Anka Zapart

Pairwork for pre-schoolers: Where the angels don’t fear to tread*

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Ha! It was working!

Again, I made it happen. They were sitting in pairs, facing each other, making riddles, answering, all by themselves. I was sitting in the corner, just keeping an eye.

First reaction? To run out of the classroom, shout it from the rooftops or, since they were just in the hallway, tell my students’ parents. But then, just then, I hesitated because, in my mind’s eye, I saw their reaction. What if I really did rush out, with a victorious ‘Your kids can play in pairs!!!!’

What would they do? They’d just look at me with an eyebrow raised. They do know that their 4 and 5-year-old sons and daughters can play in pairs. They did see it, a million times, in playgroups, in the playgrounds, in kindergartens, at home…what’s the big news here?

Indeed. If you look at the types of play and the age slots when kids normally are capable of engaging, then yes, for a long time, children are only taking part in unoccupied play (0 – 2), solitary play (2-3), onlooker play (2.5 – 3.5) and parallel play (2.5 – 3.5) but even the children aged about 3- 4 do engage in associative play and, a bit later, from the age of 4, in cooperative play. And that means, that for most of the EFL students (with some exceptions as there are school which admit 2 and 3-year-olds), there is nothing, from the point of view of child development, that should prevent children from interacting with each other and working together towards a common goal, without the adult, or rather, with the adult being involved only marginally.

Consequently, they should be able to take part in a pairwork activity in an English class because why not?

Naturally, some provisions related to the age of the participants will have to be made and the whole definition of what a pair-work activity is, adapted. And things such as the inability to read and write, the level of English, the duration of the activity, the ability to stay on the task…but these are the things that we work on anyway so…

I think I became obsessed with pairwork in pre-primary about five years ago. The group I was teaching was big, nine or even ten students at a time. They were absolutely amazing, some of them I still teach today, but there were ten of them and I felt really unhappy. They did not produce as much as they could have as we had to focus on whole class activities. Until, one day, I had enough of that, and out of this desperation, I started taking my first steps towards pairwork. From that group on, nothing was the same, pairwork was there on the table, for this and for all the other groups. There is no way back.

This year, with my new level 1 group and with a conference approaching, I decided to run an experiment, a small case study, just to put the pairwork with pre-schoolers on a timeline, out of curiosity and for the other teachers, too.

The group

There were seven kids in that group, two boys and five girls. The youngest of my students was around three, the two oldest ones – five years old.

The course

The group studied once a week, for sixty minutes. We had a pacing schedule and we did use the coursebook. In many ways, this was a typical level 1 group. We did things in the way that I normally did them with a level one group, the only real difference was that I kept my eyes open and I kept the journal of the whole experiment. Throughout the whole project, I did plan to go through it in the most organic of ways, without speeding the process, observing the kids and moving on to the next stage when they were ready.

Stage one: weeks 1 – 12: the start of the course

During these first twelve weeks of the course, we did absolutely everything that we do when we start with a new group, including:

  • The first vocabulary sets: colours, numbers, school things, toys
  • The first functional language phrases: hello, goodbye, blue, please, thank you, who’s next, are you ready, it’s big, it’s small etc.
  • Establishing and working on the routine
  • The first everything: the first lesson with the coursebook, the first story, the first craft, the first video, the first holiday
  • Developing social skills, building the class community

Stage two: a new game: week 13

Since the kids already knew the toys vocabulary and we had played some simple flashcards games, I decided to introduce a more complex game and the basis for the whole project: the guessing game ‘Is it?’

In week 13, we played the game for the first time, ever, with the kids sitting in a circle, with the teacher leading the game. I did have to play it up a little bit, in the beginning, pretending to be student A and student B but they got the idea of the game very quickly. I did accept the one-word production but some of the older children started to ask full questions from the very beginning.

Stage three: students take over: week 14 – 18

At the time I was not sure when this particular stage would happen, I wanted to wait for the kids to be ready and I was getting ready to wait. But, surprise surprise, they were ready, already in the following lesson.

I did play a few rounds, with me in the lead and then, invited a few of them to lead the game. They did need my help with holding the cards and keeping the game going but that’s really it. It was all natural and they were more taken aback by the fact that, out of all eight of them, not everyone did have a go.

Stage four: team vs team: the stage that did not happen

When I was staging the whole process, I did plan the stage in which the kids divided into teams would be playing the game, with one set of cards.

The idea was that would be slightly more independent, at the same time not being exposed and supporting each other in the game and the teacher could still supervise them effectively.

However, when we were sitting down to play the game, one of the pairs, grabbed the cards that were lying on the side, took them and, without any further ado, started to play the game, with the child sitting nearest, using full sentences.

This is when I realized that we were ready for the next stage so we proceeded.

Stage five: pairs: lesson 19 – 24 and onwards

It just happened and it was a success, despite the fact that between the whole Christmas break took place between lesson 18 and 19 and the fact that a student came back after a longer trip. As soon as the kids saw the materials, they knew what was to come (I knew because they were commentating in Russian) and to reinforce the whole idea, I prepared another set of seats, in another part of the classroom.

