

1. What's Next

Let students watch an exciting video and stop it right in the middle of the action. Ask them to tell you what they think will happen next, based on the story so far. Have each student write down their guess and then watch the ending to see who was correct. You can stop the video multiple times if you like, for multiple guesses.

Alternatively, stop the video and allow students to come up with their own ending to act out. You can even divide a larger class into smaller groups and have each one come up with a possible finale to the video. This works particularly well with season finales for television shows.

2. Step by Step

For this exercise, you'll want a tutorial video. This can be anything from a cooking show to a demonstration on how to dig a hole. Before watching the video, let students know that they should pay close attention to the steps. Next, have each student write down the steps to the tutorial and then play the clip again so they can check their work.

Start with fairly simple tutorials that only have a handful of steps. Once your students are adept at this activity, you can increase the number of steps required.

3. Describe the Setting

Let students know before you watch the video that they should be looking at where the scene is taking place. After the clip, ask students to describe the setting to you and explain what happened.

4. Judge and Jury

Show two video clips that have opposite view points. For example, you might show one that argues for creationism and the other for evolution, or any debatable topic. Have students write down the arguments for each side as they watch. They should then work in smaller groups to decide which arguments are most important and finally, come to a conclusion based on the points presented in the videos. They can debate between themselves and come up with a unanimous decision.

Prepare some questions ahead of time and let the students know that they should pay careful attention to the dialogue while they are watching the video. Once it is over, ask them the questions. These can range from "Did Bob get angry because his wife burned the spaghetti or because she forgot to feed the dog?" to "Why did Jean think babies shouldn't eat broccoli?"

If the students have trouble with the questions, watch the clip again so they can find the answers, rather than simply telling them. It's a good way to practice listening with them.

6. Create a Storyboard

Watch a fairly short video that has some different action and plenty of dialogue. The video should have several distinct parts that will be easy to map on a storyboard. Allow students to watch the whole thing while taking notes, then go back and watch each segment. Pause between segments so students can draw the scene and note what happens between the characters.

Another option is to make the storyboard on the whiteboard at the front of the class, calling on students to tell you what should be included. They can take their own notes and then help you design the actual storyboard.

7. Pick a Character

Have each student choose a character to pay particular attention to. They should observe everything from how the person reacts to various situations to how they speak and how emotional they are. After the video, have students write down diary entries for their chosen character.

To make things a little more interesting, give students specific scenarios for their characters to react to in their character journals. If you're using characters from a television show, this could be an ongoing listening and writing activity.
Bring English immersion to your classroom!
Videos can easily be a more interesting way to practice listening comprehension than simply talking in groups. If your class needs a little something to spice it up, show your students some video clips and try out these activities-and then watch their comprehension explode!

If you liked this post, something tells me that you'll love FluentU, the best way to teach English with real-world videos.

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7 Irresistibly Fun ESL Video Activities to Teach Listening Comprehension

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Teaching a classroom full of students to read English is one thing.Teaching them to listen and understand what they're hearing is much tougher.When the words are on the page, it's possible to sound them out and take some time to come up with the definition.But if you want your students t

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British Council - Teaching Speaking Techniques (John Kay)

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British Council - Teaching Speaking Techniques (John Kay)

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Rhyming Games Demonstration "A-Rhyming We Will Go"

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"Crazy Claps" Warm Up Activity by Aytek Yıldız

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"Crazy Claps" Warm Up Activity by Aytek Yıldız

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My Name Your Name Game

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How to Calm Young Children Down in Minutes

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How to Calm Young Children Down in Minutes

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How to Calm Young Children Down in Minutes

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The Science of Brain Development in Early Childhood - The State of Education in Nebraska, #112

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The Science of Brain Development in Early Childhood - The State of Education in Nebraska, #112

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Brain Development & Nurturing Children 's Growing Minds

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The Science of Brain Development in Early Childhood - The State of Education in Nebraska, #112

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A research-based discussion focusing on how children's early brain development influences the directions of their lives, with host John Baylor, Dr. Samuel Meisels, Dr. Laura Jana, Julia Dadds, and Amy Bornemeier. For more videos, visit http://netnebraska.org/stateofed.

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World of Better Learning | Cambridge University Press

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Published 30 October 2014

In this week's webinar, we look at how to help young learners improve their pronunciation and speaking skills through fun, hands-on activities.

Most children love to talk, but a foreign language can seem too intimidating to some of them. Caroline Nixon and Michael Tomlinson, authors of six 'Primary Box' titles from the Cambridge Copy Collection and of the Primary course Kid's Box, share some of their top tips on how to get young learners to talk.

Young learners need phonics practice (or 'speech therapy') to learn how to reproduce sounds as accurately as possible, as well as 'talk therapy' to develop their dialogue and the ability to express ideas. Combined with human interaction, these two therapies enable learners to communicate effectively.

In an ELT classroom, children are sometimes shy and unwilling to participate in speaking activities. Nixon and Tomlinson suggest that the best way of getting young learners involved in speaking activities is through use of help children to feel relaxed and less anxious. songs, because musical activities ( especially if they are accompanied with illustrations) can Moving freely around the classroom, dancing or pointing will also help students to memorise the words and their meaning.

While communication activities should be fun in order to engage young learners, they should also be highly structured to give younger learners enough confidence to speak and communicate in English. Working in pairs, for example, builds both student and correction autonomy: students can compare worksheets with minimal teacher interference and ask each other questions. It is important to keep activities personal, e.g. asking about favourite colour or past experience.

To discover more ways to encourage young learners to speak, and which mistakes to avoid in your ELT classroom, watch the webinar recording below!

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Talk, talk, talk: Hands-on activities to improve young learners' communication | World of Better Learning | Cambridge University Press

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Published 30 October 2014 In this week's webinar, we look at how to help young learners improve their pronunciation and speaking skills through fun, hands-on activities. Most children love to talk, but a foreign language can seem too intimidating to some of them.

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World of Better Learning | Cambridge University Press

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Published 12 February 2016

"Can you say that again (differently) please?" In this week's webinar, we were joined by Anne Robinson, co-author of Fun for Starters, Fun for Movers, and Fun for Flyers 3rd Edition. Anne discussed how paraphrasing, rephrasing and adapting to any situation is an important part of learning a language, and how we can make paraphrasing a part of our young learner classes.
This webinar provides advice and practical demonstrations of classroom activities for use in the young learners' classroom and includes lots of ideas for single word vocabulary use.
Consider the many ways in which we can greet one another - for example, 'Hello', 'Hi', and 'How's it going?' Greetings can also change depending on what time of day it is: 'Good Morning', 'Good Afternoon', and 'Good Evening'. As a learner of English, it is important to understand and be aware of how words can change but the meaning remains the same. Being able to use different words and expressions can also improve your learners' speaking and writing skills, as well as increasing their vocabulary.
So, how can we teach paraphrasing to young learners?
Anne describes and demonstrates various tasks that enable and encourage paraphrasing. These include the use of audio, text, and images. One great way to get learners involved is to get them using information about themselves, as this can help them remember the different ways of paraphrasing. Another is to use definitions and word lists. It's important to link new things you're teaching your students to things they already know - drawing out similarities and differences.

Paraphrasing is an invaluable life skill, and it's also tested in section 5 of the Cambridge English: Movers and Flyers tests.

To listen to the full webinar for tips on teaching activities in a classroom environment, please click on the video below.

Click here to find out more about the series.

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Teaching young learners to paraphrase | World of Better Learning | Cambridge University Press

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Published 12 February 2016 "Can you say that again (differently) please?" In this week's webinar, we were joined by Anne Robinson, co-author of Fun for Starters, Fun for Movers, and Fun for Flyers 3rd Edition.

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World of Better Learning | Cambridge University Press

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Author of the Fun For series, Karen Saxby, joined us LIVE to talk about the wonderful world of storytelling and story-making. In her webinar, Karen revealed how story pictures can help to prepare young learners for starters, movers or flyers story based reading, writing and speaking tests.

Karen's webinar is full of fun, creative, useful ideas for lessons. She asks questions such as:

What is a story?

Why do stories engage us?

Why is story language so memorable?

How can we use stories to encourage creativity, collaboration and communication?

So, what is a story?

Stories are accounts of events and experiences that we think will provide entertainment. As Karen reminded us, they don't have to be super long, creative texts. Stories are a past of our lives, which makes them ideal for language learning!

Why do stories engage us?

Using stories to teach young learners takes the stress out of what can be a worrying language learning process. By inserting pictures and placing texts together, you can use stories to teach learners of all levels.

Stories make language so memorable because they...

Occupy the space between reality and imagined reality

Enable us to engage with an interest of our own choosing

Attach us to specific characters

Encourage us to react emotionally, which has a huge impact on memory

Cause us to subconsciously judge behaviour and learn about social norms

Force us to use our imagination to complement a text

Transport us into alternative scenarios

Make language immediate and meaningful

Motivate learners to discuss and complete fun activities

If you want to listen to Karen's top tips for the Starters, Movers and Flyers tests, listen to her webinar!

If you enjoyed the video, you might also like Karen's blog post about motivating young learners.

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Storytelling and story-making for Cambridge English: Young Learners | World of Better Learning | Cambridge University Press

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Author of the Fun For series, Karen Saxby, joined us LIVE to talk about the wonderful world of storytelling and story-making. In her webinar, Karen revealed how story pictures can help to prepare young learners for starters, movers or flyers story based reading, writing and speaking tests.

