Anka Zapart

In defense of paper, In defense of magic. Storybooks in the EFL classroom.

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Once upon a time, there was a world in which children were developing their reading skills, imagination and creativity with storybooks read by mum at bedtime.

Then, the Wicked Witch of the West came and replaced all the books with apps, tablets and games. The Wicked Witch of the West said that it is all easy, available, accessible. All the parents and all the teachers applauded. The books lay forgotten and deteriorating, and a few years later, the time came when one of the dinosaur teachers by accident said ‘open your books’ in class and a little Masha raised her hand in the first row to ask ‘What is a book, Miss?’

Luckily, we are not there yet and, hopefully, we will never be. Of course, the pandemic was / is / has been a huge challenge for us in that department but, nonetheless, I do continue to stand proud in defence of paper and in defence of magic.

May this very post to be the introduction and the directory to everything that using storybooks in the classroom can be.

One thing that it definitely is not, is just opening the storybook and reading it out loud. This is what it can be.

One. Baby steps

At the start of the level 1 of any pre-primary or primary course, the kids are real beginners, they have no language, no structures and no vocabulary. It would be rather optimistic to hope that a teacher is going to be able to use a story with all its richness. However, that is also not a reason NOT to include them in your lesson plans. After all, storybooks are something that the little kids are familiar with, they know what dealing with them involves and that they are part of life. For that reason, they can and they should be used with children.

  • Simple vocabulary revision with a different tool: the teacher points out at pictures in the book and calls out the colours, counts them, asks if they are big or small, if the children are happy or sad, if the students already know this vocabulary. This might happen only at the level of the colour (It’s green) and not necessarily with the actual noun (It’s a green fish), although, admittedly, there is some potential here, too, to learn the new vocabulary through storybooks
  • Simple functional language practice: Hello Pete, Goodbye Pete in the first lessons with the book and then according to what the students know.
  • Storybook reading-related language: something that will be introduced gradually but that will come in handy throughout the course, for example ‘It’s story time!’, ‘Sit down’ ‘Are you ready?’ ‘Turn the page’ ‘Do you like the story?’

Two. Role-play

This way of using a storybook will involve the students a little bit more as they will be retelling the story together with the teacher, as soon as they become more familiar with it. Naturally, not all the stories will lend themselves to this activity, only those that include some repetitive language, even if it is only one phrase. Stories that can be used here can involve

  • Dear Zoo (‘I wrote to the zoo to send me a pet’)
  • Where’s my baby? (‘Is this your baby, Mrs Monster?’)
  • We’re going on the bear hunt (‘We’re going on a bear hunt, we’re gonna catch a big one. Oh, what a beautiful day. We’re not scared’)
  • Any other story in which you might want to implement a structure that the kids might already know or that they might benefit from knowing, even if, originally, it is not in the story. For example, ‘…., Senor Croc’ is a storybook for kids in Spanish about the birthday party of the main character Mr Croc, by introducing the following ‘Let’s’ (Let’s open the presents, Let’s dance, Let’s eat the cake)

Three. Vocabulary practice

The storybooks are there and we can use them and the beautiful story and illustrations in any way we want. The story is not really read but told, with the language graded to the level and needs of the particular group.

Most frequently I choose the storybooks to go with the vocabulary that study in the unit. This way, the children can participate in telling the story and continue working on the vocabulary that they are learning. It will start with producing single words but it can lead to producing

  • How to lose a lemur – to teach and revise transport
  • Dear Zoo – to teach and revise animals
  • Julia Donaldson’s The Smartest Giant in Town – to teach and practise clothes
  • Go Away Big Green Monster – to teach and revise body parts
  • Marvin Gets Mad – to teach and revise emotions and verbs

Four. More vocabulary practice

Taking one more step in that direction, any storybook can be used to teach, to revise and to practise any vocabulary, even if it does not feature explicitly in the storybook.

The first storybook that I have used in that way was the traditional story ‘The Three Goats Gruff’. The story is lovely all by itself but I have been using it to practise and to revise the food vocabulary. Only in my version of the story, every time one of the goats tries to cross the bridge and the troll attempts to eat it, they always have some food on them and they try to buy themselves out by asking ‘Troll, do you like bananas?’, which, of course, the troll never accepts.

Five. Storytelling without storybooks?

Absolutely! For example, because you realise that your own precious copy of Dear Zoo has been misplaced / lost / stolen only a few minutes before the lesson in which you want to use it…You do not give up, naturally, you only wander around the school, find a few flashcards and a box. As an experience it is unpleasant and stressful but, in the end, you realise that, hey, a storybook itself is just a tool and a story can be told without it. And it is lots of fun.

Another sources of inspiration for that kind of approach to storytelling, can be a series of storytelling videos produced in the 90s by the Brazilian TV Cultura. This example here is in Portuguese is a story about a crocodile, a grasshopper and a spider, with a scotch dispenser starring as the spider, a pair of scissors as the crocodile and a table tennis ball as grasshopper.  

This kind of pretend-play with the use of the everyday objects or toys is something that children do in L1 as well and it can easily be implemented in our EFL lessons, too.

Six. I can read!

This is a big moment for the teacher and the student when they can finally take an active part in the proper reading of the story. For that reason, the storybook should be carefully chosen.

  • ‘Bear on a bike’ is easy enough because the whole story is told through illustrations and single words or short phrases, some of which are also repeated. ‘Apple, pear, orange, bear’ follows a similar pattern
  • ‘Llama, llama, red pajama’ includes rhymes and some parts of it are easy enough for the primary beginner students to deal with
  • Graded readers and phonics stories that were specifically created for beginner readers

Seven. Storybooks for everyone!

A few years ago, at the IH YL Conference in Rome, Beverly Whithall from IH Braga gave a fantastic seminar on using storybooks with teenagers and adults. The older students, because of their maturity and the level English, can properly appreciate the story, its language, plot and illustrations and every story can be a starting point to a discussion. Just imagine a typical literature lesson that you had in school, when you are looking not only at the story itself but also at the bigger picture. Seen from that angle

  • Rhinos Don’t Eat Pancakes is really a story about a family and about loneliness
  • Elmer is a one big question of whether one should be like the everyone else
  • Giraffes Can’t Dance is about bullying
  • Up and Down is whether we should always follow our dreams

Questions

  • How to choose a storybook? It might be a good idea to start with the classics but also to keep your eyes open while visiting bookshops and browsing, to find out more about the beautiful world of the storybooks and to learn more about how they can be used in the lesson.
  • How long can I use the same storybook? Well, definitely more than once and as long as the students are interested. It might be a good idea to put the book away for some time and then return to it, letting the students choose which book they want to read or ‘read’
  • How do I adapt the language? Like with all the lesson planning, for any kind of an activity, choose the aim first (functional language, structures, vocabulary practice, revision or introduction) and them adapt the book to help you meet that aim. The gestures, the visuals, the voice and the universal story magic will help children to understand. Translation will not be necessary.
  • Do I need to include storybooks in every lesson? It is not absolutely necessary, it is like the other tools and techniques, they are definitely beneficial for the children but there is no absolute must to have them in every lesson. More likely than not, with time, you will see the positive impact of storytelling on the students, on the classroom management and on yourself and it is for that reason that you will want to include them in every lesson or almost in every lesson.
  • How do I start? Slowly! Practice makes perfect.