Stage six: the follow-up: interrupted by the pandemic

Here, again, I can only tell you about everything that I was planning to do, and everything that I could not do because we are chased out of the classroom by the coronavirus.

The first step was to be switching the vocabulary, to push the boundaries of the familiar and the unknown a bit, and play the same guessing game with school objects and colours.

The second step was to switch the game and, hopefully, swish through a few stages and use a game to play in pairs, Abracadabra, Pelmanism or One or many.

Reflection

All in all, it was very easy and pretty straightforward despite the fact that the kids were quite young and despite the fact that we only did meet once a week. I would imagine that, if we had classes more regularly, for example twice a week, even less time would have been required and we would have met our aims even faster.

If you haven’t tried pairwork with pre-primary, then use the first opportunity and go for it!

The contributing factors

  • Seating arrangements: very important, especially for the first few times with pair-work. It does make it a bit more complicated for the teacher, to put together mini-stations with two stools facing each other or, even better, two stools at a small table, in a reasonable distance from the other mini-stations but it really does contribute to the whole project. Kids can only see their partner; they have a small working space in front of them and the other pairs are automatically excluded. Out of sight, out of mind.
  • Material arrangement: very important. Colourful flashcards are great and beautiful to look at but they proved to be too big to manipulate for some of the little hands. It was too much of a challenge to shuffle them, one of twice they did spill onto the carpet and if the kids really wanted to keep them a secret, they did press them tight to their chests and the flashcards got folded and creased. This is how the black and white mini-flashcards appeared. Even if they got torn, lost, destroyed, it was super easy to replace them. To make sure that they were not see-through and they don’t fly out of the little hands, the colourful envelopes appeared. The students very quickly learnt to associate these envelopes with this particular game
  • Material coherence: This is in order to ensure that they students will be using the full structures and that they will be using the grammatically correct language. Naturally, it will depend on the activity and the vocabulary set. In our case, we started using pairwork with toys but I decided to eliminate ‘puzzles’, ‘crayons’ ‘blocks’ from this particular game. I did not want my students to overgeneralize and use ‘Is it?’ with a noun in plural and, at this point in the game, they had not learnt the plural form ‘Are they?’ and I did not want to overcomplicate things.
  • Voices to show interest: especially in the beginning, while modelling, when the teachers themselves are their own student B and student A. A little bit of theatre goes a loooong way here.
  • Decision making: or in other words, teaching kids to be independent. In a regular lesson, there are plenty of opportunities for the students to make decisions about the lesson – choosing the colour of the stool to sit on, choosing which song to sing, which game to play, the order in which they join the circle, or who is the next one to lead the game. This way, step by step, the little people learn that the teacher is always the hub and not the only hub in this little community and it all comes in handy later on, during the pairwork tasks.
  • Leading the game: as soon as the kids become familiar with the activity, they can be given the opportunity to ‘be the teacher’ and lead the game. This way they will be producing more language but, from the point of view of pair-work, they will be also better prepared to take a bit more responsibility for the game.
  • S-S interaction: as with leading the previous point, the students should be given many opportunities to interact with other students, without the teacher. Obviously, with the little ones, these exchanges will be limited to saying hello and goodbye to each other, not only to the teacher, to students asking each other ‘How are you?’, to students giving out pencils, asking for them and saying thank you etc.
  • Pairing-up aka Clever teacher: Ideally, of course, everyone should be able to work with each other and be on good terms with everyone in the group and building these relations is one of the general aims of the course. However, getting to that place is a process and work in progress and it will take time. For that reason, it might be a good idea, to consider pairing children up in a way that will be contributing to pairwork, with the hope that the benefits for the community spirit will be secondary here. There might be two factors to take into consideration, on the one hand pairing up the children that work well together, on the other pairing up the younger with the older, creating perfect conditions for this pairwork ZPD, with one student the expert, the other the novice.
  • Functional language: We started with the key language necessary for this particular game (Is it…? Yes, it is. No, it isn’t) and only later, when the time came, we added ‘I give up!’ which turned up to be necessary. When we were about to start the proper pairwork, I added chants to give it a proper framework, ‘Are you ready? 3…2…1…Let’s play!’ to start the activity and ‘Let’s finish. 10.9.8.7.6.5.4.3.2.1. Well done!’

If you are interested in the topic of language production in pre-schooler, make sure you check out the posts on Colourful Semantics, discourse clock, using songs and activities based on developing cognitive skills.

References

How to see a city. From the series: Teaching English through Art

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source: www.izi.travel

A while ago, I was teaching my first teens group in Moscow, an amazing bunch of students that I had a privilege to take from A2 to FCE and that I referred to as ‘my monsters’, though never to their face. And this is how this project came to be.

It could be called an attempt at a CLIL lesson. It could be said that the not-yet-dead-historian in me was behind that project but the truth is that, at the time, I was simply bored out of my wits the coursebook we were ploughing through and I wanted something else.