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World of Better Learning | Cambridge University Press

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Have you ever wondered what phonics actually is, and how you can use phonics with your young learners? This week's webinar presenter Karen Elliott has all the answers.
What is phonics?
Phonics is the study of the relationship between the spoken and written language. Each letter or combination of letters represent a sound or sounds. The information is codified, as we must be able to recognise which symbols make which sounds in order to read. This information is found in the Alphabetic Code.

Since the English language comes from many sources, different spelling patterns can represent the same phonemes. The Alphabetic Code provides us with this information. Words which don't follow easily recognisable patterns are called 'tricky words'. We have to learn these words in their entirety.

Do I have to be a native speaker or have near-native pronunciation to teach phonics?
Certainly not! The Alphabetic Code is an integral part of the language and every English teacher needs to be aware of the information contained within it. In fact, learning how the different phonemes are represented will help non-native teachers improve their pronunciation. Non-native teachers will be able to share their experiences of learning the code and will know what areas will cause their students special problems.

How do I teach it?
The best advice I can give is to jump in where you are - and learn as you go along. All English teachers already know a lot of the information they need to teach phonics. Look at the Alphabetic Code and try some of the activities below. You will soon get the hang of it.

What about tricky words?
Once you've studied the Alphabetic Code and the alternative spellings, you'll see that some words fall outside of the code. Native speakers learn a lot of these at school through poetry, so one way to teach them is to say a word that rhymes with the tricky word (for example, shoe rhymes with zoo and key rhymes with tree).

How do children learn phonics best?
Phonics is taught in phases:

* Phase 1 phonics concentrates on teaching the sounds of the language.
* Phase 2 phonics attaches a letter or letters to each sound (called a letter sound). Children learn to blend letter sounds to make simple decodable words (for example, cat, pen, sun). At this stage children need to learn some high frequency tricky words so that they can read simple sentences (e.g. the, I, me).
* Phase 3 and 4 phonics present digraphs and trigraphs: sounds which are represented by more than one letter (for example the ai in rain, the alternative spelling a_e in cake, called a split digraph, and the trigraph igh in light).
* Phases 5 and 6 continue to present and practise alternative spellings and less frequent tricky words, as well as other aspects of the written language.

Below are some examples of phonics activities. Good luck with teaching phonics and I hope you enjoy the fun and positive results I have experienced with my students!
A. Match the words to the pictures.
B. Words on the wall.
Look at your handout. Some words are missing. One student must run to look at the paper on the wall to find the missing words. They all have the /ee/ sound.

C. The long /er/ letter sound (alternative spellings and tricky words)
Say the words with /er/ phonemes in the questions. Then answer the questions.

1. Are you an early bird?<l/i>

2. Would you prefer to work as a nurse or a journalist?

3. What new words did you learn this term?

D. Match the tricky words with the decodable words they rhyme with:
Key: 1D, 2E, 3B, 4A, 5C.

You can watch Karen's webinar on Phonics for Young Learners here.

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Phonics for young language learners | World of Better Learning | Cambridge University Press

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Have you ever wondered what phonics actually is, and how you can use phonics with your young learners? This week's webinar presenter Karen Elliott has all the answers. What is phonics? Phonics is the study of the relationship between the spoken and written language. Each letter or combination of letters represent a sound or sounds.

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Steps to successful communication for young learners

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Points to consider when writing the plan What is the main topic of the lesson?

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World of Better Learning | Cambridge University Press

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"Can you spot it?" In last week's webinar, we were joined by Anne Robinson, co-author of Fun for Starters, Movers, and Flyers 4th Edition. Anne discussed how we can encourage observation in young learners - an important skill when learning a language - and preparing for tests.

This webinar brings you practical ideas and demonstrates application of classroom activities for developing the skills of noticing and spotting in young learners' classrooms. It also takes a look at example activities from the writing part of the revised 2018 Cambridge English: Young Learners tests and provides helpful advice on tackling some of the challenges that learners may face during the tests.

Some children are really good at spotting things, aren't they? Differences, similarities, details, mistakes... Spotting things can be a useful habit when learning a language and sitting a test. Engaging the audience as a young learners class, Anne demonstrates various picture-based tasks that enable and encourage observation.

Consider the many opportunities for practising English that are offered by pictures. Learners can describe what they see in a picture, they can answer questions about the picture, they can try and complete sentences about it. Depending on their language level, students can use single words or build up to full sentences. Similar tasks are often included in tests for young learners, especially in Starters, Movers and Flyers. Successful completion of these tasks often requires that students focus on the detail, notice objects or people, elements of the background, but also on carefully reading the instructions. For learners, preparing for tests it is important to understand and be aware of how observing the detail can help them form more elaborate answers. Being able to use different words and expressions can also improve your learners' speaking and writing skills, as well as increase their confidence in using English overall.

So, how can we encourage young learners to develop observation skills?

One good way to get learners to train their "spotting muscles" is by showing learners a picture and then hiding it. Show your students a picture and ask, What can you spot? Then, hide the picture and see how many details learners can remember, e.g. how many people are there in the picture? How many girls are there? How many boys are there? How many people are holding an object? What kind of an object? You can adapt this task by showing students only fragments of a picture. Ask your students what is in the fragment, where they think this fragment is in the picture, e.g. Is it in the corner, in the middle, on the left? Finally, what does the full picture look like?

Another great way to get learners involved is to train them to notice differences between parts of the picture, e.g. can you notice three differences between the girls in the picture? It is also useful to encourage learners to focus on the detail before moving on to answer questions about the picture, to completing sentences about the scene. Detail is particularly important in tasks like this because reading sentences quickly and not noticing the nuances in the picture may lead learners to give wrong answers.

For new Movers reading and writing test part 6 spotting is very useful. It helps to train students to think of ideas for picture-related questions, building up the challenge from single word answers to adding adjectives, verbs in -ing form, to forming full sentences. Above all, it's important to encourage learners to use their imagination and simply have fun with the activities.

Spotting is a useful skill, both for learning a language and preparing for the new writing section 5 of the Cambridge English: Starters tests, the writing section part 7 of Flyers.

To listen to the full webinar and to hear Anne's top tips for teaching activities in a classroom environment, click on the video below!

If you enjoyed this webinar, you might also like Anne's article, where she explores how teachers can use similarities between words to make learning vocabulary fun and more memorable.

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Can you spot it?: Encouraging observation in your students | World of Better Learning | Cambridge University Press

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"Can you spot it?" In last week's webinar, we were joined by Anne Robinson, co-author of Fun for Starters, Movers, and Flyers 4th Edition. Anne discussed how we can encourage observation in young learners - an important skill when learning a language - and preparing for tests.

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World of Better Learning | Cambridge University Press

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In his previous post on thinking skills, Hebert Puchta explored Keiran Egan's model of the thinking process, and looked at some of the insights it offers into the development of the human mind and the language learning process. Today, he continues exploring that model by looking into story thinking.
Story thinking
Egan points out that stories play an essential role in the cognitive development of children. He stresses that the story form is something people in all cultures enjoy. Stories, however, function as more than mere entertainment - they help the child develop an understanding of the world and their own life experiences.

But a word of caution seems appropriate; there are certain criteria that a piece of text needs to comply with in order to qualify as a story - and more often than not in language teaching materials we come across a so-called story that just doesn't deserve to be called that. Here's an imaginary (and exaggerated, I hasten to add) example. We have a story in which we are presented with a boy and a girl, Annabel and Oliver. They greet each other in a friendly way and introduce themselves to each other. Then Oliver introduces some of his family; this is my uncle, James, and that's my aunt, Emma. (We can see Aunt Emma, by the way, standing on the other side of a nearby river, which is fortunate, as it helps to justify the deictic use of 'that'.) Annabel wants to follow suit, and luckily she has her brother and her sister at hand; this is my brother, Benjamin, and that's my sister, Kylie. It seems that such excessive social protocol makes both of them hungry ... otherwise why else would Oliver then say; now let's eat this cake.? Luckily, Annabel knows better: no, let's eat that cake. The 'story' evolves further with the two kids suggesting and counter-suggesting a number of other food items, and it comes to a bizarre round-up when Benjamin suggests they should have an ice cream, leading to Annabel's final utterance, the warning; but don't be greedy.

What is called a story here is anything but - and we can easily prove that if we use Egan's criteria for the kinds of elements a story needs to contain in order to engage the young listener or reader. First of all, a story needs to engage the reader or listener emotionally, and in order to do so it needs a clear beginning (setting the scene), a middle part (where things develop in an unexpected way, leading to conflict and hence emotional engagement) and an end (where the conflict gets resolved). The story only works if there is some kind of tension - an unexpected turn, a complication of the plot, a surprise element, or something that shocks the reader or listener, making him or her feel worried, sad, etc. For that, we need what Egan calls binary opposites that create strong emotional contrasts, contraposing concepts such as good and bad, rich and poor, happy and sad, tiny and huge. So if Oliver has a dog that gets bitten by a poisonous snake while he is involved in his social chit-chat with Annabel, the reader or listener find themselves in a story all of a sudden. Will the dog survive? What will the children do? Are they themselves in danger? are some immediate thoughts that show the reader's or listener's engagement. The protagonists, however, don't have time to consider these questions at length. As soon as they begin to understand how serious the situation is, Annabel remembers her aunt, a wise old woman. When the children seek her advice, she suggests they go to a place high up in the mountains where they can find a tree with golden apples, one of which the dog should eat. They manage to find the tree and the dog is saved.