Tips and techniques

  • Let the children look at the story, all or some of the pictures, before you start telling the story, unless, of course, there is some big surprise in the end which should not be revealed too soon.
  • This demonstration can be done in silence or the teacher can point at certain pictures and elicit the words from the students.
  • While telling the story, point at the crucial elements in the illustration and pause to elicit the language from the children.
  • If the kids are already familiar with the story, start telling it with mistakes and wait for the children to correct you. They are going to love it.
  • Include gestures and physical actions that will accompany your story. This will help children first to understand the story and then to retell it and to really remember the language.
  • If possible, use some prompts such as realia (toys, plastic food, clothes), flashcards or mini-flashcards.
  • If possible, try to recreate the atmosphere of the story by preparing a soundtrack i.e. the jungle sounds for story set in the jungle, the beach sounds for the stories set by the sea etc.
  • Don’t forget to use your voice, this is the teacher’s most important and powerful tool.
  • Get ready and rehearse, think how you are going to position yourself, how you are going to hold the book, where the children are going to say.
  • If you are not using the original story, try to remember what changes you have introduced in order to be able to retell the story in more or less the same way every time you are using it
  • The storybook is never used in one lesson only. It is only in lesson two or three, when the students are already familiar with the story and with the language, that they can really enjoy it and participate in it fully.

Happy teaching!

We want more. We ALWAYS want more! Maximising language production

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Here is my favourite character who would be a perfect amabassador for ‘We want more‘, my professional obsession (you might have noticed:-) and some of my favourite solutions for the classroom.

Trick number 1: The language

Regardless of what coursebook is used or what curriculum is followed, there are certain language items that can be included even in the pre-primary programme that will enable children to communicate and produce more language.

Some of these language items include:

  • descriptive adjectives, such as big – small, long – short, happy – sad, beautiful – ugly, serious – funny, old – new, etc. Introducing them in opposites will make it easier for the students to understand and to remember
  • simple linkers, introduced gradually, starting with ‘and’ (‘blue and green’, ‘cats and dogs’, ‘I like bananas and apples’), then moving on to ‘because’ ( starting with ‘I am happy because it is sunny’) and perhaps even ‘but’ (‘I like dancing but I don’t like dancing with a bear’, like in the song from Super Simple Songs).
  • introduce Present Continuous, because it will be easy to play with it in all the miming games and it will come in very handy while describing pictures and telling stories.
  • talking about other people. Personalisation is very important while learning language, not only with the little ones, but it is also a good idea to start introducing other people and the language we need to talk about them such as ‘she/he is / has got / can / likes’

Trick number 2: The freedom of speech

This freedom of speech has got very little with the civil rights. It is all about the degree of freedom that the students are given or, in other words, about the scaffolding and the support that are slowly removed in order not to limit the students and to enable them to choose what they want to talk about.

One way of doing it is shifting from closed yes/no questions towards more open-ended questions. ‘What do you like to eat?’ is more likely to generate more language that only ‘Do you like bananas?’ which will lead to one-word answers or maybe even only gestures. ‘Tell me about‘ will be a lot more generative.

Using this approach while working with illustrations, pictures or any kind of visuals will give students the opportunity to choose for themselves what to talk about. And it is quite likely that they will pick the topics (elements or aspects of the picture) that they are either more interested in, have more knowledge of or are better prepared to discuss. In any case, more language is likely to be generated.

Examples or real activities? Here you are:

Pairs is a speaking activity that uses a simple material of a set of pictures. The students put them in pairs, in any way they want. They also have to justify their choice. In case of the younger learners, this principle can be the colour (‘Panda and zebra. They are black and white’) but kids can also choose any other reason for that, like ‘Zebra and horse, they have 4 legs’ or ‘Bear and deer. They live in the forest’.

This activity can be also used with the older students who are given a list of words and have to put them in pairs, according the knowledge and the language they have.

Below you can see the end of the game with my pre-primary student. It started off slowly, with simple sentences about the colours that the animals have in common but as the activity progressed, the categories changed, too and we have here an example of animals that have a long tail (a lizard and a monkey), animals that live in the forest (a bear, a fox and a deer) or animals that like meat (a tiger and a lion).

This is the final product of our Pairs activity, using the visuals on Miro

Tell me about is another activity that uses a visual, for example a set of pictures with animals or a picture scene. Students choose an element for their peers to describe, for example Tell me about this boy’ and it is easy to imagine the variety of responses that these can generate. Students can choose to talk they boy’s clothes, feelings or actions.

Trick number 3: The appropriate activities and materials

Our students do what we want them to do. It is assumed so, precisely because we are teachers and they are students. The roles have been assigned once and for all. The question to ask yourself, though, is Would they really want to do it, if they had a choice? Is there anything in the task itself that would encourage them to? Or not.

Certainly, it does not meant that all those less-exciting-but-crucial activities will be renounced forever, because even though they are not always fun from the point of view of our students, they might still be necessary and useful, but it is an interesting aspect to start taking into consideration while lesson planning.

Here a few activities that use that principle

Yes or no? This is an activity that also uses visuals as the basis. In the first stages of the activity, the teacher describes the picture using very simple structure ‘I can see’ when some of the sentences are true and some are false. Students listen to the sentences and correct the sentences. In case of the pre-primary students, this is likely to be one-word production but with time, they are learning to respond in full sentences. Later on, when the students are familiar with the format of the activity, they are invited to take a leading role in the activity, also producing true or false sentences about the picture for the teacher and their peers to correct.

Kids love the game because they can correct the teacher’s mistake and they are allowed to create their own un-true sentences about the pictures and to try to trick the teacher. I have used it both with primary and pre-primary students. The younger kids, naturally, needed more time to adjust and to start producing full sentences, in the beginning they would only provide the key information, for example the colour or the number of objects but, eventually, they were comfortable enough with producing full sentences. At approximately the same time, they were ready to lead the game, too. The older, primary students could make this transition within a lesson.

This is how we were telling our own version of ‘Pete the Cat. I’m rocking in my school shoes’ using the visuals on Miro

Storytelling for pre-primary is based on picture description. Here, the easily available materials might involve the stories from the coursebooks for pre-primary, retelling together any other story used in class or even any of the materials in the YLE Starters materials. In this case storytelling is scaled down to simple picture description, in the appropriate sequence.

Storytelling for primary can also use the visuals but it can be more challenging with the use of storydice or a storytelling treasure hunt (see here)

The lion and the kitten is a simple boardgame that has been very helpful in encouraging the students to produce the language. It was created and used with the online 1-1 pre-primary students. The game does not use a dice. Instead the students can choose the box where they want to go next and in each round, they have to talk about one of the pictures hidden under the yellow, orange and blue diamonds. In the beginning the sentences are very simple and focus on simple vocabulary (‘It’s mommy‘), later on these can be exchanged for a more detailed description (‘Mommy is happy‘ or ‘Mommy is dancing‘) and even further extended with the use of ‘because’ (‘Mommy is dancing because she is happy’) or in any other way that is within the children’s linguistic ability.

This game gives children a lot of freedom and almost a guaranteed victory. The cards can be changed easily, especially in the online format, and even if not, new sentences can be made every time the game is played. With a group of children, a dice would probably have to be used.

This is the board for our boardgame, also created using the visuals available on Miro.