And, inspired by Kenneth McHoan, a character from the Crow Road by Ian Banks and one of his lines (‘He is my son. I’ll fill his head with anything I like’), I decided to teach Art.

The lesson that I am sharing today is the first in the series of ten lessons ‘How to see…’ that I taught as part of our general English course. The group that I trialled it with were B2 young teens but, since then I had a chance to teach it both to adults and pre-teens, C1 and end of A2 levels.

Why we liked it:

  • I had lots of fun, accompanied in the classroom by my favourite artists.
  • I did enjoy the change, in the curriculum and the pace, and it did feel great to be teaching a subject, in English, not just the language.
  • The students did enjoy it, too, being given a chance to have an opinion and to express it, freely and the fact that one painting could generate so many different views. 
  • Last but not least: although it did not happen overnight, I did realise that when my students were given a chance to talk about Art, all of a sudden, they were using the vocabulary from a higher shelf and really working hard on communicating what they thought in a beautiful way.

Lesson 1: How to see a city

Language focus

Aim: to introduce the language and the approach the students will need to be able to deal with the task. Normally introduced in the lesson beforehand, to allow sufficient time for practice and to make sure the students feel relatively confident using in the Art lesson itself.

  • language to express opinion / to agree / to disagree
  1. expressing opinion: I think, In my opinion. The way I see it.
  2. agreeing: I think so. I agree. Exactly. That’s true.
  3. disagreeing: I don’t think so, I don’t agree. I am not sure.
  • Three sheep: the name I gave to a trick I learnt from Rafael, to teach your students how to construct their discourse, how to express and justify opinions, even for the lower level
  1. Sheep 1: the opinion itself (I think)
  2. Sheep 2: reasons etc (because, so, and, but)
  3. Sheep 3: an example from the real life

Setting the context

Aim: to help set the context for the Art lesson

  • T shows the students a few photographs from New York
  • Questions to discuss
  1. What can you see in these photographs? Do you know the city?
  2. What is New York famous for?
  3. Have you ever been there? Have you seen any films set in New York? Have you read any books set in New York?
  4. Is New York similar to or different from Moscow? Is it similar to or different from any other cities you know?
source: wikiart.org

Interacting with the artwork: stage A

Aim: to provide an opportunity for the students to interact with the painting in a freer way, to provide opportunities for speaking

  • T divides the students into two groups and assigns a painting, group A to work on Frida Kalho’s painting, group B to work on Georgia O’Keefee’s painting
  • Each group can be divided into pairs, depending on the group dynamics
  • The students are discussing their painting, answering the following questions:
  1. What can you see in the painting?
  2. Is it a happy / sad / angry / depressing / scary painting? Why?
  3. In your opinion, how did the artist feel about New York? Did they like the city they lived in? What makes you think that?
  4. Could this image be used in tourist brochures to promote the city? Would it make a good postcard or a souvenir?
  5. How does the painting make you feel? Would you like to have it on the wall in your room? Where could it hang, in an office, in a hospital, in a shop or in a museum?
source: museothyessen.org

Interacting with the artwork: stage B

Aim: to provide an opportunity for the students to interact with both paintings

  • T mixes the students so that students from group A can work with students from group B, in groups or new pairs
  • Students show each other their painting and report their personal and their group’s opinions
  • T gives out new questions for the students to discuss
  • Which of these two paintings do you like more? Why?
  • Both of these paintings show New York in a very different way. Why do you think these artists had such a different view of the same city?

Open class feedback

Aim: to report back to class, to compare views

  • T leads the open class discussion, all the groups present their views, focusing on the two different ways to portray the same city. The teacher reveals that both paintings were painted at approximate the same time (1933 and 1925)
  • Error correction

The mini-lecture

Aim: to present the background information to provide the background for both paintings

  • T gives a short lecture, adapting it to the level and the age of the students, highlighting the main points
  • Both painters were not New Yorkers by birth, they came to the city with their husbands, one from exotic Mexico, the other from a small town in the prairies in Wisconsin.
  • Frieda felt alienated in the city, she didn’t like it, she missed home, she stayed only to accompany her husband
  • Georgia lived with her husband, in Manhattan, on the 30th floor, in Hotel Shelton and painted and sketched what she saw from her window.
  • Perhaps these are the factors that influenced both artists.
  • Questions from students
  • Error correction

The follow-up

Aim: to give the students an opportunity to look at their own city and reflect on how their feelings might influence the way they see the city

Part A

  • T divides the students into new teams / groups of 3
  • Students discuss the following questions about Moscow / own city:
  1. Do you like Moscow? Is it a good city? Would you like to live here in the future?
  2. What are the main tourists’ attractions?
  3. What are your favourite places in the city?
  4. If you could change something in the city, what would it be?
  • Open class feedback

     Part B

  • T gives out different paintings / photographs of Moscow / own city
  • Students discuss the following questions
  1. Look at these three different ways of showing your city in a painting/photograph. Which one is the best? Why? Which one is your least favourite?
  2. If you painted a picture of the city or if you were to take a photo to represent it, what would you include?
  • Open class feedback
  • Error correction

The follow-up: homework

Aim: to present an alternative way of looking at a city: through its inhabitants

Option A: Based on the photographs by Stan Raucher who photographs people on the metro in different cities

  • T selects the photographs / a photograph, appropriate for the age/ level of the students, hands out
  • SS at home prepare to talk about the photograph
  1. Who are the people in the photograph?
  2. What are they doing?
  3. What are they wearing?
  4. How are they feeling?
  5. Where are they going?
  6. Which city are they from? Why do you think so?