It's not difficult to imagine which of the two versions of a story will engage children more. But unfortunately, when ELT authors create stories they all too often have language alone in mind. Story relevance doesn't seem to matter, because the 'story' is seen merely as a vehicle for the language. In our invented example, the language elements which the author wants to pack into the story are deixis (this and that); making suggestions (Now let's eat this cake.), and making an alternative suggestion (No, let's eat that cake.). But it's not difficult to guess that that text will fail to gain the attention of the learners and because there is nothing memorable about the story, little of its language will remain in their memory.

Stories, Egan stresses, communicate information and at the same time help us to understand how to feel about it; and that's why they are so powerful - more powerful than any other form of language. Only stories can have such lasting effects on the recipients, and that's why we use stories all the time in real life to convey meanings. We use stories to impress others, to make friends, to justify behaviour and give reasons for it, to influence people, to support and to entertain.

In his next post, Herbert will consider a second model of the thinking process, Gardner's model of multiple intelligences.

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Developing young learners' thinking skills #3 - Story thinking | World of Better Learning | Cambridge University Press

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In his previous post on thinking skills, Hebert Puchta explored Keiran Egan's model of the thinking process, and looked at some of the insights it offers into the development of the human mind and the language learning process. Today, he continues exploring that model by looking into story thinking.

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World of Better Learning | Cambridge University Press

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Teaching children is all fun, games, and songs - right? Tereza Sekiya debunks some of the myths surrounding teaching young EFL learners, exploring the number of variables that need to be taken into account for effective class preparation.

"Kids learn through play!"

This statement is often used to justify the fun, excitement and action, frequently found in young learners' classrooms. No wonder!!! Stories, songs, chants and games are part of their classroom routine - leading us to connect the ideas of "teaching kids" and "fun" together.

Well... If teaching kids is fun, consequently it cannot be serious! Do some people really think like that?

Let us start by considering some definitions of the word "kid", taken from Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary:

· Kid (verb) - to say something as a joke, often making someone believe something that is not true

· Kid around (phrasal verb) - to be silly or not serious

· Kid's stuff - an activity or piece of work that is very easy

If we take into consideration an EFL environment, where teaching young learners is still a growing market, it is not surprising to find people with such beliefs. They are generally parents or professionals outside the ELT area, for whom the idea of teaching kids is synonym for presenting some simple words and structures. Private language schools specialized in teaching young learners only appeared in the last decades in some markets, where students would not go to a PLS prior to the age of 9 or 10. In primary schools, some offer a very limited amount of hours (30 minutes or up to one hour a week) or no language classes at all.

Nevertheless, this EFL scenario is changing. There is a growing interest in this area and more reference materials on teaching young learners are being written by experts of ELT, providing teachers with further information, support and tools for working with kids. In addition, new coursebooks for pre and primary levels are being published, each one focusing on a different student profile or course working hours.

Whereas the importance of teaching teens and adults has never been questioned, the teaching of young learners has raised a number of issues and discussions throughout the years, most of them related to the presentation and practice of content (too much or too little) and grammar (methodology). The assumption that teaching teens and adults is harder than teaching young learners is a fallacy. Unlike teenagers and adults, who already have full command of their mother language, young learners are still evolving, and this phase of growing involves different aspects of development: physical, emotional, social and cognitive. Consequently, class preparation needs to take into account a higher number of variables:

· Teaching kids requires a lot more than simply working with TPR, chants, stories... It involves a detailed lesson plan with "plan B" (taking into account the limited concentration span of these learners), as well as good management skills, in order to set up & develop activities and assess learning. Just imagine a group of 20 teens or adults... Then compare it to a group of 20 kids! I rest my case!!!

· Skills development - here the main issue is not applying strategies to develop the four main skills (L, S, R &W), but to work on basic literacy skills (and fine motor skills, when necessary).

· Teenagers and adults can be classified according to their level of English. Young learners' age can determine the distinct phases they might be going through: we are not only considering likes & dislikes (preferences) but also cognitive capabilities.

· Communication and Cooperation in Pre and Primary classes are not an end in itself. Rather, they are the result of working with values & positive attitude in the classroom.

· CLIL lessons will certainly teach kids world information, but the bottom line is that teachers will be working with concept building, appropriate for every specific age target/phase (pre-operational phase, concrete operational phase and so on).

· Different types of intelligences & learning styles are still to be developed by young learners, offering an enormous opportunity for shaping their study skills and fostering their independence at an earlier age.

Here is a quote from Henry David Thoreau:

"If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost: there is where they should be. Now put foundations under them."

Likewise, teaching young learners is not just about creating an enjoyable learning environment for kids (castles in the air); it is also about building children's background knowledge and thinking skills (foundations).

There is no better way of summarizing all this, than quoting Laura Bush, whose words I will always keep in mind:

"We all have the duty to call attention to the science and seriousness of early childhood cognitive development - because [the years] between birth and age five are the foundation upon which successful lives are built."

(White House Summit on Early Childhood Cognitive Development
July 26, 2001)

I believe the same is true for all ages of childhood, for all the reasons above.
Next, why not listen to Penny Ur's teaching tips, combining theory and practice.

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No kidding! Teaching kids is serious business! | World of Better Learning | Cambridge University Press

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Teaching children is all fun, games, and songs - right? Tereza Sekiya debunks some of the myths surrounding teaching young EFL learners, exploring the number of variables that need to be taken into account for effective class preparation. "Kids learn through play!"

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In February 2012, Carol Read gave a workshop at the British Council in Warsaw. Her talk covered a range of primary issues and she gave a number of invaluable tips about teaching primary students. Watch her talk here.

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Carol Read - The secret of working with children

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In February 2012, Carol Read gave a workshop at the British Council in Warsaw. Her talk covered a range of primary issues and she gave a number of invaluable tips about teaching primary students. Watch her talk here.

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World of Better Learning | Cambridge University Press

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In this webinar recording, Karen Saxby explores the ways of motivating young students of English. Karen is a full-time writer of teaching and testing materials, with a particular interest in material for younger learners. She is co-author of the course Fun for Starters, Movers and Flyers and author of the Storyfun for Starters, Movers and Flyers series, both of which prepare young learners for the Cambridge YLE tests.

Rethinking how we learn languages

Karen suggested we should re-think how we learn languages and consider how we can address some of the problems our young learners face. Language is our most important social tool - we use it to express who we are, what we believe in, and communicate those thoughts to communities which we find ourselves in.

However, despite their wish to learn English, a child's emotional state will impact on their motivation to learn. Another important consideration is a learner's extrinsic or intrinsic motivation: children work harder if they are intrinsically motivated.

How can we address these challenges?

We must...

Keep most activities success-orientated

Tell learners what you found difficult when you were learning English

Manage short attention spans using a variety of activities

Notice achievements, not failure

Listen and watch for children in difficulty. They need to know you will support them

Create contribution opportunities for everyone

Praise your students for positive attention

If you want to find out how to utilise these tips in practice, and find some other ways to motivate young learners, watch the webinar recording below:

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Karen Saxby: Keeping young learners motivated in the classroom | World of Better Learning | Cambridge University Press

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In this webinar recording, Karen Saxby explores the ways of motivating young students of English. Karen is a full-time writer of teaching and testing materials, with a particular interest in material for younger learners. She is co-author of the course Fun for Starters, Movers and Flyers and author of the Storyfun for Starters, Movers and Flyers series, both...

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Tips for parents

Sign up for free tips, information and activities for your child.
Sign up for tips

English tests for children

Cambridge English: Young Learners tests help children build their confidence and improve their English step-by-step.
Find out more

We have practical tips and advice to help you confidently support your child's learning. The articles listed below are full of ideas on how to encourage your child to communicate in English, including some great activities you can do together and as a family.

Find the right learning activities

It's important to find learning activities that are at the right level. If an activity is far too difficult, it can be demoralising. However, if your child stays in their comfort zone, their progress will be slower.
So, how do you find your child's 'level'?
Read full article

What are the different 'levels' of learning a language?

How parents can support English language learning

Learn English through songs

Practising speaking outside the classroom

How to encourage children who are not confident speaking in English

Learn English through stories

Practising reading outside the classroom

Why stories are great for learning

Practising writing outside the classroom

How to increase motivation to learn English

Learn English through videos and TV

Practising listening outside the classroom

How children learn languages

Practising vocabulary outside the classroom

Should my child learn American or British English?

Learn English through games

Practising English using digital technology

How to use technology for learning

Learn English through drawing

Learn English through outdoor play

Why creative activities are great for learning

Practise English in the school holidays

How parents and teachers work together

Learn other school subjects in English

Learn 21st century skills in English

How to manage nerves and prepare for an exam

Why are exams useful for language learning?

Which English language skills are needed for the future?

Learn English through social media

Why are Cambridge English Qualifications valuable?

Using digital to learn English

Reading imaginatively

Learning activity for parents and children

Helping your child prepare for an exam

Learning through online games

British and American English

Learning English with online videos

Encouraging your child to speak English

Learning English through stories

An English diary

Learning through drawing

The CEFR

Learning Activity: Super Interviews

Here is a game for two players - siblings, friends, classmates or you and your child!
Read full article

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how do i keep my child motivated to learn english

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what can i do to help my child learn english

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Tips for parents Sign up for free tips, information and activities for your child. Sign up for tips English tests for children Cambridge English: Young Learners tests help children build their confidence and improve their English step-by-step. Find out more We have practical tips and advice to help you confidently support your child's learning.