Are you in the park? is a simple guessing game turned into a role-play. Each student has a city plan (since this was the language that we were working at the time) and three stickers which they glue somewhere ‘in the city’. They keep their picture secret and they try to guess where their partner is at the time.

Student A: Are you at the bank / park / market?

Student B: Yes, I am / No, I am not.

After a while, they can ask for help.

Student A: Please help me.

Student B: I can see…I can hear…I can smell….

Student A: You are…

Initially, the stickers were introduce only to prevent the kids from ‘cheating’ but they absolutely loved having random leftover stickers all over the place. In the first lesson we play, it was pirates, in the second one, it was farm. They laughed a lot about having little pigs and chicks all over their cities. The other incentive was the opportunity to imagine and to describe the places from the angle of what they saw, heard and smelled in different places in the city. The kids had the full control over the game and they were making the decision themselves when to move to the second stage.

For some more tricks, please see my other posts: the discourse clock, pairwork for preschoolers or using ambiguity to get the students to talk.

Happy teaching!

Crumbs #8: Storytelling treasure hunt

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Instructions

  • Prepare a set of vocabulary sets for example: characters, adjectives, verbs, places, objects and animals, one, two or three per team of students. Cut these up and put them in the envelopes. I have used a set like that one here.
  • Prepare a treasure hunt around the classroom or the school. Students will walk around the school, as a whole group, they will be looking for the clues. At each station, they will collect their words, for example station 1: a character or two characters, station 2: a verb or two verbs etc.
  • Divide the students into pairs or groups of three.
  • Go on the treasure hunt, collect the cards.Take a set for yourself, it will come in handy for modelling and giving instructions in the second part of the activity
  • Once back in the classroom, let the kids sit with their partner. Check out that the kids have all the cards, ask ‘Have you got a character?’ and let the kids call out their words.
  • Explain that all these words come from a story. Tell your story using all your words. The structures used will depend on how advanced the students are. With my A1 students, we used only Present Simple and Present Continous.
  • It might be a good idea to write the key structures on the board, to support production.
  • Students are asked to work in pairs and prepare for telling their story.
  • Students tell their stories to the rest of the class.
  • For homework, students are asked to draw their character(s) or an illustration to their story.
  • In the following lesson, they show their pictures and talk about them. All the pictures are put on display in the classroom.

Why we love it

  • The treasure hunt was an adventure in itself and it gave us an opportunity to use preposions of place in a real context and to practise our reading skills.
  • The students were given a chance to work in pairs and giving them the time to prepare really made a difference. The basically told the story twice, first in pairs, while getting ready, then once more while retelling the story to the rest of the class.
  • All the cards were displayed on the table and while telling the story, we were putting the cards back into the boxes in which we were collecting them during the treasure hunt. This small trick added a small kinesthetic element to the story and it helped them to remember to use all the words.
  • The treasure hunt element can be skipped and the cards can be used on their own. It will definitely minimise the preparation time. The cards can be re-used, too and students can choose their own characters, objects, verbs etc.
  • In the future, when the stuents become a lot more comfortable with the format of the task, I would want them to mingle and tell and retell their stories in pairs, to ensure that everyone is producing the language.

L1 in the classroom: Subjectively, yours.

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Photo: Юлец

I still do not have all the answers. Quite the contrary, this whole adventure of a research led only to more questions, for now without answers.

Here I am now, as a teacher and as a teacher telling you what I do and what my beliefs are. Very, very subjectively yours.

  • I do not use L1 in class. I don’t speak Russian in class. I never spoke Spanish in class or Portuguese or Italian. Even in the beginning, before I knew about the existence of the communicative methodology (which does not exclude the L1, by the way), in my state school in Poland, I tried to use English only. But hey, it was easy, I already had a C1 level (with a pretty paper from Cambridge), I was in love with the language, I loved communicating in this language and that kind of an approach and inspiration I wanted for my students. I hope I succeeded, at least in a few cases. Now, all these years on, I don’t speak Russian in class, not even with the 3 year-olds.
  • If I really wanted to put together an ideology or a credo, I would say that, in class, we create this ‘English bubble’ in which we live for 45 minutes twice a week. I believe that the kids can benefit from that immensely, when it is set up properly, introduced gradually and done well. They can learn to understand, to react and, later, to produce all the classroom language, even such elaborate and advanced phrases as ‘Did you do your homework?’ and that is not because they understand and actively use the Past Simple, but because this is the question that I ask about eight times during each lesson when I am reaching out for their coursebooks or handouts. It finally sinks in and I am not rushing them in. The same applies to the vocabulary and structures that we learn.
  • Starting to learn a foreign language is a huge step that children are taking. They leave the mum behind and they enter the classroom to talk to a complete strange (well, at least in the beginning) who is using some strange words. There is no doubt that children need to be prepared for it but I would rather leave it to the parents. They have the advantage of knowing their children better, they know how to talk to them and what kind of preparation they might need. It is also true that no matter what preparations are in place, there are children who, regardless of their parents’ wishes, might not be ready for this huge new adventure. Not yet. We have to respect that and get ready for that, regardless. I am not sure if in such cases using L1 would help.

  • Yes, adventures happen, of course. A few years ago, there was a new student, who joined the group and had a good time, was involved but about half-way through the lesson, she just jumped up and shouted ‘But I am Russian! Why do we speak English here!?!?!’ Before I managed to do or say anything, in any of the languages, one of my student, a boy who had been in the group for a few weeks, looked at her and said,  ‘Calm down. We are all Russian here. But this is an English lesson. We speak English here’ Everyone else, suddenly mature and serious, just nodded. The girl looked at them, sat down and we proceeded, uninterrupted. Successfully.
  • I talk to the parents and the admin of the school, in Russian, of course, but when I do, I do it ‘round the corner’. Partly because many of those conversations are for the adults’ ears only and partly, that yes, I want to keep up the English only environment and to make sure they have a real reason to use English when they talk to me.
  • At the same time, I do speak or understand my students’ language and it does help immensly. It gives the teacher an opportunity to be on the ball and by eavesdropping, to nip the problem in the bud, before it becomes a real problem. To really hear what is happening. To gauge the situation and to assess the potential levels of discomfort.
  • However, there are teachers out there, in the world who do not speak their students’ L1. When they have to, they reach out to the admin staff, the teaching assistant or just to parents the hallway. In the classroom, they keep their eyes open and do the assessment, evaluation, danger prediction, comforting without resorting to L1. And they are successful. I was one of those teachers, too
  • In my experience, the knowledge of L1 is an advantage but it is not absolutely necessary to build rapport, to bond, to earn trust, to make the kids feel comfortable. There is the smile, the hands and the face (even if now partially hidden behind a mask, perhaps), there are the materials, the flashcards, the games, the puppet, the songs, the laughter…
  • I do not have any doubt that the kids will want and will speak their L1 and stopping them is doomed to a failure, pointless, silly and cruel. They have just about mastered their L1, they should appreciate it and they should be given a chance to love it and to be proud of it and to be respected. And their L1 names should be used, too and their puppets’ L1 names, too. Pushistik, the Rabbit is just that, not some Fluffy, the Rabbit.