Option B: Based on the stories from Humans of New York, a project that interviews the people in the streets of New York and retells their storiesT selects the story/stories, appropriates for the age/level of the students, grades the language, if necessary, hands out to students

SS at home read the story and prepare to talk about their character:

  1. What is the name of the person?
  2. Where is he/she from originally?
  3. What does he/she do?
  4. What do we know about this person?
  5. What makes this person special?
  6. Would you like to meet this person?

In the following lesson, students report back, in pairs/teams and they choose the most interesting story / person / photograph.

Resources:

Frida Kalho, My dress Hangs there, 1933

Image and the basic information about the painting:

https://www.fridakahlo.org/my-dress-hangs-there.jsp

For more information on Frida Kalho see:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frida_Kahlo

https://www.wikiart.org/en/frida-kahlo/my-dress-hangs-there-1933

https://worldhistoryproject.org/1933/3/frida-kahlo-paints-my-dress-hangs-there

Georgia O’Keefee, New York Street with Moon, 1925

Image and the basic information about the painting

https://www.museothyssen.org/en/collection/artists/okeeffe-georgia/new-york-street-moon

https://www.wikiart.org/en/georgia-o-keeffe/new-york-with-moon

For more information on Georgia O’Keefee see:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_O%27Keeffe

https://www.artsy.net/artwork/georgia-okeeffe-new-york-street-with-moon

Yuri Pimenov, New Moscow, 1937

Image and the basic information about the painting

https://izi.travel/en/3185-yuriy-pimenov-new-moscow-1937-the-state-tretyakov-gallery/en

https://en.opisanie-kartin.com/description-of-the-painting-by-yuri-pimenov-new-moscow/

For more information about Pimenov https://soviet-art.ru/soviet-artist-yuri-pimenov/

Stan Raucher

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3615702/Photographer-Stan-Raucher-captures-everyday-lives-ordinary-people-metro-systems-world.html

Stan Raucher’s photography https://stanraucher.com/metro

Humans of New York

https://www.humansofnewyork.com/

What’s out there? Books and articles

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A reading list for the pre-primary EFL teachers (an attempt:-)

Here is a new project.

Deeply rooted in the fact that I keep losing things and if I start piling the resources here, I will also be able to find them myself easily. Selfish, as usual.

But, here’s to hoping that this post will come in handy to all those teachers who are looking for things to read about the very young kids and the ways of approaching them.

P.S. The list is highly subjective. So are the mini-reviews.

P.P.S. It will be continually updated!

P.P.P.S. Make sure you also have a look at the Bibliography Part 2: Webinars Treasure Chest.

Books: EFL

  1. Sandie Mourão and Gail Ellis (2020), Teaching English to Pre-Primary Children: Educating very young children, Delta Teacher Development Series. About: Waiting for my delivery but based on the IATEFL presentation in Liverpool, this book is dream come true.
  2. Vanessa Reilly and Sheila M. Ward (1997), Very Young Learners, Oxford University Press. About: Some nice practical solutions but, beware, the VYL world has moved on since 1997. Take it with a pinch of salt.
  3. Herbert Puchta and Karen Elliott (2017), Activities for Very Young Learners, Cambridge University Press. About: Lots of practical ideas for the beginner VYL teachers.
  4. Opal Dunn (2014), Introducing English to Young Children: Spoken Language, Collins. About: Some insights on what teaching pre-primary should be (although I cannot agree with all the approaches include here)
  5. Opal Dunn (2014), Introducing English to Young Children: Reading and Writing, Collins. About: Some theoretical background in a reader-friendly mode and some practical ideas.
  6. Lynne Cameron (2001), Teaching English to Young Learners, Cambridge University Press. About: Not really VYL-focused but an excellent introduction to the world of the non-adult learners.
  7. Sandie Mourão (2015), Discover with Dex, Teacher’s Book, Macmillan About: The best pre-primary Teacher’s Book so far (the overview of the age group, the implications for the classroom, the solutions).  