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English learning apps

Practise your English and develop the skills you need for your A2 Key for Schools, B1 Preliminary for Schools and B2 First for Schools exams. Filled with a range of fun skills-based activities and exam practice, Exam Lift is a flexible way to improve your English on the go.

Exam level: A2 Key for Schools, B1 Preliminary for Schools and B2 First for Schools

CEFR: A2, B1 and B2

Skills practised: reading, writing, listening and speaking

Available on Android and iOS. Play Exam Lift
Challenge your friends and players from around the world with our English language quiz. Covering a range of topics, Quiz your English is a fun way to practise and improve your English.

Exam level: B2 First, B2 First for Schools and IELTS 4.0-6.5

CEFR: B1-B2

Skills practised: Vocabulary and grammar

Available on Android and iOS. Play Quiz your English
Visit our Monkey's favourite places and play 8 mini games to test your English. Unlock new games as you progress - but watch out, the games get harder as you go along!

Exam level: Young Learners (Pre A1 Starters, A1 Movers, A2 Flyers)

CEFR level: A1-A2

Skills practised: Reading

Available FREE for iPad and iPhone! Play Monkey Puzzles
Cambridge English social media

Join our lively Facebook community and take part in quizzes, talk to other English language learners and learn on the go.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel to get helpful tips for exam preparation and lots of English language learning advice.

Be inspired, learn together, and speak to the world on our Instagram page.

Be inspired, learn together, and speak to the world on our Instagram page.

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Practise your English and develop the skills you need for your A2 Key for Schools, B1 Preliminary for Schools and B2 First for Schools exams. Filled with a range of fun skills-based activities and exam practice, Exam Lift is a flexible way to improve your English on the go.

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Involving the whole child
Involving the whole child
Helping children with vocabulary

Top ten requests for parents

These interactions between parent and child always have a clear reason for the communication.
Tips to parents
This is a very different learning situation from asking, 'What is the past tense of 'give'?' The only reason for this question is to test the child's memory. It is not fun and it does not involve the child's senses.

Create an 'English Corner' by providing materials in English at home such as comics and books, cable TV and Internet (with parental guidance!)

Play language-based games in English such as Scrabble and bingo, I-spy, 20 questions, Memory, Simon says etc.

Use sticky labels or 'post-it' notes to label objects at home in English. For example, in the kitchen you can label table, chairs, refrigerator, etc.

Collect music in English, get the lyrics from the Internet and sing along!

Do craft activities in English, for example make puppets and invent a little show in English.

Make posters (about their favourite star, sport, etc.) or make picture dictionaries with drawings and cut-outs.

Take an 'English adventure outing'. Take your children to a park. Using English only they have to say what they see such as, 'The children are riding their bikes.', 'The man is selling fruit.', 'There are some boats on the lake.' and so on. Other locations where you could do this are the supermarket, an office or a shopping centre.

Make reading a habit:

Read to your children in English. A short story or a few pages of a book daily creates a life-long habit.

You do not have to buy the books, you can join a library or download text from the Internet.

If you are concerned with your own pronunciation, there are plenty of materials on the Internet that have the text read to the viewer. Also, there are books that come with cassettes or CDs, so that children can read and listen at the same time. You could do this together.

Helping children with vocabulary
Children have highly inquisitive minds and enjoy learning through play and using their imagination by observing and copying, doing things, watching and listening.

Grouping words in contexts (foods, occupations, animals) or by meaning (boiling, hot, warm, cool, cold) or opposites (open, closed).

Ask the child to say the word out loud, or read a story aloud that contains the new word.

Have them write words down.

Ask them to draw a picture of the word.

Have them listen to new words in context on a tape.

Ask them to tell you about other words it sounds like.

Have them keep a vocabulary notebook, or word scrap-book. Review it regularly by:
Asking your child to tell you about the words in the book

Telling a story using the words

Reading the words without looking at their vocabulary book

Make a story yourself and have the child read or listen to it.

Dealing with mistakes
Children also learn a lot of their first language by physically responding to their parents' instructions in real and meaningful contexts. The parent says, 'Look at that dog!' or 'Give me the ball!' and the child does so.

A five-year-old speaking his mother tongue may still make grammar mistakes.

They will frequently 'invent' their own rules and over-generalisations like 'my car breaks', or 'my friend camed to the party yesterday'. So, learning another language will also involve a lot of mistakes.

This is a natural part of learning. In fact, for effective communication it is a good idea to concentrate on learning words, not grammatical accuracy. If a foreigner comes up to you and asks, 'Train station where please?' you can understand and help, even though the grammar is awful. Now, imagine if he says, 'Can you please tell me where to find... uh... er... oh?'

There's plenty of time later for learning the grammar; but knowing the words will help your child communicate now, and help them in learning the grammar later.

Parents can help by providing a rich learning environment and placing learning in context. They can help by making English fun to practise at home by using songs, games, drama and drawing. Here are some things you can suggest for them.

Don't correct, 'model' the correct form of the language. So if your child says 'The boy wented home,' you can say, 'Yes. The boy went home. What did he do then?'

Encourage children to correct themselves, this will build confidence and deepen the learning process. Say 'Almost right, try again...' or show the child where the mistake is but do not give them the answer. Some correction is okay but be careful not to over-correct. A page full of crossing out and corrections can be very demotivating, as is always being told, 'Wrong! Do it again!'

Particularly in speech it is much better to let the child develop their ideas and fluency than to keep interrupting with corrections. The ideas are more important than the grammar.

Keep their age and level of English in mind. Give lots of praise and encouragement for every effort - they can't know everything.

Top ten requests for parents
Encouraging children to memorise random vocabulary lists is not very helpful.The more associations you can make between different parts of the language the better. Methods that are likely to help the child are:

1. Be involved.
Parent involvement helps students learn and helps teachers work with your child to help them succeed.

2. Be positive.
Encourage children to do their best, but don't pressure them by setting goals too high or by scheduling too many activities.

3. Be a good role model.
Show your children by your own actions that you believe English is both enjoyable and useful. Read more and use television, videos and game systems creatively for education.

4. Accept your responsibility as parents.
Don't expect the school and teachers to take over your obligations as parents. Teach children self-discipline and respect for others at home - don't rely on teachers and schools to teach these basic behaviours and attitudes.

5. Encourage students to do their best in school.
Show your children that you believe education is important. Ask about homework, check it has been done. Don't let them miss classes unnecessarily.

6. Find a balance between schoolwork and outside activities.
Emphasise your children's progress in developing the knowledge and skills they need to be successful both in school and in life.

7. Be aware of things that affect classroom performance.
Try to limit the negative effects of late nights and long hours of extra activities.

8. Provide resources at home for learning.
Make sure you have English language books, comics and magazines available in your home.

9. Understand and support school rules and goals.
Take care not to undermine school rules, discipline, or goals.

10. Speak to the teacher!
As soon as you think there's a problem, contact the school. Don't wait for the end of term or parents' day.

Conclusion
For children, making mistakes is part of the natural process of learning.

Repeating, encouraging, praising and building confidence are what is needed to help a child to overcome mistakes. Avoid overtly correcting your child or you might discourage them. Some techniques that you can use are:

Here is a list of advice you can give to parents

We hope that this article has given you some useful insights into how to make learning more effective and enjoyable for young children and some tools to help you encourage and engage parents in the learning processes of their children.

Further Reading
Children Learning English, Moon. J.
Young Learners, Philips, S.
Very Young Learners, Reilly, V and Ward, S.

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Involving the whole child Involving the whole child Helping children with vocabulary Top ten requests for parents These interactions between parent and child always have a clear reason for the communication. Tips to parents This is a very different learning situation from asking, 'What is the past tense of 'give'?'

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When to start language learning

What stops children from learning

How children learn languages

Getting parents involved

Get to know how your children learn

When to start language learning

Most experts believe that when a child is introduced to a second language at an early age their chances of becoming more proficient in the target language will be higher. However, it is not necessarily true to say ' the earlier the better'. It is suggested that the most efficient time to learn another language is between 6 and 13.

However, children who learn in pre-to-early teens often catch up very quickly with children who learn from an earlier age. Also this does not mean that languages cannot be learnt later in life. The experience and environment at school and how language is taught and practised play a vital role in language acquisition, regardless of how young or old the child is.

Whatever the age, when children learn a second language they develop skills that will help to create opportunities in their future. They acquire the lifelong ability to communicate with others under diverse circumstances. Indeed, regardless of the level of proficiency, learning a second language and learning about different cultures generally broadens a child's outlook on life. It also opens up alternative educational and career opportunities.

What stops children from learning

Feeling uncomfortable, distracted or under pressure

Feeling confused by abstract concepts of grammar rules and their application which they cannot easily understand

Activities which require them to focus attention for a long time

Boredom

Being over-corrected

Reading the list above, you may be surprised at the number of items that remind you of traditional educational practices. In fact, research does suggest that traditional classroom teaching may have the effect of preventing
rather than helping children to learn better. You cannot force a child to learn. You can only provide a conducive environment, useful resources, and carefully structured input and practice opportunities.
How children learn languages
Children learn by:

Having more opportunities to be exposed to the second language

Making associations between words, languages, or sentence patterns and putting things into clear, relatable contexts

Using all their senses and getting fully involved; by observing and copying, doing things, watching and listening

Exploring, experimenting, making mistakes and checking their understanding

Repetition and feeling a sense of confidence when they have established routines

Being motivated, particularly when their peers are also speaking/learning other languages

Getting parents involved

Children also like their parents to be involved and understand what and how they are learning. Here are some tips and advice you can give to parents to help them support their child as a learner.
How you can help your child to learn another language

Get involved with their learning

Be interested in what happens in your child's English lessons

Even if you do not know any English yourself, there are many things you can do to support your child's learning

Tips
1. Talk to the teacher to find out how English is taught at school:

Become familiar with the materials used at school.