  • It is also interesting to see when the kids on purpose bring their L1 to class. Most frequently it will happen in the beginning of the year 1, when children have no language and they are not very familiar with the class routines (for example, when the teacher shows the card, she will also tell us what it is in English, we just need to wait for that). It might also happen when the children are involved in a game and the L2 word is not known or available at the time. They still want to participate, in any language. I have experienced it also in a different set-up, with the third year students, who were inestablished group, with strong classroom routines. There basically came a day, when they wanted to translate everyting into Russian, every single new word presented was labelled in two languages, in English by the teacher (me) and in Russian, by the group. I did not do anything apart from thanking than and expressing interest. It never happened again later on in the course and up to this day I am wondering whether it was a day when they felt especially proud of their L1, when they wanted to assert their bilingualism or whether the set of vocabulary, with some words shared or similar in two languages has led to that.
  • Little brains are powerful and they successfully infer meaning from gestures, visuals, voice, face. Translation is futile because cats look the same pretty much everywhere so there is no need for a stubborn ‘koshka’/ ‘gato’ / ‘kot’ to accompany the flashcard and the word. Little brains will get it. There are flashcards for everything. The trick is their quality. True, it might get more complicated with some of the concepts but then there is the question of the choice of concepts or the flashcards, again.
  • Similarly, there is no need to translate instructions. Kids learn by doing, by following the example so they will know when to stand up and to sit down, to make a circle and to stop. With time, they will also ‘acquire’ all these verbs, in English and trying to inundate them with elaborate instructions in their L1, in order to make them understand what we are doing and why we are doing it is just maximising the teacher talking time, and in L1, which, in the lesson of a foreign language, should not be a priority. Plus, all these ‘instructions that are too complex for the kids to get if in English’ or ‘there are phrases that the very young learners will not understand if I don’t translate them’, well, these probably should not be used in the VYL class. Only my personal opinion.
  • It is possible to sort out the simple class issues without resorting to using L1. The first and the most important thing is always to react to the unwanted behaviour and to match the gestures and the voice to the emotions that you are trying to convey. Not to mention that it may also be an opportunity to teach them some useful phrases. It has also been reported by a colleagues who had a chance to work in an preschool where bilingual instruction and translation was required of the teacher, that the children, after a while, developed an over-reliance on the L1 version and that got in the way of effective communication. Even when the word was familiar to them, they would not proceed, without having it confirmed in L1 first. In this particular case, L1 did not help to lower the affective filter, it contributed to creating it.
  • I hate the phrase ‘No Russian’ and I have banished it from my classroom and my teachers’ classrooms, I hope. In my classroom, we have a poster ‘Russian is beautiful but I speak English here’ and this is a line that they all learn eventually. This is what I want.
  • The school where I work does promote the idea of the English only, with the aim of creating an English learning environment. However, I work with many teachers who have a different opinion on the topic. However, the use of Russian in class would be more likely to generate questions from parents and students, rather than from the observer, should this happen during an observed lesson. If that is every discussed, I would be more interested in what their rationale for the use of L1 was and whether they could see ways of using only English in those cases.
  • Even in the same city, there might be schools which will have a different policy towards the students’ and teachers’ using the mother tongue of the country. I have met teachers who were using it because they believed it was good for the kids (sometimes going against the school’s policy). I have met teachers who considered using only English at work to be a part of their professional profile. I have met teachers who added an English-sounding name to that, too. I have met teachers who pretended that they are of a correct nationality and I have myself been asked to become Scottish for two weeks. I have  had to deal with parents who assumed that if a teacher talks to his wife in their wife during the break or if they chat with colleagues about tea in their L1, they do it because they lack skills to do this in English. I have been told off for using the local language in the canteen at a summer camp, and I can only presume it would have been much better if I tried to fake not speaking the first language of the canteen employees and mime my request for the chicken and potatoes because that would have made me look fully professionally. And foreign. As if the foreigners could never speak the local language.
  • Have I used L1 in class with the little kids? Yes, I have. Somehow, though, it has always been in short-term, one-off classes where I did not have a chance to work on constructing the system of action-reaction and always, in all of these five cases, it involved the end of the world for the child and the dilemma that I have faced was this: English or the child’s well-being. The latter, of course. Always. Do I feel guilty? No.
  • There have been a few occasions when I experienced a difficult situation in the classroom and I resolved it using only English but at the same time feeling that it would have been even more efficient and effective, if we had just sat down and had a real conversation, one between an educator and a child or children. One more question to add to the list.

  • As is this one – Does the children progress depend on whether the L1 is used or not? Will the children who are surrounded only by English get more exposure and input? The findings of the study prove that they can benefit a lot from bilingual instruction but also looking at my students with whom I have worked over a period of a few years, I can see the difference between them and any other A1 group of primary learners who did not have the pre-school EFL experience. Yes, they are still A1 level but their listening skills, fluency and active and passive vocabulary are much higher. It seems that it is not only the level itself but also its texture, for the lack of a better word. Even though, yes, this is based solely on a very small-scale and very informal classroom research. Similarly, is it likely that the students whose teachers do not speak and do not even understand their L1 will be making more effort to achieve communication with the teacher, and in this way, develop their communication skills? Or not?

If you want to share your thoughs and your experience with L1 in the pre-primary and primary, please leave your comments or fill in a short survey. And don’t forget to check out all the other posts in this chapter!

Happy teaching!

L1 in the classroom: Bits of research

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‘I carry the world in my pockets’

This post is like a game of Fortunately / Unfortunately.

Fortunately, it is easy to go over the existing studies because there only two of them. That I know of.

Unfortunately, this means that we know very very little and we have no academic basis for any of our classroom practices. We can only hypothesize.

Fortunately, this means that we know very little and we have no academic basis for any of our classroom practices. We CAN hypothesize.

Unfortunately, that means that no one is right.

Fortunately, that means that, really, no one is wrong, either. Yay to that!

Unfortunately, that means no clear guidance and a high probability of making mistakes.

Fortunately, that also means that we can do what we want, essentially, taking into account only our students’ benefit and, of course, our school’s policy.

Unfortunately, that also means no clear and structured support for the novice teachers who might not be able yet ready to make such decisions themselves.

Fortunately, …

OK, I know, this game could go on forever. Let’s look at what is available instead.

A piece of Stockholm

The first study was carried out in from South Korea, by Song and Ho Lee in 2019. It compares the effectiveness of two approaches to instruction: English only and code-switching (when the teacher systematically uses English and the children’s L1). The researchers carried out a small experiment, in which they taught a series of lessons in these two modes and measured the kids’ performance as well as asked for the kids’ feedback.

According the findings, the children who had an opportunity to participate in lessons with bilingual instruction (specifically in the area of new language clarification) achieved better immediate and longer-term results as regards the knowledge of the new vocabulary. It seems that introducing the language using both Korean and English has helped the kids remember all the new words better than in the groups where only English was used.

What is interesting, the researchers also asked the kids how they liked to learn and the majority of them admitted that they enjoyed learning in two language. It would be interesting to see whether that meant any major changes in the way that the groups were taught later on, after the completion of the 8-week period of the original experiment and whether the teachers observed any positive or negative long-term changes.

A piece of Poland

The other published study comes from my motherland and it was published by Scheffler and Dominska in 2018. This research was carried out in private and state kindergartens with the EFL lessons and it dealt with the teachers’ beliefs as well as the students’ use of the L1.