Research articles EFL

  1. Sandie Mourão (2014), Taking play seriously in the pre-primary English classroom, ELT Journal, 68 / 3, p 254 – 264 About: On the importance of play in the EFL/ESL environment.
  2. Sandie Mourao (2018), Research into the teaching as a foreign language in early childhood education and care, In: Garton, S. and F. Copland (eds), (2018), The Routledge Book of Teaching English to Young Learners, Milton Park, New York: Routledge, pp. 425 – 440. About: For those interested in a more academic look at EFL in pre-primary. Start your reading here! Spoiler alert: very little research in the area. Surprise surprise!
  3. Daeun Song and Jang Ho Lee (2019) The use of code switching for very young EFL learners, ELT Journal, 73 / 2, p. 144- 153. About: The results of a small scale study from South Korea on the benefits of the bilingual instruction in the pre-primary EFL classroom.
  4. Pawel Scheffler and Anna Dominska (2018), Own-language use in teaching English to pre-school children, ELT Journal, 72/4, p. 364- 383. About: The results of a small-scale study on the use of L1 in the pre-primary classroom in Poland (they do and they don’t mind).

Books: Early Years Education

  1. Tina Bruce (2015), Early Childhood Education, Hodder Arnold About: An absolute must. Nothing to do with EFL, lots and lots about the youngest learners in general.
  2. Tina Bruce (2001), Learning Through Play: Babies, Toddlers and the Foundation Years, Hodder Arnold About: A little more on play and why it matters.
  3. Tina Bruce (2004), Developing Learning in Early Childhood, Paul Chapman Publishing About: An introduction into the cognitive development, the social skills development, communication and the importance of play in early years education.
  4. Janet R. Moyles (1989), Just Playing, The role and status of play in early childhood education, Open University Press About: Even more on play, its types and value, including play with and through language.

Research articles: Early Years Education

  1. Developmental Matters in the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS), Early Education (2012), The British Association for Early Childhood Education, https://www.foundationyears.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Development-Matters-FINAL-PRINT-AMENDED.pdf   About: If you’ve never worked with the little people, have a look at this summary. This is how they operate. This is what they need.

To be continued…

Discourse at the age of 5?

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From the series: We want more!

Of course! You can hear kids blabbing in the hallway. To their mums, dads, nannies, friends, school’s security guards, all these never-ending stories of kindergarten adventures, scraps with siblings, birthday parties, visits from gran, new toys, rain in the playground, teeth lost, dead grasshoppers found…

They do it in Russian, of course, but that just proves that they are capable of discourse and that we, teachers, cannot really use the excuse of their age to justify all the one- word exchanges in the classroom.

Of course, they are already fluent users of Russian so they will be able to produce lots more, naturally but this post is not about catching up with the L1 but about what is feasible for the pre-primary students, pre-A1 level with the total of 90 or 120 minutes of exposure to the English language. More than just single word utterances.

I present to you… (drum roll): A discourse clock.

The tool itself is neither very complex or especially revolutionary. It is a just a neater and a more VYL-friendly toy which was created to support the kids in producing the language.

How to?

  • We play a game of riddles
  • Teacher demonstrates: moving the hands around the clock and producing sentences about a secret animal, from 12 o’clock to 12 o’clock. Kids guess the animal.
  • Kids take turns to make sentences about their secret animal for the group to guess.

Why we like it?

  • Moving the hands around makes this taks a little bit more kinaesthetic and it helps to structure the whole discourse by sequencing it and by highlighting all the topics to mention. The clock hands never stop half-way through. They have to make a full circle and they can only make a full circle when the language is produced.
  • The icons offer the visual support for the students and they represent all the language that they should know. But, apart from working as ‘visual reminders’, they can also be used by kids to ask for teacher’s help, by pointing at the word they need to use, without having to resort to their L1.
  • It is ridiculously easy to adapt to different topics and levels of challenge. The most basic animal clock can only include ‘big/small’ and ‘colours’ and more areas can be added to it as the kids progress through the unit or the course.
  • It works in the classroom and online.
  • Eventually, the clock becomes unnecessary and the kids are ready to produce longer stretches of discourse without it.

If you are interested in the topic of language production in pre-schooler, make sure you check out the posts on pairwork in pre-school, using songs, activities based on developing cognitive skills and Colourful Semantics in EFL.

Happy teaching!

VYL speaking activities and the cognitive skills development

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Where to look for inspiration for pre-primary activities? Coursebooks will be probably the first point of reference for many of us, but not the only one. There are kids and their interests, too and this is how pets, favourite toys or books make an appearance in our lessons, Frozen and Co. There is the internet and what other people have created, used and share and we are really truly blessed to be teaching in the XXI century, with Instagram, Facebook and youtube. CLIL and ‘real subjects’ are another great source of inspiration even if our students learn English as a foreign language. Sometimes it also happens that we find some randomness and we really really really want to bring it to class and we design the whole lesson around a story, a glitter gun or our new puppet.

In this post I would like to focus on activities whose beginning and the main driving force was the development of the cognitive skills or, in other words, everything contributing to the development of the thinking skills: memory, focus, logic, connections, information processing, patterns etc.

Why?

  • Because our students are 3 or 4 or 5 and 6 and they are developing these skills anyway. Using that and applying activities and concepts they are familiar with in their ‘L1 life’ to benefit of our English lessons is something that we do. This is how songs, chants, stories, crafts and puppets took over our classes.
  • Because the kids will be drawn to them and motivated by this cognitive challenge. And this is how we are going to ‘trick’ them into producing the language.
  • Because it would be simple be a waste not to use them.