Ask about your child's progress regularly and make sure you attend your child's parents' day / evening.

Check what they have to do for homework each day and set up a routine and regular time for doing homework.

2. Learn more about the language yourself:

Engage your child in conversations about what they learnt in school and learn along with them.

Study English with your child.

Have them teach you some new language.

3. Motivate them! Make learning fun and stress free.

Here are some language learning games you can play with your child:

Bingo - Use numbers, letters of the alphabet, or word families: furniture, fruits, sports, jobs, colours, actions.

Memory - Put ten everyday objects on a tray. Say what they are in English, cover them. Can your child remember what's there and tell you in English? You can also use photos from magazines or newspapers of different word families.

Alphabet Game - Say a letter of the alphabet. Can your child find an animal, something to eat, etc. beginning with that letter? Or ask your child to write five words beginning with one letter.

I-Spy - Say that you are thinking of something beginning with a letter. Your child has to guess what it is.
Example: 'I spy with my little eye, something beginning with W.' 'Is it water?' 'No.' 'Is it the window?' 'Yes!'

Twenty Questions - Think of an object or animal. Your child has to ask questions to find out what it is.
Example: 'Is it big?' 'No.' 'Is it very small?' 'Yes.' 'Is it green?' 'No.' 'Is it grey?' 'Yes.' 'Is it a mouse?' 'Yes!'

Definition Game - Give your child a definition, they have to guess what you're defining.
Example: 'It is very big and it has a long nose.' 'Is it an elephant?' 'Yes!'

Treasure Hunt - Your child has to find something by following the clues you've written in English.

Get to know how your children learn

Each child has their own way of learning. It is a complex mixture of a number of different personality factors, some of which are explained below. Research shows that all types of learners can be successful second-language learners. Try to evaluate the methods your children are using, and introduce them to different ones if they're not working.

Using what you know about your child try to see which styles below would suit them best.
Dominant Senses
Some prefer using pictures and reading (visual learners), some like listening to explanations and reading aloud (auditory learners), others need some kind of physical activity to help them learn (kinesthetic learners).
Interaction Preferences
Some children are outgoing and sociable and learn a second language quickly because they want to be able to communicate quickly (interpersonal learners). They do not worry about mistakes, and are happy being creative with the limited resources they have acquired.

Other children are more reflective and quiet (intrapersonal learners). They learn by listening and by observing what is happening and being said around them. They may be cautious about making mistakes but can be much more accurate.
Analytical processes
Some children need to have everything clearly explained to them piece by piece so that they can understand how things work (deductive learners). These children like rules and patterns that are easy to apply to the world they live in. They need explicit explanations and often ask 'Why?' a lot.

Others prefer to work out the rules of what they are learning for themselves based on their experience (inductive learners). These children like asking questions and having their answers confirmed or corrected. They are more likely to tell you what they understand to be the truth and then ask you to agree with them.

The second part of this article will deal with how to handle mistakes and how to promote a positive classroom environment.

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When to start language learning What stops children from learning How children learn languages Getting parents involved Get to know how your children learn When to start language learning Most experts believe that when a child is introduced to a second language at an early age their chances of becoming more proficient in the target language will be higher.

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Introduction

Young children are natural language acquirers; they are self-motivated to pick up language without conscious learning, unlike adolescents and adults. They have the ability to imitate pronunciation and work out the rules for themselves. Any idea that learning to talk in English is difficult does not occur to them unless it's suggested by adults, who themselves probably learned English academically at a later age through grammar-based text books.

Read the notes below about young children learning English as another language. You can also download these notes as a booklet. Right-click on the link below to download the booklet to your computer. You may print this booklet.

The advantages of beginning early

Young children are still using their individual, innate language-learning strategies to acquire their home language and soon find they can also use these strategies to pick up English.

Young children have time to learn through play-like activities. They pick up language by taking part in an activity shared with an adult. They firstly make sense of the activity and then get meaning from the adult's shared language.

Young children have more time to fit English into the daily programme. School programmes tend to be informal and children's minds are not yet cluttered with facts to be stored and tested. They may have little or no homework and are less stressed by having to achieve set standards.

Children who have the opportunity to pick up a second language while they are still young appear to use the same innate language-learning strategies throughout life when learning other languages. Picking up third, fourth, or even more languages is easier than picking up a second.

Young children who acquire language rather than consciously learn it, as older children and adults have to, are more likely to have better pronunciation and feel for the language and culture. When monolingual children reach puberty and become more self-conscious, their ability to pick up language diminishes and they feel they have to consciously study English through grammar-based programmes. The age at which this change occurs depends greatly on the individual child's developmental levels as well as the expectations of their society.

Stages in picking up English

Spoken language comes naturally before reading and writing.

Silent period
When babies learn their home language, there is a 'silent period', when they look and listen and communicate through facial expression or gestures before they begin to speak. When young children learn English, there may be a similar 'silent period' when communication and understanding may take place before they actually speak any English words.

During this time parents should not force children to take part in spoken dialogue by making them repeat words. Spoken dialogues should be one-sided, the adult's talk providing useful opportunities for the child to pick up language. Where the adult uses parentese (an adjusted form of speech) to facilitate learning, the child may use many of the same strategies they used in learning their home language.

Beginning to talk
After some time, depending on the frequency of English sessions, each child (girls often more quickly than boys) begins to say single words ('cat', 'house') or ready-made short phrases ('What's that?', 'It's my book', 'I can't', 'That's a car', 'Time to go home') in dialogues or as unexpected statements. The child has memorised them, imitating the pronunciation exactly without realising that some may consist of more than one word. This stage continues for some time as they child picks up more language using it as a short cut to dialogue before they are ready to create their own phrases.

Building up English language
Gradually children build up phrases consisting of a single memorised word to which they add words from their vocabulary ('a dog', 'a brown dog', 'a brown and black dog') or a single memorised language to which they add their own input ('That's my chair', 'Time to play'). Depending on the frequency of exposure to English and the quality of experience, children gradually begin to create whole sentences.

Understanding

Understanding is always greater than speaking and young children's ability to comprehend should not be underestimated, as they are used to understanding their home language from a variety of context clues. Though they may not understand everything they hear in their home language, children grasp the gist - that is they understand a few important words and decipher the rest using different clues to interpret the meaning. With encouragement they soon transfer their 'gist' understanding skills to interpret meaning in English.

Frustration

After the initial novelty of English sessions, some young children become frustrated by their inability to express their thoughts in English. Others want to speak quickly in English as they can in their home language. Frustration can often be overcome by providing children with 'performance' pieces like 'I can count to 12 in English' or very simple rhymes, which consist of ready-made phrases.

Mistakes

Children should not be told they have made a mistake because any correction immediately demotivates. Mistakes may be part of the process of working out grammar rules of English or they may be a fault in pronunciation. 'I goed' soon becomes 'went' if the child hears the adult repeat back 'yes, you went'; or if the adult hears 'zee bus' and repeats 'the bus'. As in learning their home language, if children have an opportunity to hear the adult repeat the same piece of language correctly, they will self-correct in their own time.

Gender differences

Boys' brains develop differently from girls' and this affects how boys pick up language and use it. Sometimes mixed classes make little provision for boys, who may be overshadowed by girls' natural ability to use language. If young boys are to reach their potential, they need some different language experiences with girls and their achievements should not be compared with those of girls.

Language-learning environments

Young children find it more difficult to pick up English if they are not provided with the right type of experiences, accompanied by adult support using 'parentese' techniques.

Young children need to feel secure and know that there is some obvious reason for using English.

Activities need to be linked to some interesting everyday activities about which they already know, eg sharing an English picture book, saying a rhyme in English, having an 'English' snack.

Activities are accompanied by adult language giving a running commentary about what is going on and dialogues using adjusted parentese language.

English sessions are fun and interesting, concentrating on concepts children have already understood in their home language. In this way children are not learning two things, a new concept as well as new language, but merely learning the English to talk about something they already know.

Activities are backed up by specific objects, where possible, as this helps understanding and increases general interest.

Reading

Children who can already read in their home language generally want to find out how to read in English. They already know how to decode words in their home language to get meaning from text and, if not helped to decode in English, may transfer their home language-decoding techniques and end up reading English with the home language accent.

Before they can decode English, young children need to know the 26 alphabet letter names and sounds. As English has 26 letters but on average 44 sounds (in standard English), introducing the remaining sounds is better left until children have more experience in using language and reading,

Beginning reading in English goes easily if young children already know the language they are trying to read. Many children work out by themselves how to read in English if they have shared picture books with adults or learned rhymes, as they are likely to have memorised the language. Reading what they know by heart is an important step in learning to read as it gives children opportunities to work out how to decode simple words by themselves. Once children have built up a bank of words they can read, they feel confident and are then ready for a more structured approach.

Parental support

Children need to feel that they are making progress. They need continual encouragement as well as praise for good performance, as any success motivates. Parents are in an ideal position to motivate and so help their children learn, even if they have only basic English themselves and are learning alongside their young children.