The teachers reported resorting to the kids’ L1 in the situations the children’s well-being was at stake and while dealing with some classroom management issues, especially after a failure to use English to a satisfactory outcome. They also mentioned that the L1 is used to clarify the meaning of some more complex concepts or instructions, when all the other techniques are insufficient or when they risk a potential misinterpretation (p. 378). L1 was also used when the similarities between language might contribute to understanding, for example with all the cognates such as ‘helicopter’ which is the same or almost the same word in Polish and English.

As regards the students and their own use of the L1, despite the fact that different instutions followed different policies (as in: no strict policy in the state kindergartens and an English only in the private schools), kids in both contexts reacted in precisely the same way to support their own learning of the foreign language. Authors reported cases of kids using Polish to signal problems with understanding, responding in L1 to flashcards, translating words or instructions or commenting and developing ideas in L1 since they did not have the sufficient amount of L2.

It is interesting to see that even within the same country and the same city, the approaches to the presences of the L1 can be so different. Again, the question arises of whether this has an impact on the progress that the students are making and how much Polish is actually used in the classroom on daily basis.

The use of the L1 is one of the communication strategies and it is fascinating to see that students, even so young, were using it very effectively, based on the evidence gathered in this study. It was not ‘just translation’, there was a reason and rationale behind it. But that’s a topic for another article.

To finish, a quote from one of the respondents who, when asked about the students using their L1 in class, said: ‘They sometimes use Polish, of course they do. They are Polish children’ (2018, p. 381).

A piece of Vienna

Bibliography
Scheffler, P. and A. Domińska (2018), Own-language use in teaching English to preschool children, ELT Journal, 72 / 4, p. 374 – 383

Song, D. and J. Ho Lee (2019), The use of code switching for very young EFL learners, ELT Journal, 73 / 2, p. 144- 153

PS Did I get you interested? Don’t forget to check out the other articles in the series: the introduction, the gurus, my own experience and the findings from my MA dissertation research.

PPS This is one of these posts that I am hoping to be adding to so if you know of any other published research, in English, Russian, Polish or Portuguese, please, please, pretty please: Let me know!

Happy teaching!

A piece of the Carribean

ALL the reasons to use a song

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This post started with a line, one of those things that one says, casually, in a conversation with a teacher or at a conference. ‘There are many reasons to use a song…’ , I said and my brain, always ready for this kind of a challenge, took over. ‘How many? Can you count?’

I accepted the challenge. I have found sixty. For now:-). Not all of them are mine, of course but since this post is meant for teachers, not researchers and since I am on some kind of an academic holiday, no proper referencing. This time. All the inspiration sources and the follow-up reading below.

Now, fasten your seatbelts and let’s go! 3…2…1…

We are using songs with the primary and pre-primary EFL learners because:

  • Kids like them
  • They are a part of the kids’ world, regardless of the language.
  • They help to reduce stress.
  • Songs create a positive atmosphere.
  • They can help set the context of the lesson.
  • The kids don’t care if the teacher does not have a really beautiful voice but they care about a teacher who does not really sing.
  • Singing and music are present in many areas of our everyday life.
  • They can be used differently, depending on the day and how the children feel – to calm them down, to cheer them up, to wake them up.
  • They can be used to develop motor skills, gross motor skills (jumping, dancing, skipping) and fine motor skills (finger play).
  • They lead to personalisation for example by choosing favourite songs and expressing opinion on songs.

  • Using different types of music develops children’s musical taste.
  • They provide the exposure to the target language.
  • They help to remember the vocabulary and structures
  • They help with pronunciation, rhythm and intonation.
  • And with the early literacy development, by developing the ear, rhymes recognition.
  • They use a natural language
  • The traditional rhymes, chants and songs carry the culture of the country.
  • Songs are an opportunity for expression.
  • They help memory development.
  • Singing games usually involve a group or a team and so they help to develop social skills.

  • They can be used to develop turn-taking and other social skills.
  • They can help the kids to settle in the lesson and in the L2 environment.
  • It is something that we do together, it helps to unite the kids after they have taken part in pair-work, team work or individual activities.
  • They are a nice change of pace in the lesson, a punctuation mark.
  • They are an easy-to-use stirrer.
  • They are an easy-to-use settler.
  • They give the lesson a frame (Hello song, How are you chant, Did you do your homework chant, storytime song, table time).
  • They help the kids to move from one stage of the lesson to the other.
  • They help to create a community.
  • They help to take the language out of the classroom. The kids can sing the songs at home, in the car, on holiday.

  • They are one of the few tools that help to involve a variety of learning channels: auditory (because we listen and we say), visual (because we can use flashcards to help kids remember the lyrics) and kinesthetic (because every song can be and should be accompanied by gestures)
  • Thanks to music they remember the language better
  • They are the first step language production; a song is basically a lot of discourse with some music.
  • They are great for beginners, children can participate in a song, even if only through the gestures.
  • They are great for shy students; singing is not scary if you do it in a crowd.
  • They help to create routine and balance the ration of the new (material, songs, activities) and the familiar (all the favourite songs).
  • Kids learn how to make decisions – choosing which song to sing next.
  • They can be used as an activity timer (you have one song to finish colouring)
  • Songs often tell a story this way creating the context for the language.
  • They can be used to introduce new vocabulary and structures.

  • They are great for recycling vocabulary.
  • They can be used as background music during craft activities, to encourage the kids to sing rather than just chat in L1.
  • Songs and chants can be used to give instructions.
  • They can be used during any stage of the lesson.
  • They can be used to get the students’ attention.
  • They are easy to use and do not require a lot of preparation.
  • There are plenty of songs to choose from.
  • It is easy to make up your song or chant that can be used for one specific reason.
  • They contribute to the variety of resources used in the lesson.
  • They can contribute to the development of the cognitive skills, such as attention and focus.

  • Children learn to take responsibility for the lesson and to lead by choosing the songs to sing.
  • Songs can lead to creativity in the language. Once the song become familiar, they can be the stepping stone to creating own versions of them.
  • They can ‘just be sung’ or they can become the theme of the lesson, if accompanied by the vocabulary introduction, craft, story.
  • Singing a song can be a reward for good behaviour or special achievement.
  • Some songs can contribute to learning other subjects such as art, maths, science etc.
  • Parents like when their children sing so songs might be used during parents’ days, end-of-year performances.
  • They help to motivate the kids to learn the language.
  • They give the kids the sense of achievement, as even after a few lessons, they can feel like the speak the language, because they can sing the songs or recite a rhyme.
  • Learning through songs is fun and memorable.
  • Because, finally, adults, also get an excuse to sing!

It looks like, for now at least, all the reasons to use a song = 60 reasons to use a song. If you have any more ideas to add to this list, please let me know in the comments!

And may the VYL and YL classrooms be alive with the sound of music, like this or like this!

If you want to learn how to move from singing a song to a discourse, have a look at the earlier article on How to un-sing a song.

If you are new to teaching and you are not sure where to start

Happy teaching!