How to do it? Keep on reading.

Categorising

This is something that can easily be done very early in the game, with the level 1 students and even with the younger pre-primary. ‘It’s big’ and ‘it’s small’ is probably one of the easiest concepts to start with. ‘You can eat it’ and ‘you can’t eat it’ is another. This is what I always start with because it is easy to demonstrate and even the youngest students giggle when you demonstrate ‘eating’ a pencil or a schoolbag.

Later on, the time comes for more complex categories, either based on personal preferences (I like it / I don’t like it) or the knowledge of the world (it’s hot / it’s cold, it can swim / it can fly / it can run or you eat it / you drink it).

Another, very simple way of applying this principle is categorizing objects by colour. These can be any objects that the students are familiar with, for example toys. The activity presented here was created for a 3-year-old student and used during the first week of the course. It went very well, the student was responding to the teacher pointing at different objects and responding to simple questions ‘Is it blue?’ with ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ but by the end of the lesson he started to produce his first chunks such as ‘a yellow car’, ‘a yellow robot’.

Odd one out

The inspiration for this and the following activity came from the Cambridge Young Learners Exams. The language level of these activities is, of course, way above the abilities of a typical year 1 or year 2 pre-primary student. However, cognitively, these are the tasks that preschoolers adore – looking for differences, similarities and connections and they will certainly be able to say ‘It’s blue, it’s blue, it’s blue. It’s red’

Most of the original exam materials can be used in class but with all the magic of the miro board preparing a task adapted to the needs and the level of the particular group will literally take two minutes.

Find the difference

Again, this is a task that children are familiar with. However, the original exams tasks as well as the tasks intended for language practice might contain the language that is above the students’ level or might be too complex visually and too detailed, hence inappropriate. However, this problem can be solved quite easily by selecting two random illustrations of the topic of the unit ie the farm, as it has been done in the presented activity used in lesson with a 5 year old year 1 student (courtesy of pintrest.com and clipartart.com) and we produced sentences such as ‘I can see an orange cat’ and ‘I can see a grey cat’

I spy with my little eye

It is a great game that does not require any preparation or special materials because that involves only looking around, listening and speaking. However, in its original form, it might be a little bit challenging for the EFL kids whose dictionary is very basic. For that reason, we play this game in a different way, based on a poster or a set of flashcards depicting only familiar vocabulary.

The most basic version ‘I spy with my little eye…something big’ can be easily extended into ‘I spy with my little eye…something big and pink’ or even ‘I spy with my little eye…something big and pink. It’s in the water. I like it’. The kids will be listening and speaking and required to process more complex information in order to complete the task.

Shapes

For some reason, shapes, for some mysterious reason, are not one of the key topics in pre-primary coursebooks, despite their importance and general appeal. Luckily, it is easy to fill that gap and supplement.

You need to start with introducing the key vocabulary, at least the four basic shapes, but after this obstacle is dealt with, they can be used and referred to frequently. Creating familiar objects from shapes, counting them, calling out the colours is a fun activity and can be included in every unit, regardless of the topic. And we can look for shapes around us, in the classroom or in any picture we are dealing with.

Sequence 1

This is a great activity that is especially useful in the first lessons with the new vocabulary as it really helps with drilling the single words or words in sentences. In the beginning the sequences can be very simple and straightforward, for example ‘robot, teddy, robot, teddy’ (or ‘It’s a robot, it’s a teddy’) but not necessarily. There are a lot of opportunities here and the students themselves can be involved in creating these.

Sequence 2

Sequencing is not about figuring out and reciting what should go next but also which elements are missing in the set. In this lesson we were revising the foot items and there were four things in the set, something we eat, something we drink, something yummy and something good. We were counting and adding the missing elements. Later on, new sets were introduced and children were asked to say what is missing (something we drink) but they could choose their favourite drink ie milk, water, juice and so on.

P.S.

The basic overview of what cognitive skills are: here https://helpfulprofessor.com/cognitive-skills/

If you are interested in how the concepts change based on the level of cognitive skills of the human being, check out the 5 Levels series on youtube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcUey-DVYjk)

PPS

If you are interested in the topic of language production in pre-schooler, make sure you check out the posts on pairwork in pre-school, discourse clock, using songs and Colourful Semantics in EFL.

Early literacy online: when technology is on your side. Part 1: Reading

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Switching to the online and making it your place could be, in my case, described as flying colours or one step forward two steps back, on different days. Nothing wrong with that, a new reality, transitioning is a part of the game.

But, surprise surprise, I love teaching literacy online!
1. It is easier to get the kids focused.

2. It is easier to keep the whole group on the task.

3. Adapting activities to the requirements of the online classroom is not that difficult.

4. I have been forced to get interested in many apps, online games and programmes that I have, stubbornly, avoided so far.

5. We are improving and are better at reading.

The wonders of the Miro board, any level of literacy skills.