By sharing, parents can not only bring their child's language and activities into family life, but can also influence their young children's attitudes to language learning and other cultures. It is now generally accepted that most lifelong attitudes are formed by the age of eight or nine.

Further reading:

If you are interested in finding out more about how children learn languages we suggest the following websites:

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How young children learn English as another language

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By Opal Dunn, educational consultant and author Introduction Young children are natural language acquirers; they are self-motivated to pick up language without conscious learning, unlike adolescents and adults. They have the ability to imitate pronunciation and work out the rules for themselves.

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Using Movement Games with Very Young Learners

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Using Movement Games with Very Young Learners

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National Geographic Learning: Young Learners

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Using Movement Games with Very Young Learners

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Teaching Vocabulary to Young Learners Through Brain-Based Teaching Strategies by Setenay Çelik

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Teaching Vocabulary to Young Learners Through Brain-Based Teaching Strategies by Setenay Çelik

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Teaching Vocabulary to Young Learners Through Brain-Based Teaching Strategies by Setenay Çelik

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Annamaria Pinter: How do young learners of English benefit from freedom and responsibility?

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Annamaria Pinter: How do young learners of English benefit from freedom and responsibility?

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Annamaria Pinter: How do young learners of English benefit from freedom and responsibility?

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Willis_From priming tasks and target tasks to language focus and grammar.pdf

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Bloom`s taxometry

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критичне мислення

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04 грудня, 2017 р.
Чи замислювались ви, які цілі та конкретні завдання ставить перед собою педагог перед тим, як увійти у клас? Як вони пов'язані між собою? І як перевірити, чи досягаються поставлені цілі? Над цими питаннями міркував у 50-х роках XX століття професор педагогіки Чиказького університету Бенджамін Блум. Намагаючись звести до єдиної системи набір розрізнених цілей і завдань, Блум створив теорію, яка ось уже шостий десяток викликає бурхливі суперечки й обговорення.
На думку Блума, цілі навчання безпосередньо залежать від ієрархії розумових процесів, як-от запам'ятовування ( remembering), розуміння ( understanding), застосування ( application), аналіз ( analysis), синтез ( synthesis) та оцінка ( evaluation). Кожному з цих рівнів за допомогою певних дієслів може пропонуватися набір завдань. Педагоги, які навчають критичного мислення, використовують цей інструмент.

Якщо слідувати розробленій Блумом таксономії, то знання учнів - це лише перший, найпростіший рівень класифікації. Далі йдуть ще п'ять рівнів цілей (або результатів) навчання, причому перші три - знання, розуміння, застосування - цілі нижчого порядку (мисленням низького рівня ). А наступні три - аналіз, синтез, оцінювання - вищого порядку (мисленням високого рівня).

Система Бенджаміна Блума може бути представлена у такий спосіб.
ТАКСОНОМІЯ НАВЧАЛЬНИХ ЦІЛЕЙ ТА РЕЗУЛЬТАТІВ Б. БЛУМА Бенджамін Блум встановив також, що між рівнями мислення і відповідями на запитання, які ми ставимо, існує прямий зв'язок. Більше того, самі запитання утворюють ієрархію цілком відповідну таксономії мислення. Питання на запам'ятовування відносяться до найнижчого рівня. Питання на оцінку або судження розглядаються як високий рівень мислення. Насправді, всі запитання важливі й усі вони приводять до різних видів мислення.
Запитання - один з механізмів формування навичок критичного мислення. Можна з упевненістю сказати, що запитання стимулюють критичне мислення. Відповідаючи на запитання, учні аналізують й інтерпретують інформацію, аналізують ідеї, будують гіпотези, відстоюють свою точку зору. Запитання є засобом стимулювання різних видів мислення на різних рівнях складності.

Використання на уроках запитань високого рівня - на аналіз, синтез, оцінку - дозволить вчителеві ефективно розвивати критичне мислення учнів. Уміння вчителя формулювати такі запитання є обов'язковою умовою вирішення цієї проблеми. З іншого боку, ми маємо навчити також учнів формулювати запитання різного рівня у процесі дослідження того чи іншого джерела знань. Розвинути такі уміння в учнів може допомогти використання вчителем спеціальних питальних слів для кожного рівня запитань. Такі слова можуть певний час виступати опорою для розвитку мислення учнів, зокрема і зоровою у вигляді роздаткових переліків.

Проте, використання таксономії Блума передбачає й формулювання пізнавальних завдань, які забезпечують досягнення навчальних результатів різного рівня. Такі завдання можуть бути побудовані за допомогою спеціальних дієслів, що "програмують" мисленнєву діяльність учнів певного рівня.
ПИТАЛЬНІ СЛОВА І ДІЄСЛОВА ДЛЯ РІЗНОГО РІВНЯ НАВЧАЛЬНИХ РЕЗУЛЬТАТІВ
Розглянемо ці інструменти в узагальненому вигляді.
Більше про те, як працювати з таксономією на уроках з вашого предмета, Олена Пометун, член-кореспондент НАПН України, д-р пед. наук, професорка, авторка-розробниця посібників і програм з критичного мислення для початкової й основної школи, співзасновниця освітньої платформи "Критичне мислення"ви можете дізнатись на тренінгах платформи. Реєструйтесь.
У наступному матеріалі читайте, як на основі таксономії Блума застосовувати конкретні методи з розвитку критичного мислення учнів.

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Що таке таксономія Блума і як вона працює на уроці

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04 грудня, 2017 р. Чи замислювались ви, які цілі та конкретні завдання ставить перед собою педагог перед тим, як увійти у клас? Як вони пов'язані між собою? І як перевірити, чи досягаються поставлені цілі? Над цими питаннями міркував у 50-х роках XX століття професор педагогіки Чиказького університету Бенджамін Блум.

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Each of your students can choose a blank 'badge builder' from one of our four great designs. On each design there is space for ten badges. You can award your students 'badges' for good work in different categories at the end of a class or activity. Beneath each badge is a space for the student to write a short sentence to explain what the badge was awarded for.

The different badge categories are:

Speaking English

Good writing

Good reading

Good listening

Good grammar

Good vocabulary

I did my homework

I listened to the teacher

I arrived on time

I worked well with my classmates

Good behaviour

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Each of your students can choose a blank 'badge builder' from one of our four great designs. On each design there is space for ten badges. You can award your students 'badges' for good work in different categories at the end of a class or activity.

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Kids classroom rules posters - Under the sea

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Kids classroom rules posters - Under the sea

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These posters are designed to be used on your classroom walls with young learners aged between 5 and 12 years old. This U nder the sea theme poster comes with speech bubbles completed giving five key classroom rules:

Speak in English

Listen to your teacher and you classmates

Try your best

Put your hand up when you want to speak

Respect each other

Classroom activity - create your own rules poster

We also have a blank version of the under the sea poster. Print copies of this out and give it to your students as a first class activity.

Ask your students to work in pairs and fill in the blank speech bubbles with their own ideas about what they think the five golden classroom rules are. Put the students' completed under the sea posters around the classroom and ask everyone in the class to vote on the best five... or ten... or twenty!

Our under the sea poster is designed to help you in the classroom and remind your students about how to behave in class. All our themes are bright, colourful and kids will love them.

Download and print your own under the sea poster below.

Why not have a look at our other themes:

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Kids classroom rules posters - Under the sea

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These posters are designed to be used on your classroom walls with young learners aged between 5 and 12 years old.

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Here you can find a wide range of practical resources to use in your primary classroom.

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Try not to correct them too much and be available to help with vocabulary needs.

An object which is important to me

Make a list of 4 or 5 objects which you hold dear (or take them to the class). Play this question game in 2 ways.

Show or describe your objects. Students ask you questions about each object.

They must try and think of at least 5 questions for each object (give them time to think of questions in pairs, if necessary) .

Students then choose an object or 2 objects and ask each other about them.

OR

Keep the identity of the object secret. Ask questions to guess the object: Is it animal, vegetable or mineral ? Is it worth a lot of money ? Can you use it at school ? Do people use it at home ? Is it an item of clothing ?

After a few questions reveal your object and give some background to it : It's a key ring which my brother gave to me for my 18th birthday It was my best birthday and this key ring reminds me of it.

Students choose 3 people (one from their family, one at school and one in public life).They explain their choices to each other. Prepare this by using your own examples and reviewing adjectives to describe people.

Ask students to make a list of 5 interests or hobbies that they may have. Make a list for yourself on the board:

Write expert on the board and elicit a definition.

Ask students if they think they are an expert on something. Explain that we can know a lot about something we are particularly interested in.

Look at the lists you have made. Students should choose 2 interests from their list of 5. Explain that for this lesson they will be the class expert on those topics.

They must write their 2 topics on a piece of paper/or the back of their original list and display these 2 topics in front of them on the desk.

Do the same for yourself and invite questions about your topics from the class.
For Example: Horror films:

Which is the best horror film ever made?

When did you first get interested in horror?

Is it better to see a horror film on video or at the cinema?

Divide the class into As and Bs. As play experts and stay seated. Bs get up and go and ask the experts about their topics of interest.

Encourage them to move around the experts. Half way through change roles. Bs are experts with their topics displayed. As are questioners.

You might wish to practise some of these expressions first:

Sorry, I'm not sure about that.

I'll have to check up on that before starting.

This game can be played more than once in a school year!

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Try not to correct them too much and be available to help with vocabulary needs. An object which is important to me Make a list of 4 or 5 objects which you hold dear (or take them to the class). Play this question game in 2 ways. Show or describe your objects.