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References

Jo Budden, 2009, British Council Blog, Using music and songs

Alex Case (2019) Why and how to use songs with young children,

Alex Case (2008) 15 Criteria for a good kindergarten English song

Children and music: Benefits of Music in Child Development, Bright Horizons,

Sue Clarke, Kids and songs,

Yvette Coyle and Remei Gomez Garcia (2014), Using songs to enhance L2 vocabulary acquisition in preschool children, ELT Journal, 68/3

Nihada Delibelovic Dzanic, Alisa Peijic, The effect of using songs on young learners and their motivation for learning English, 2016, NETSOL, An Interdisciplinary Journal, 1 (2),

Dovlatova, M. 2015, the role of songs in learning English, Young Scientist, 10 (90),

ESL songs for kids and teens (2019),

Opal Dunn (2012), Introducing English to Young Children: Spoken Language, Harper Collins Publications

Larry M Lynch, 9 reasons why you should use songs to teach EFL

Lin Marsh, Why song and dance are essential for children’s development, 2015

Carmen Fonseca Mora (2000), Foreign Language Acquisition and memory singing, ELT Journal, 54/2, p. 146 – 152

Sandie Mourao, Gail Ellis, Teaching English To pre-primary children, Delta Publishing

Carol Read (2007), 500 Activities for the primary classroom, Macmillan books for teachers.

Devon Thagard, 2011, Why the songs should be used more in the Young Learners classroom

Elaine Winter, Why Music Matters in the early childhood classroom, 2017

About the human behind the words.

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Hi! My name is Anka. I am a teacher of English, I work at BKC IH in Moscow.

Over the years, I’ve had the pleasure of teaching all levels, types of classes and age groups but I have found my happy place in the young learners and the very young learners classroom.

I am here to share ideas and I hope you find something useful on these pages!

P.S. All the photographs used on the blog are ©funkysocks&dragons unless stated otherwise.

Crumbs #7: Line up, everybody!

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Today about a little and very un-revolutionary change in the routine that has, nonetheless, made a huge difference to my VYL and YL classes.

Instructions

  • Make sure the door to your classroom is closed and that the children wait for the lesson outside.
  • When it is the time to start, come out and line them up, perhaps with the parents’ help in the beginning, until they get used to the new routine
  • Wait for them to be ready, say hello to everyone and count together how many students are present
  • Say hello to the first student, ask how they are, let them into the classroom, wait until they book the books and bags away, choose their seat and sit down.
  • Let the second student in.
  • If setting homework is a part of your routine and programme, this is when you can check the homework, asking each student a few questions about it.
  • If there is no homework, this time can be devoted to a short individual conversation with each student. It can be a short revision of the vocabulary, talking about a picture or, if the students are already in one of the primary levels – some reading practice with flashcards or a few questions about any material covered in class. We often use it for practice with ‘Tell me about…’ with the use of a picture.
  • When the students get used to the first part (entering the room), you can add the second element and make sure that the students already sitting in the classroom are occupied, too. They can either play a simple guessing game if this game has been practised in class and if they have been given a set of flashcards. They can also play some games on the phone or the tablet, for example to practise reading with phonics. Again, they have to first to try it under your close supervision, to get used to taking turns etc.

Why we love it

  • It helps to introduce the order from the very start of the lesson since the kids are not waiting in the classroom and the teacher’s arrival is not an interruption of something that they are doing.
  • It is obvious who is responsible for the students during that time, the teacher’s take-over is clearly marked. It might not be as obvious if the kids enter the room during the break or before the teacher, especially if the teacher wants or has to spend the break time outside of the classroom, for whatever the reason.
  • The parents are of a great help in the beginning of the course, they can help explain what the kids are supposed to do, they can help with the name etc.
  • This part of the lesson is a fantastic opportunity for the 1-1 conversation with each child. Regardless of whether the teacher uses this time to check the homework or to ask and answer questions or to read, they are giving each child all their attention (almost all, the eyes at the back of the teacher’s head are watching the kids already in the room, of course:-) and they can check the progress and language use.
  • For the parents, this is a wonderful opportunity to find out how their children are interacting in English, without the parents’ supervision and this is how they can, indirectly find out about their child’s progress, before every single lesson if they wish to do so.
  • For the parents, this is also a chance to find out how the homework handouts or materials are used, what questions the teacher asks and how much language can be generated out of a page that, to the untrained eye, looks like a simple colouring page. If they want to and they have have the time, they can later use this knowledge to practise English at home.
  • In the beginning, when the children are just getting used to the new routine or if they are really young, this part of the lesson can be kept short, later it can be made longer. Similarly, in the begining, the T leads the activity but, later on, the kids can ask each other at least some of the questions, too.
  • I have been using this technique for about six years now. My first ever group for which this has been created (because there were ten of them and we hardly ever got to talk 1-1 in class), now in the third year of primary, still line up to chat with me on entering the room. I have been using it with my pre-primary students, too, groups and individuals, too. The parents always wait in the hallway, at the back of the line and they always wait to hear how their children talk to me. If they leave the school, it is only after their kids have walked into the classroom. They always wait and not because they don’t trust us/me but because they are curious and want to know how it goes.

Happy teaching!

A piece of cake. The everyday lesson planning: Pre-schoolers

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photo courtesy of Юлец

Welcome to my classroom. I will take you through the lesson planning for one of my preschool groups. They have just started to learn English, they are four and they come to us only once a week.

This was our lesson number 5 and I taught it last week, just one of the lessons, without any fireworks or magic, just what we do. The only thing that was different was me taking notes and photos every step of the way. The planning took about twenty minutes (plus photocopying and preparing the classroom).

This IS how I plan and it was only a few months ago, while talking to a friend and a colleague (insert virtual hugs to Vita), I realised that if I had to pick up a metaphor for my approach to lesson planning, I would go for a cake: I figure out what I want (the visualisation of the amazing piece of baked goods, just a second before you cut it up to serve) and then I come up with all the ingredients to buy, all the equipment to prepare and all the steps to take to get there. Just like while making a cake.

Welcome to my lesson, step by step. Get ready for a lot of I’s!

Step 1: Getting started

An A4 piece of paper is where I always start. A single piece of paper and a few colourful markers. I use the same approach to planning for all my lessons, regardless of how old the students are or what their level, but for pre-schoolers it is especially important.

Leafing through the pages is not necessary and, let’s be honest, not recommended or even impossible when simultaneously you are managing a group of four- or five-year-olds. The lesson plan is always on the wall. It is relatively simple and thanks to the big font, the structure and the colour-coding, I can read it, even from the other end of the classroom. Sometimes, I take it around with me and pin it in the other corner of the room, all that depending on the activity. If for example we are doing something completely new, for the students or for me, my notes for this particular activity are a lot more detailed.

Step 2: The framework

This is the typical framework that I use for all my pre-primary groups and individual students. The lesson is divided into the three main slots, regardless of how long the lesson is. As a result, the length of each third varies and it can last 20 minutes in one real hour class, 15 minutes in one academic hour class or even 10 or 5 minutes in the shorter online classes that lasted 30 or 15 minutes respectively. As with any lesson planning, assigning time slots should be only approximate because a) anything can happen b) we adapt our and the coursebook authors’ ideas to what actually happens in a particular lesson. To be honest, if I were to give up one lesson plan / lesson ingredient / craftsmanship element, timing would be the first one to go.

I start from the scratch in every lesson although I have been playing with the idea of improving the approach – printing the template, half-filled in with all these elements that are constant, then laminating it and using whiteboard markers to plan to minimise the time expenditure and the workload but I have never got round to it. Not yet, anyway.

Step 3: The aim

I start with the lesson aim. I mean, we all do, in a more or less conscious way. Only about a year ago, though, I started to force myself to verbally formulate the aim of each lesson and to write it down. The results of that little, non-time-consuming teaching habit have been nothing short of amazing.