My Big (online) Book of Words: first letter level

It has been our tradition with all the pre-primary groups to start our class Big Book of Words where we collect all the words we know, gluing new cards (word+image) at the end of the unit and choosing a letter to read in every lesson as a part of our class routine. Since we’ve moved online, this little tradition had to be updated, too, but it was quite easy because on the miro board you can pick any image and quickly, too. Whatever word your students bring up, you’ve got it!

Noughts and crosses online: the first letter/sound level

It is one of my favourite games and so no wonder that there must have been a way to adapt it to the needs of early literacy and, then, to the needs of early literacy online.

The advantages are obvious: the older kids are familiar with the game and its rules and it tasks only a moment to prepare, online or off and you can easily focus on the chosen letters or phonics. With the older students in groups we play in teams, the kids choose the box and give a word that starts with that sound/letter. Some of them still struggle, that’s why each box contains not only a letter but also a number. This is what we use to choose.

With the younger kids, we keep the competitive element out, we use a bigger grid and we simply colour it in.

Phonics stories: sentence level

Before the kids get to read for real, they need to practice on simple phonics stories. They are inlcuded in every coursebook, some of them are more interesting, some are less but there is always a way of getting a little bit more of them. After a few rounds of listening and reading the story from the coursebook (‘Mum jumps in the mud with the ducks’) and then words in different order, the teacher does a sort of a ‘substitution drill’, revealing more and more sentences with one different word to really encourage them to read. The key words can be underlined, too.

This activity can be followed up by the students creating their own similar sentences and the teacher typing them up on the whiteboard.

Quizlet quiz: sentence level

Instead of putting single words and images or single words and translations, we use definitions. Students read them together and try to guess what it is. Then we check! To make it more challenging and to turn it into a real quiz, you can ask the kids to write the words and check at the very end, award points.Or not.

True or false: sentence level

It only takes an illustration, one of the pictures in the coursebooks or in the Cambrige YLE Wordlist Picturebook or anything else available online and a set of sentences that the teacher prepares beforehand.

They can be written on post-it notes or have them covered by shapes to be removed, one by one and ask the kids to react to the text. If the sentence is true – they clap their hands, if the sentences is false – they raise a hand.

The activity can be extended into a writing a activity, too. If nothing else, they can type them up into the chat box for the rest of the group to read and react.

Shared reading: text level

Shared reading was one of our favourite activities this year, until we had to move online. Doing it online is a bit challenging since not many storybooks are available online.

Online phonics stories like those from the youtube channel English Singsing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9C1qj06xduo&t=104s might be a solution but I have also started to use Barefoot Books, also on youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lrd0TiER_J0. We use them with the sound switched off and at the lower speed. This and the bouncing ball really helps the kids to focus and to follow the text with ease.

Useful websites

  1. Phonics Bloom https://www.phonicsbloom.com/
  2. Oxford Owl https://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/for-home/find-a-book/library-page
  3. Starfall https://www.starfall.com/h/ltr-classic/
  4. Reading A – Z https://www.readinga-z.com/phonics/decodable-books/
  5. Kidz Phonics https://www.kizphonics.com/materials/

Crumbs (#3): SwitchZoo Online!

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Instructions

Go to www.switchzoo.com/zoo.htm.

Demonstrate for the students how you create an animal: choose the habitat, choose the head, the body and the tail.

Divide the students into teams, let them create their own animals and then present their animals.

The kids who are listening can also be involved by asking more questions, ‘interviewing’ the creators and the animal, depending on their level of English.

Print screen and save the animals. They can be used later in a bigger project – creating a zoo, describing the animals, writing the stories about them.

Make your own using MiroBoard!

Set it as homework, ask the kids to ‘compose’ their own animals and introduce them in the following lesson.

We loved it because…

First and foremost, it is a lot of fun.

It is a great follow-up activity to any language lessons on animals, habitats, body parts of even mythical creatures.

It makes kids want to talk and write about their creations.

The website is also a great tool to learn about animals, biology and geography, climate, habitats. You can build your own biome, listen to animal sounds or feed different animals.

Happy teaching!

Crumbs (#2): Cool homework ideas: Make Beliefs Comix

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Instructions

Go to Make Beliefs Comix website (https://www.makebeliefscomix.com)

Click Create Your Comix and just create. There is a range of characters, balloons, prompts, objects, masks and backgrounds…

Save, print, send to your email and share with your students to read at home.

Use it in class in the following lesson. The easiest, no preparation tasks might be simple questions (ie What did the unicorn do? Where did the unicorn go? What was your favourite place? Where would you like to go?) but there is a lot more that can be done.  

We loved it because…

We can focus on practicing what we are learning at the moment and the teacher include all the tricky phrases and the words that no one likes and no one remembers.

We can make it as easy or as difficult and as long or as short as we want.

We can print it, save it on the desktop or send it via email.

We can include our names, our class puppets, jokes and stories and because it is about us, we want to read it.

We finally like to read!