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In your first lessons, it's a good idea to focus on getting to know each other, to develop rapport in the class and so you get an idea of the learners' interests and language level.

The activities outlined below are suitable from beginners level up and some can be adapted to suit higher levels.

Find someone who

Prepare this as a worksheet in advance, or you can ask learners to copy it into their notebooks. In a five by five grid, write different prompts, for example: hates cheese, likes rap, lives near the school ... The prompts will depend on the language structures you wish to use. You could elicit the ideas for the prompts from the learners.

Elicit the question each prompt generates, e.g. Do you hate cheese?

Ask learners to mingle and ask each other the questions until they find someone who answers yes to a question.

They write the name of that person next to the prompt and then continue to mingle to find other learners who answer yes to the other questions.

The first person to write a name for someone for each prompt is the winner. Elicit feedback with learners telling you about their findings, for example Ana hates cheese.

Adapt this game for younger learners giving a point for each name filled in each square. Learners add up their points when you tell them to stop.
Classmate bingo
Learners choose six names of people in their class and put them in a bingo grid.

Randomly ask for names around the class.

Learners cross off the names mentioned on their bingo card.

The first person to cross off all names on their card is the winner.

Change the theme from names to favourite food, sports you play, colour socks you're wearing, etc.
These are a few of my favourite things
You could use the Julie Andrews song as an introduction, reading the words if you haven't got the music.

Put five or six prompts on the board under the word favourite, for example: food, sport, school subject, number, colour, smell, sound, taste, day of the year, season, type of music, etc.

Check learners can formulate the question What's your favourite ...? Elicit some individual responses from learners.

Higher level learners can be encouraged to justify their choices, for example My favourite season is winter because I love skiing.

Learners then interview each other. Extend by asking them to find someone who shares a favourite thing with them.

An alternative is to start the lesson with a poster of pictures of your favourite things. Learners ask questions about your poster, for example Why do you like cats? or Have you got any cats? Learners can then draw a poster of their favourite things before interviewing each other.

Another variation could be top five lists, for example my top five favourite places, songs, celebrities, free-time activities, etc.

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In your first lessons, it's a good idea to focus on getting to know each other, to develop rapport in the class and so you get an idea of the learners' interests and language level. The activities outlined below are suitable from beginners level up and some can be adapted to suit higher levels.

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7 tips for teaching English to beginners

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7 tips for teaching English to beginners

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Resources for English Language Learners and Teachers | Pearson English

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Teaching beginners can be a daunting prospect, especially when it's a monolingual group and you know nothing of their language, or it's a multilingual group and the only common language is the English you've been tasked with teaching them. Nevertheless, not only is it possible to teach beginners only through English, but it can also be one of the most rewarding levels to teach. To help you succeed in setting your learners firmly on the path to increasing proficiency, here are seven tips for teaching English to beginners.

1. Keep instructions clear and simple

It can be tempting when addressing a class of students, especially ones that you've only just met, to explain activities in your politest language. After all, no one likes to be rude. However, a student who has only a few words of English, if any at all, won't appreciate the courtesy of (or even understand), "OK, so now what I'd like you all to do, if you don't mind, is just to stand up for a moment and come to the front of the class. Oh, and please bring your book with you. Could we all just do that?"

Instead, make instructions crystal clear by using as few words as necessary and by gesturing whenever possible, and break down series of instructions into smaller units. If you want to be polite, "please" and "thank you" will do. "Everybody - take your book, please. Stand up. Now, come here, please. Thank you."

2. Let them listen first

More than likely, your students will want to start practising speaking pretty much from the get-go. However, it takes a while for one's ear to acclimatise to the sounds of a new language, and not everyone will be so keen; don't pressure students into speaking before they've had lots of opportunity to listen to you using it (which doesn't mean you should just be rambling on at the front of the classroom - with beginners more so than with other levels, you really have to consider what you say and grade your language accordingly).

3. Drill, repeat, drill, repeat, drill...

Beginners need lots of repetition and drilling, especially as they get to grips with the sounds of their new language. It might seem boring to go over the same sentences again and again, but it is necessary. When practising a new sentence, try back-drilling, breaking the sentence down into manageable units and then building it back up, working backwards from the end of the sentence to the beginning; this helps to ensure that your intonation is natural and that you get elements of connected speech right. For example, break down "Would you like a cup of tea?" as follows:
tea > cup of tea > like a > like a cup of tea > Would you > Would you like a cup of tea?
4. Establish classroom language early on

Classroom language - Can you speak more slowly? What do we have to do? I don't understand. What does... mean? How do you say... in English? - is usually associated with teaching children, but it really helps with adult beginners as well. No matter how friendly and relaxed you make your classroom atmosphere, learning a new language can still be daunting, especially when you feel you're not completely following what's going on, or that you might be called on to say something that you don't feel ready to say. It's much better to equip students early on with classroom language that will help them navigate the lesson smoothly.

5. Avoid metalanguage

There's no point in students knowing the terms past simple, irregular verb or adverb of frequency if they can't use the actual structures or words they refer to. Don't tell them how to say something: show them. Give as much context as you can (visual prompts work well). Furthermore, make sure you check they have understood by asking questions that test their comprehension - never ask "Do you understand?" as a) many people are reluctant to let on that they haven't understood and will pretend instead that they have; and b) a student may think they have understood when in fact they haven't.

6. Don't forget that your students are fluent in their own language(s)

This may seem a trivial point, but it's all too easy when listening to somebody speaking broken English to forget that behind the errors and the mispronunciation is a person with cogent thoughts, no doubt articulate in their first language, attempting to communicate his or her opinions or ideas.

As teachers, we not only have to be patient and proactive listeners, alert to the reasons why certain errors are being made while filling in the gaps in less-than-perfect communication, we also have to steer clear of adopting the Me-Tarzan-You-Jane approach to teaching, bastardizing the very language we are aiming to teach. Rather than de grading our language we have to grade it carefully so as to keep it comprehensible while maintaining its naturalness, rhythm and spirit, ensuring all the while that, as far as possible, we actually converse with our students and listen to what they have to say. After all, even from the very first lessons, from the 'A' in the alphabet and the 'am' of 'to be', communication is the goal.

What we should always avoid is this:

7. Prepare well, prepare a lot, keep them talking

Even though teaching beginners entails progressing slowly and recycling and repeating language many times, that doesn't mean recycling the same activities, especially not during one lesson. Ensure you have a range of activities to use, and don't go into class without having first carefully thought through how you are going to introduce new language, how you will check that the students have understood it, how you will practise it, and how you will deal with potential misunderstandings. The possibility for confusion at this level is much greater than at higher levels, and sometimes even harder to disentangle.

Also bear in mind that, unlike with higher levels, you can't rely on conversations developing simply because the students don't yet have the linguistic resources to engage in anything other than simple exchanges (though in time they will). This means that the onus will largely be on you to keep them talking.

Finally, enjoy this level. Although in many ways the hardest level to teach, it can also be one of the most satisfying. Seeing your learners go from knowing nothing to knowing a few words to knowing a few sentences and structures to being able to hold rudimentary conversations can be incredibly rewarding, and if they enjoy their initial exposure to the language, and feel confident and inspired to continue, then you will have helped pave the way to their further success.
This blog first appeared on the ELT Learning Journeys blog. To read more excellent strategies and tips for teaching English, check out the blog here: eltlearningjourneys.com

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7 tips for teaching English to beginners

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Teaching beginners can be a daunting prospect, especially when it's a monolingual group and you know nothing of their language, or it's a multilingual group and the only common language is the English you've been tasked with teaching them.

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How to Teach English As a Second Language to Beginners

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How to Teach English As a Second Language to Beginners

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teach english as a second language to beginners

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How to Teach English As a Second Language to Beginners

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How to Teach English As a Second Language to Beginners. Teaching English as a second language for beginners is a challenging task for anyone. No matter what your background, or experience level, you will encounter constant new challenges...

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How to start teaching kids English at home

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How to start teaching kids English at home

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How do I start teaching my kids English at home?

Many parents would like to teach their children English at home, but don't know how to start. It doesn't matter if your own English is not perfect. The most important thing is that you are enthusiastic and that you give your children lots of encouragement and praise. Your child will pick up on your enthusiasm for the language. Don't worry if your child doesn't start speaking English immediately. They will need a certain amount of time to absorb the language. Be patient, and they will begin to speak English in their own time.

Establishing a routine

Establish a routine for your English time at home. It is better to have short, frequent sessions than long, infrequent ones. Fifteen minutes is enough for very young children. You can gradually make sessions longer as your child gets older and their concentration span increases. Keep the activities short and varied in order to hold your child's attention.

Try to do certain activities at the same time every day. Children feel more comfortable and confident when they know what to expect. For example, you could play an English game every day after school, or read an English story with your children before bedtime. If you have space at home, you can create an English corner where you keep anything connected to English, for example books, games, DVDs or things that your children have made. Repetition is essential - children often need to hear words and phrases many times before they feel ready to produce them themselves.

Playing games

Children learn naturally when they are having fun. Flashcards are a great way to teach and revise vocabulary and there are many different games which you can play with flashcards, such as Memory, Kim's game, Snap or Happy Families.

You can find free downloadable flashcards on a wide range of topics on our website.

There are many other types of games you can play with your children to help them practise English.

Action games - for example Simon says, Charades, What's the time Mr Wolf?

Board games - Snakes and ladders, other traditional games

Word games - e.g. I spy, Hangman

Online games - you could finish your English time with an online game from LearnEnglish Kids.