I know most of the coursebooks that I am / we are teaching with very well, I have gone through most of them once at least and I have my favourite activities and solutions and so on and, of course, at the bottom of my brain, I know why I do this or that. But, having to actually think about a particular group and a particular lesson, on a particular day and having to say it out loud has made a bit difference and has made me more aware of what I do and why.

But there is more to it, too. There have been a few occasions over this year when I really wanted to include something to supplement the coursebook, a game, a song you find or an idea you wake up, include it at all cost, just because the idea seemed very appealing. On those few occasions, the lesson aim got skipped or left for the very end of the lesson planning, as if by accident.

Only it was not by accident. Because when I got to the point when I was ‘just’ supposed to summarise it in the lesson plan, I simply could not. It did not come together because the lesson, at this point, was just a collection of activities, without any real focus or an obvious outcome. All these lesson plans were redone and the activities reconsidered.

For that reason, now I always put the lesson aim at the top of the page, as my frame, my spotlight, my runway. A clear lesson aim also helps to reflect on what happened in class afterwards.

In this particular lesson, I wanted my students to start talking about emotions. They had already been exposed to the three key words (happy, sad, angry) and their symbolic representations but without actually producing much. In this particular lesson, I wanted to try to take it a bit further, to the production stage, ideally in the form of a full sentence ‘I’m happy / I’m sad / I’m angry’.

To be honest, ideally, this is what should have been written on the page ‘I’m happy/ I’m sad / I’m angry’ but it got compressed to only three words, mainly because I have taught the lesson a few times already and it would be a full sentence by default. Just to prove that the lesson plan was for the lesson itself and not for ‘publication’.

Stage 4: I will always love you

This is the easy thing. The first and the last block, in brown, are the admin bits, with the students entering and leaving the classroom.

We line up in front of the classroom, count how many people are present, we say hello officially and we check the homework (more on that kind of a hello routine soon to come!) and we sing our goodbye song and choose stickers, get homework and choose the stickers before everyone goes home. These never change, although sometimes I only send the homework through the WhatsApp group or explain it directly to the parents. This was a standard lesson, though.

The other element that always appears at that point are all the songs and chants to be sung in class. These depend on the topic of the lesson and later on, the students can sometimes decide which one we are going to sing. This group here is at the very beginning of their English adventure so for the sake of establishing the routine and because we only know a few songs, we sing all of them in every lesson.

Songs work here as some kind of punctuation marks and during the lesson, we basically sail from one song to the other. It helps to ensure the balance between settlers and stirrers or songs offer at least a tiny little bit of a change of a pace and an opportunity to move but they also help to ensure that there are periods of the lesson when we all do something together so it helps to keep the balance of different interaction patterns (whole class vs individual work, pair work or taking turns).

Step 5: The centrepiece

At this point, I am adding the main activity, our focused task during which we are set to make the lollipop puppets with our three emotions (plus colours and some functional language). I have done this activity in that format a few times and for that reason there are no detailed instructions, the staging is already in the blood.

Another thing that appears at the time is the storybook. At this point in the course, we use storybooks only as supplementary material to revise and to reinforce the target language from the lesson and this is how Pete the Cat helped us. We revised the colours and emotions only using a different resource.

Step 6: The familiar

The next step is adding the other elements of our routine. These are not as constant as the hello or goodbye routine but not as changeable as the focused task or the target language practice.

Since it is the beginning of the course, there is not much to pick out from or to revise and since we are still working on building our routines and I try not to add too many new elements, not to overwhelm the kids.

Our revision activity has been the same for all this time: we count up to ten on fingers, we count the people present, boys and girls and teachers and we count other things, in this lesson dinosaurs, in this lesson in a book and our plastic toys.

Our music and movement has been pretty much the same from the beginning of the course and it is only now that the kids are properly enjoying the activities. This applies to the songs and the magic bag game, in which we use plastic fruit. They don’t know the fruit names so at this point we only focus on their colours (‘It’s green’).

As for our How are you today part, the plan was to do it in the traditional way but with the introduction of the finished product. I thought that this might help the kids become aware of what this toy is and how to use it (pick one and place it in front of our face, while saying ‘I’m happy’). By the time we’d get to making our own lollipops, they would already be familiar with them. It would also help with giving the instructions.

Step 7: The key elements

The things to add now, will be the details of working with the target language and with the revised language, in order to ensure that they best contribute to the completion of the focused task.

What I did plan, however, was the colours practice with a variety of activities: not quite in the order in which we did them. The main and the new one here was ‘open/close’ also known as ‘what’s missing’, a memory game and the most challenging activity here (as it involves cognitive skills and language production, focus). Everything else was either a preparation for that or a supplementary game, which can but may not be used, in the end. I like to make a list like that to prepare myself for their different moods, participation and involvement levels, etc. Having a list of potential games which we can play, without any major changes to the materials set or the seating arrangement I found it to be quite useful.

The fish game here acted as my potential plan Z, only if we have time. In the end, I used it later in the lesson, instead of the magic bag activity since they were both quite similar (students taking turn to perform an individual task with a motor skills development focus and colour revision.

In this lesson, the connection between the focused task and the target language practice is not as strong but that is because it is only the lesson 5 in level 1. Thinking about it now, after the lesson, I think that, ideally, I should have included some additional activity to combine numbers and colours, for example in the form of colourful happy, sad and angry faces, that we could categorise by emotion, count etc. So see, there is always a way to improve things)))

Ready!

The lesson plan is ready. Perhaps now, looking at it, in its full, finished glory, it is easier to see why I do not include any timings. The framework itself outlines the time slots for each stage of the lesson, alongside their aims, although they are not articulated clearly and they are the following:

Column A: the introduction to the lesson, hello and revision, the aim: settling in, duration: about 20 minutes.

Column B: working on the target language, the aim: presentation, practice and production, in varying ratios, depending on whether it is the beginning of the ‘unit’ or the end of it, duration: about 20 minutes.

Column C: production, the aim: production, with the hope of more freer practice and spontaneous production, although, of course not during the first few lessons of the level 1 course.

Looking back

The lesson went well and, apart from the few things mentioned already, I did not really have to change anything else. Not that it would be a very bad thing to do. Regardless of what has been planned, the thing that matters most is a group of the little people who are sitting in the classroom, how many of them there are, how advanced they are, how they are feeling on the day. Flexibility, first and foremost. And then – the reflection bit. Because we can always make things better.

If you are new to teaching pre-schoolers, have a look at my post about the first VYL lesson survival kit.

Happy teaching!

L1 in the primary and pre-primary classroom part 2: We must follow the leaders. In every good thing.*

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Meet Ela, a newly qualified, inexperienced VYL/YL teacher, from Poland, who has just completed her CELTA course and who is about to start a new chapter of her life, as a teacher of English.

Ela is lucky. She is starting not only one but two new jobs next week and both will involve working with very little people. One is in her hometown and it will be face-to-face, the other one online, in China. Ela is a bit nervous, because it is a new job and because she has never really worked with kids before. There will be some induction or orientation at both places but it is only to take place next week.

She is also lucky because there is still some time left AND she has got access to more than just google. Her teacher training centre is in her hometown so she can just walk in and do a bit of research and reading in the library there. She hasn’t even started to teach and she already has lots and lots (and lots) of questions.