P.S. I tried to make it in class, with my individual students, too but it was too time-consuming. Perhaps there is some potential for students creating their comix on their own, at home but that is something to do in the future.

P.P.S. Make Beliefs Comix has a lot more to offer. Make sure you check out the other bits, too.

Crumbs (#1): Cool homework ideas: drawing classes

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Instructions:

  1. Get a drawing tutorial, like the one from Rob Biddulph (#DrawWithRob).
  2. Attempt to draw your own dinosaur aka Gregosaurus aka Matthew.
  3. Bring it to class and introduce Matthew to your kids. Let them ask questions.
  4. Share the video with kids, let them draw at home, colour and get ready to talk about their dinosaurs.
  5. Set aside enough time for everyone to present their creations.
  6. Ask questions, answer questions.
  7. Have fun and marvel at the amount of language that generates.

We loved it because…

  • It is a lot of additional exposure and listening skills practice outside of the classroom
  • The video was created for kids, not the efl/esl kids but they can still do it.
  • It is the first step to production, in speech or in writing.
  • We can learn how to draw (we, the teacher)
  • It is an additional task but the kids feel really motivated to do it.
  • We had fun and we will definitely do it again.

Ambiguity is the mother of…production. Maximising production in class.

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A splotch is…a flower!

The beginning of this particular story was at best inconspicuous. We were finishing the food unit and to celebrate that, I decided to have a little party at the end of the final lesson. The parents were asked for permission, they approved of our food and at the end of the lesson, we got up, made a train, choo-chooed to the bathroom to wash the hands and then we just had fun. As luck would have it, one of the items on our ‘menu’ were the animal biscuits. Unfortunately (or, actually, very very fortunately) some of these animal-shaped biscuits were beyond recognition and it was not long before the kids started to ask questions and discuss what these mis-shapes could be…Naturally, some of it was in L1 but, amazingly enough, a lot happened in English, too. And this was the first time when I realized that ambiguity is the mother of production. Then I just had to figure out what to do with that next. Here are a few ideas…

A splotch is …a ball!

Stencils and inkblots can be one of the ways of getting started. Stencils can be easily found on the internet (if you google for example ‘animals stencils) but they can also be drawn and cut out of cardboard. Inkblots can easily made at home or in class. The idea has been also used in some of the songs by Super Simple Songs such as Knock, knock, Who are are You? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jxcWlq3CBg) or games such as Fruit Guessing Game (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVE9pYdwX-I&t=45s) so this can be the first step, too!

A splotch is…a cat!

Then, there are also jigsaw puzzles and half-pictures. Existing jigsaw puzzles depicting the key vocabulary will be the resource that first spring to mind but these might not be very easy to get and very often consist of very small pieces. English classroom jigsaw puzzles can be easily produced by photocopying the flashcards and cutting them up, into two or three pieces if the students are quite young. There will be another advantage of using the coursebook flashcards as students will be familiar with the images and that is going to make the task achievable. To make them more durable, they can be laminated before cutting. In class, the teacher can be showing only one of the pieces and encouraging the children to guess the word, before the students are asked to find the other missing pieces and putting the picture together.

One of the resources that is very useful and very easy to make and, I think, needs to have its place on a shelf in the VYL classroom is, what I call, a funky envelope. I have taken the idea from one of the older coursebooks I Spy which contained a template for a page with a keyhole that children could cut out and move against a picture and guess what they can see. I made it into an envelope made out of 2 A4 pieces cardboard stapled together, with different shapes cut out in one of them. I put inside the flashcards that we are using at the moment and then the fun begins. It is very easy to make and easy to manipulate, too.

A splotch is…a bee!

Whereas the funky envelope is usually used with the familiar images and flashcards, the post-it notes activity work better with unfamiliar pictures. A similar approach is used in the song What is it? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_sdGxUxz_4&t=114s) and some of the flashcard games on different platforms but it can be easily recreated in the classroom. Any poster, illustration in the coursebook, drawing or photograph can be used for that and the parts of these, covered by the teacher with post-it notes before the lesson can be used in a prediction game.

Equally fun will be a magic bag and some realia. Ideally, of course, they will be relevant to the topic of the unit ie plastic or real fruit, toys, plastic animals, school objects but I also like to throw in some unexpected distractor such as a plastic dinosaur among all the fruit. The teacher can either put only one of these in the bag and ask the students to guess the word, taking turns or guessing together. They can also fish out one of the objects and try to guess what it is, without taking it out of the bag.

A few tips

  • Make sure the kids have the language to participate in the activities ie introduce and practise the key vocabulary beforehand.
  • Introduce and practise the key question, too. ‘What is it?’ and ‘It’s…’ and ‘It’s not..’
  • Later on, consider introducing more advanced structures, too, such as ‘I think it is..’ or ‘It looks like…’ and ‘It is like…’. Providing these will be a good long-term plan and it will equip the students (and the teacher!) with the tool to clarify any confusion in the future.
  • Remember that saying what things are not is even more fun and important as guessing what they are. Don’t miss this chance to be creative and to produce even more language!

Happy teaching!