Using everyday situations

The advantage of teaching English at home is that you can use everyday situations and real objects from around the house to practise the language naturally and in context. For example:

Talk about clothes when your child is getting dressed, or when you are sorting laundry ('Let's put on your blue socks', 'It's Dad's T-shirt', etc.).

Practise vocabulary for toys and furniture when you are helping your child to tidy their bedroom ('Let's put your teddy bear on the bed!', 'Where is the blue car?').

Teach food vocabulary when you are cooking or going shopping. When you go to the supermarket, give your child a list of things to find (use pictures or words depending on their age). Revise the vocabulary when you put the shopping away at home.

Using stories

Younger children love books with bright colours and attractive illustrations. Look at the pictures together and say the words as you point to the pictures. Later you can ask your child to point to different things, e.g. 'Where's the cat?' After a while encourage them to say the words by asking 'What's that?' Listening to stories will get your child used to the sounds and rhythms of English.

The animated stories on LearnEnglish Kids are an excellent way for children to develop listening and reading skills. Older children can complete the accompanying downloadable activities to check understanding.

Using songs

Songs are a really effective way to learn new words and improve pronunciation. Songs with actions are particularly good for very young children as they are able to join in even if they are not yet able to sing the song. The actions often demonstrate the meaning of the words in the song.

There are many fun, animated songs on LearnEnglish Kids which you can listen to with your children.

Teaching grammar

With younger children, there is no need to explicitly teach grammar rules, but instead get them used to hearing and using different grammatical structures in context, for example 'have got' when you are talking about someone's appearance, or 'must/mustn't' when talking about their school rules. Hearing the grammar being used in context from an early age will help your child to use it naturally and correctly when they are older.

For older children, you can use the grammar practice section on LearnEnglish Kids. Videos, quizzes and games help kids to learn in a fun, relaxed way.

It can be very useful for older children to teach their siblings or other family members. Explaining how to use grammar to someone else helps you to master it yourself.

Which words and phrases should I teach first?

Consider your child's interests and personality when deciding which topics to teach, and let your child help you to choose. You may like to start with some of these topics:

numbers (1-10; 10-20; 20-100)

colours

adjectives (e.g. big, small, tall, happy, sad, tired)

the body

toys

clothes

animals (e.g. pets, farm animals, wild animals)

food

You can find lots of fun activities on a huge range of topics on LearnEnglish Kids.

It is also important for your child to get used to 'English time' language, so use the same phrases with your child each time, e.g. 'It's English time! Let's sit down. Which song shall we start with today?' Children will soon pick up phrases such as please; thank you; Can I have ...?; Where is ...?; Point to ...; What colour is it?; It's ...; I like ...; I don't like ...

Whatever your approach, the most important thing is to relax, have fun and make learning English an enjoyable experience for both you and your child.

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How to start teaching kids English at home

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Many parents would like to teach their children English at home, but don't know how to start. It doesn't matter if your own English is not perfect. The most important thing is that you are enthusiastic and that you give your children lots of encouragement and praise.

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How young children learn English through play

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How young children learn English through play

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How young children learn English as another language

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How young children learn English as another language

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Introduction

Young children are natural language acquirers; they are self-motivated to pick up language without conscious learning, unlike adolescents and adults. They have the ability to imitate pronunciation and work out the rules for themselves. Any idea that learning to talk in English is difficult does not occur to them unless it's suggested by adults, who themselves probably learned English academically at a later age through grammar-based text books.

Read the notes below about young children learning English as another language. You can also download these notes as a booklet. Right-click on the link below to download the booklet to your computer. You may print this booklet.

The advantages of beginning early

Young children are still using their individual, innate language-learning strategies to acquire their home language and soon find they can also use these strategies to pick up English.

Young children have time to learn through play-like activities. They pick up language by taking part in an activity shared with an adult. They firstly make sense of the activity and then get meaning from the adult's shared language.

Young children have more time to fit English into the daily programme. School programmes tend to be informal and children's minds are not yet cluttered with facts to be stored and tested. They may have little or no homework and are less stressed by having to achieve set standards.

Children who have the opportunity to pick up a second language while they are still young appear to use the same innate language-learning strategies throughout life when learning other languages. Picking up third, fourth, or even more languages is easier than picking up a second.

Young children who acquire language rather than consciously learn it, as older children and adults have to, are more likely to have better pronunciation and feel for the language and culture. When monolingual children reach puberty and become more self-conscious, their ability to pick up language diminishes and they feel they have to consciously study English through grammar-based programmes. The age at which this change occurs depends greatly on the individual child's developmental levels as well as the expectations of their society.

Stages in picking up English

Spoken language comes naturally before reading and writing.

Silent period
When babies learn their home language, there is a 'silent period', when they look and listen and communicate through facial expression or gestures before they begin to speak. When young children learn English, there may be a similar 'silent period' when communication and understanding may take place before they actually speak any English words.

During this time parents should not force children to take part in spoken dialogue by making them repeat words. Spoken dialogues should be one-sided, the adult's talk providing useful opportunities for the child to pick up language. Where the adult uses parentese (an adjusted form of speech) to facilitate learning, the child may use many of the same strategies they used in learning their home language.

Beginning to talk
After some time, depending on the frequency of English sessions, each child (girls often more quickly than boys) begins to say single words ('cat', 'house') or ready-made short phrases ('What's that?', 'It's my book', 'I can't', 'That's a car', 'Time to go home') in dialogues or as unexpected statements. The child has memorised them, imitating the pronunciation exactly without realising that some may consist of more than one word. This stage continues for some time as they child picks up more language using it as a short cut to dialogue before they are ready to create their own phrases.

Building up English language
Gradually children build up phrases consisting of a single memorised word to which they add words from their vocabulary ('a dog', 'a brown dog', 'a brown and black dog') or a single memorised language to which they add their own input ('That's my chair', 'Time to play'). Depending on the frequency of exposure to English and the quality of experience, children gradually begin to create whole sentences.

Understanding

Understanding is always greater than speaking and young children's ability to comprehend should not be underestimated, as they are used to understanding their home language from a variety of context clues. Though they may not understand everything they hear in their home language, children grasp the gist - that is they understand a few important words and decipher the rest using different clues to interpret the meaning. With encouragement they soon transfer their 'gist' understanding skills to interpret meaning in English.

Frustration

After the initial novelty of English sessions, some young children become frustrated by their inability to express their thoughts in English. Others want to speak quickly in English as they can in their home language. Frustration can often be overcome by providing children with 'performance' pieces like 'I can count to 12 in English' or very simple rhymes, which consist of ready-made phrases.

Mistakes

Children should not be told they have made a mistake because any correction immediately demotivates. Mistakes may be part of the process of working out grammar rules of English or they may be a fault in pronunciation. 'I goed' soon becomes 'went' if the child hears the adult repeat back 'yes, you went'; or if the adult hears 'zee bus' and repeats 'the bus'. As in learning their home language, if children have an opportunity to hear the adult repeat the same piece of language correctly, they will self-correct in their own time.

Gender differences

Boys' brains develop differently from girls' and this affects how boys pick up language and use it. Sometimes mixed classes make little provision for boys, who may be overshadowed by girls' natural ability to use language. If young boys are to reach their potential, they need some different language experiences with girls and their achievements should not be compared with those of girls.

Language-learning environments

Young children find it more difficult to pick up English if they are not provided with the right type of experiences, accompanied by adult support using 'parentese' techniques.

Young children need to feel secure and know that there is some obvious reason for using English.

Activities need to be linked to some interesting everyday activities about which they already know, eg sharing an English picture book, saying a rhyme in English, having an 'English' snack.

Activities are accompanied by adult language giving a running commentary about what is going on and dialogues using adjusted parentese language.

English sessions are fun and interesting, concentrating on concepts children have already understood in their home language. In this way children are not learning two things, a new concept as well as new language, but merely learning the English to talk about something they already know.

Activities are backed up by specific objects, where possible, as this helps understanding and increases general interest.

Reading

Children who can already read in their home language generally want to find out how to read in English. They already know how to decode words in their home language to get meaning from text and, if not helped to decode in English, may transfer their home language-decoding techniques and end up reading English with the home language accent.

Before they can decode English, young children need to know the 26 alphabet letter names and sounds. As English has 26 letters but on average 44 sounds (in standard English), introducing the remaining sounds is better left until children have more experience in using language and reading,

Beginning reading in English goes easily if young children already know the language they are trying to read. Many children work out by themselves how to read in English if they have shared picture books with adults or learned rhymes, as they are likely to have memorised the language. Reading what they know by heart is an important step in learning to read as it gives children opportunities to work out how to decode simple words by themselves. Once children have built up a bank of words they can read, they feel confident and are then ready for a more structured approach.

Parental support

Children need to feel that they are making progress. They need continual encouragement as well as praise for good performance, as any success motivates. Parents are in an ideal position to motivate and so help their children learn, even if they have only basic English themselves and are learning alongside their young children.

By sharing, parents can not only bring their child's language and activities into family life, but can also influence their young children's attitudes to language learning and other cultures. It is now generally accepted that most lifelong attitudes are formed by the age of eight or nine.

Further reading:

If you are interested in finding out more about how children learn languages we suggest the following websites:

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How young children learn English as another language

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By Opal Dunn, educational consultant and author Introduction Young children are natural language acquirers; they are self-motivated to pick up language without conscious learning, unlike adolescents and adults. They have the ability to imitate pronunciation and work out the rules for themselves.