What about the L1 for example, the students’ mother tongue? Should the teacher use the L1 in class? Or outside of class? Should the kids been allowed to use L1 in class? Should they only use English? Should the teacher know the students’ first language?

Ela is a newly qualified teacher and so her way of compiling a reading list is not a perfect one but here some of the ideas that she has come across…

Herbert Puchta and Karen Elliott, Activities For Very Young Learners

This publication is a compendium of activities and ideas for the classroom but it includes a brief introduction with some of the principles that should be taken into account while working with the pre-school children. Puchta claims there that the knowledge of the L1 on the C2 level is absolutely necessary in order to help clarify any problems with comprehension as well as to assist the children in case a problem occurs.

What does Ela think now? Well, she is grateful for all the practical advice on how to avoid using the L1 in class but, at the same time, feels like she is doing something wrong or even illicit. After all, she was offered this job in China and not one person ever asked any questions about her level of Chinese. Then, she is thinking of her best friend, Kasia, who left for Japan and taught kids there, and Anya who landed in South Korea…her CELTA tutor who used to teach in Mexico and one of her CELTA peers, Jessie, who worked in Poland and that none of them spoke the langauge of the country where they worked and definitely not on a C2 level. Not even on an A2 level, to be honest. Ela is confused.

Opal Dunn, Introducing English to Young Children: Spoken Language

No, scratch that. Ela only thought she was confused earlier. Now she really is, after having gone through a few pages of the Opal Dunn’s publication.

First of all, it is because she has found out that children cannot bond with a monolingual teacher (that is a teacher who does not speak the children’s L1) and that they might get disappointed and frustrated. It does not bode well for that online job in China or for any other future positions abroad but at least that’s some good news for the groups she is going to teach in her hometown.

The rest, however, is a bit more difficult to digest because translation, at the same time, must be and mustn’t be used in the classroom. ‘Only English’ should be one of the rules but the teacher should explain it both in English and in L1. The same can be done whenever a new concept is introduced but should be done quickly and in a different voice.

There is also the issue of the kids translating from one langauge to the other. It should at the same time be encouraged (‘as being able to translate is a skill that needs to be encouraged’ p. 134) and discouraged as kids might not tune into the English version waiting for translation (‘the habit to translate should be broken’ p. 136).  

Ela is beyond confused. She wishes she had stopped reading on page 134. Or that she had only limited her reading to page 136. Too late!

Vanessa Reilly and Sheila M. Ward, Very Young Learners

Reilly and Ward’s publication is the oldest resource available on the market devoted solely to teaching VYL and for some time it was the only published resource for the teachers who work with the pre-primary children.

Probably the most important line that Ela finds there is the following quote: ‘if we tell the children that they can only speak in English, it is as good as telling them to be quiet’ (p.5), followed by the list of reasons to accept the L1 in the classroom and some practical ideas on how to avoid using it and how to gradually replace it with English.

Ela is somewhat relieved to have found a note that the attitude to the mother tongue in the EFL/ESL classroom might depend on the country and the particular school’s policy. She thinks that perhaps that might, at least to some extent, explain the fact that she and her colleagues were hired to teach despite the lack of knowledge of the children’s L1, although, the authors here, just like everyone else she has read so far, seem to assume that all the teachers working with YL and VYL speak the children’s mother tongue.

Ela is, admittedly, more peaceful now, although she still does not quite understand she even got the job if the L1 proficiency is such an important requirement.

Sandie  Mourão and Gail Ellis, Teaching English to Pre-Primary Children

Ela might not know it yet but she is really lucky: as a newly qualified teacher, at the very beginning of her career, she had a chance to read this particular book.

The authors outline ten principles of teaching English in the early years and the principle number 2 refers to L1: ‘Children will sometimes use their home / school language when learning English, which is viewed as part of the natural process of language aquisition and evidence of learning’ (p. 214) and they provide a list of situations in which both the teacher and the students might feel the need to resort to the L1 in the EFL context. Ela takes notes as she might need this knowledge to understand what is going on in her classroom. She especially likes the questions for self-reflection, such as ‘Why and how did I use the L1?’, ‘Could I have done it differently?‘ (p.215) or, as seen from the child’s perspective ‘What steps did I take to help the child move from L1 to English‘ (p.215).

Elat is happy, she finally feels like she has learnt something. She is not as nervous as she used to be. There is only one question that has been left unaswered and that refers to al these teachers who teach preschoolers without speaking their L1. They exist and Ela is one of them. Only now, she is too excited and she only wants to go on reading. This is where we are going to leave her now… Enter the Dragon (teacher/trainer), me with only a few facts from the VYL kingdom with a few summarising comments.

At the moment, there are altogether 4 volumes devoted to teaching pre-schoolers. Reilly and Ward published their compendium in 1997 and it took twenty years (as in 20, as in two decades) for another title to appear on the market in 2017 when Puchta and Elliott came out. All that despite the fact that this area of the market has been growing in strength all this time (Garton and Copland, 2018).

The latest addition, by Sandie Mourao and Gail Ellis has just been released and it willl take some time for it to make it to all the libraries, teacher training courses reading lists, bookshops so it might be that some newly qualified teachers will be walking into their first lessons without having read it. But the good thing is – the book existis and it is available. The newly qualified VYL and YL teachers, the VYL and YL novices, the Elas of today are indeed lucky. They have a lot at their disposal and a lot more than the Elas of five or ten years ago.

Even in the areas that are and have been ‘hot’, ‘popular’ and well-researched, it takes forever for the findings to permeate into the coursebooks and the mainstream consciousness, let alone areas like ours that is considered ‘a niche’, at least by some. As Sandie Mourão writes (2018) ‘Precious little research involves pre-primary FL learners, so research in any direction would be welcome’. Yes, ‘precious little‘ and ‘any‘…Things have started to change, slowly so it will probably take another twenty years and a few more dedicated teachers and scholars before we have answers to some more of the VYL questions. Those related to the presence of the L1 in the EFL classroom but not only those, of course.

In the meantime, there is still more to come in this series here, some studies that I have come across as well as the findings of my own small scale study on what the VYL teachers think of the L1 and what they do…See you in a bit. Oh, and if you haven’t done it yet, check out the introduction, too!

PS I am really interested in the attitudes of primary and pre-primary teachers to using the kids L1 in class, by the students and by the teachers. This was one of the beliefs that I was researching in my MA dissertation (the post on that coming up in this series). The MA is done (yay) but the research continues so if you have a few minutes to spare and you don’t mind taking part in the survey, please follow the link and answer a few questions here.

Bibliography

Photos courtesy of Юлец

* )W.Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, act II, scene I

O.Dunn (2013), Introducing English to Young Children: Spoken Language, Collins

Garton, S. and F. Copland (eds), (2018), The Routledge Book of Teaching English to Young Learners, Routledge.

S.Mourão and G.Ellis (2020), Teaching English to Pre-Primary Children, Delta Publishing

S.Mourão (2018), Research into teaching of English as a Foreign Language in early childhood and care, In: S. Garton and F. Copland (eds), The Routledge Book of Teaching English to Young Learners, Routledge, p. 425 – 440. 

H.Puchta and K.Elliott (2017), Activities for Very Young Learners, Cambridge University Press

V.Reilly and S.M.Ward (1997), Very Young Learners, Oxford University Press