Anka Zapart

Child development stories #2

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Enter Sasha

She is five years old and is a big sister to a baby brother. She is in the second year of our EFL course. The group in which she is studying is not big at all, only four kids, two boys and two girls. We can meet only once a week, on Saturday morning, for two real hours.

It happens in the second half of the lesson. The kids are completing the literacy development activities, tracing letter M and gluing in a few pictures with mum, a mouse, a monkey. They are having fun because at the same time we are playing our new favourite game: what colour is it? Which is about making up new names for all the colours. No more ‘green marker’ then, no more ‘purple marker’. They have been rebranded as ‘a cucumber marker’ and ‘an aubergine marker’. All of a sudden brown is the new black because we all call it ‘a chocolate marker’ and everyone wants to use it.

Just then, both Sasha and Andrey reach out for the same marker and Sasha waves her hand so unfortunately that she hits Andrey, not very hard to make him cry but hard enough to cause discomfort. Andrey gets upset.

The teacher says ‘Oh, Andrey, are you ok? Sasha didn’t mean it. She will say sorry. Sasha, please say sorry.’

But Sasha shakes her head.

Teacher continues ‘Sasha, you are fantastic and you did not mean it. But Andrey is sad. If you say ‘I am sorry’, he will be happy’ (all that navigating carefully between the buoys of acceptable English and English graded to the pre-A level, with all the gestures, soft voice and empathy). Andrey is calmer but Sasha shakes her head. ‘Sasha, please say sorry’

And this is when she raises her head, looks at the teacher with defiance and says, in her L1 ‘You can’t tell me what to do. You are not my boss’

The teacher sighs, struggling to keep a straight face because it is hilarious. Even more so because the word she uses is very formal, strong and way above the 5-year-old range. A corporate culture vernacular, she has picked up somewhere.  The teacher gives up and once again smiles at Andrey. ‘It’s OK, Andrey. Don’t worry. It’s going to be OK’

The lesson goes on…

The kids go back to tracing the letters. Just then, Sasha suddenly stands up and starts walking. The teacher looks up and says ‘Sasha, please sit down’ but this is when the little girl looks at the teacher again, right in the eye. The last traces of defiance are gone and now she is something new about her, something in her eyes, as if she is saying ‘Please, let me do it’. The teacher nods her head.

Sasha goes around the table, behind the other kids’ backs, until she reaches Andrey. He looks at her but she bends, with her hands cupped around her mouth and his ear and says in L1 and in that child whisper that absolutely everyone in the room can hear clearly ‘Andrey, please don’t tell anyone, it is a secret. I am really sorry. I didn’t mean it’. The she just goes back to her seat and finishes her task, as if nothing has happened. Nothing at all.

The things that I have learnt from this story

  • Kids are different and even the bravest and the most outspoken ones will not feel very comfortable with all the limelight and attention on them, positive or negative, even if the audience comprises of only four other people that they know really well.
  • The teacher has to react to any unwanted behaviour to signal that this is not what we are going to tolerate, however, it is also up to the teacher to decide how long this ‘reaction’ should last. When does it stop being effective and turns into ‘torture’ and ‘punishment’
  • Is it always a good idea to encourage or to make the kids say that they are sorry there and then even if they don’t mean it and don’t want to do it? Debatable. It might be a good idea to leave some room for the learner and human autonomy and let them sort it out themselves, under a teacher’s supervision, of course.
  • What Sasha said to the teacher could have been potentially interpreted as a lack of respect but it was something that was clearly overheard at home and applied in a different context, in a similar situation. It never happened before and it never happened again afterwards and, to be honest, the only difficult thing about it was that I had to keep a straight face, although inside I was rolling with laughter.
  • Sasha did understand very well that she was the responsible one, she did not feel comfortable with it and wanted to signal her discomfort to the world. And, in a way, she did and effectively so. Perhaps a sad face or tears would be a more typical way of reacting in such a situation, a more predictable one but children are different and they react differently.
  • We did have our happy ending but if I were to give any advice to this teacher (well, myself from a few years ago), I would suggest telling Sasha a secret, instead of drawing even more attention to something that she did do.

Happy teaching!

Child development stories #1: Luna Lovegood

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Why this series? Child development is one of the key areas when it comes to the teacher education in the area of primary and pre-primary. At the same time, whereas the other two areas, the knowledge of the language and the appropriate methodology, are better taken care of, child development for the EFL teachers is still waiting to happen. Hence this series.

I hope that some of my adventures will contribute to understanding who the little people in our classrooms are and how to approach them.

All of this really did happen but we want to protect real kids and their stories so for the purpose of this little exercise here, everyone will be a Sasha as it can be a boy or a girl and the name is used worldwide, too.

Enter Sasha.

On the one hand, there is nothing unusual about it, really, there is always one child in (each) group that is going to be your space cadet, daydreamer, lost, your head in the clouds, moony, your Luna Lovegood, your Tigger, Little Miss Scatterbrain. There is always one and it is perfectly fine.

My Luna was a boy, aged 5, Alexander, although this name was too big for him, so we just called him Sasha or Sanya.

Sanya could not stay focused…

…throughout the lesson for as long as all the other kids, and despite the fact that it was year 2, with plenty of time for him to get used to the routine and the length of the lesson. He did not pay attention, he would switch off, he had to be called back. He would come late every now and again and very very rarely did he bring the homework.

He did not interact with the kids well, either.

He did not make friends with the girls, who stayed in their own circle but he did not seem to be getting on very well with the other three boys in the group. Grisha, the youngest always chose to sit with his older brother and Artem refused to sit with him. Of course, they did play together and interact during the lesson, I did take care of it, but they only did the absolute minimum.

And yet, Sanya, did look for this interaction only his methods were not approved of by the boys. For example, one day, in the middle of the lesson, he went to Artem and hugged him to which Artem pushed him off with ‘Don’t kiss me, you are not my mum’…All of it was rather unusual and a definite change of behaviour.

But even before I managed to get in touch and talk to Sanya’s mum…

the truth revealed itself. One of these days in November, the lesson finished and Sanya was still there in the classroom. When I asked ‘Where is your mummy?’, he explained that today his mummy is not coming to pick him upstairs (3rd floor) but that he should walk downstairs those six flight of stairs and meet her on the ground floor, by the cloakroom, a strange request and a real challenge, in that building. I let the assistant know and I said ‘Let’s go’ reaching out my hand. And because it was a long trip, step by step by step, hand in hand and because he was a little gloomy, I decided to talk to him. Now, mind you, he was still a pre-A level and so I did speak English and he replied in Russian. We counted stairs, I praised him for the lesson and then, I decided to ask, just making small talk, ‘Sanya, who is coming today, mummy or daddy?’ and this is when the heartbreak began. And the understanding.

Sanya just answered the question and because it must have been something that has been bothering him, he just went on talking.

‘My uncle is coming today. I don’t have a daddy. He doesn’t live with us anymore. He’s got a new home and a new baby son. We live with the uncle, my mummy and me’

At the age of 5, Sanya had already been through his parents’ separation, at an unknown cost and stress, his half-brother’s birth and who knows what else. No wonder he was a little bit off. No wonder mum had other issues to deal with rather than the homework. No wonder he needed some more attention from the other kids and from the teacher.

Back then I was still a very young and shy teacher.

I did not talk to Sanya’s mum. What I focused on was making Sanya’s time in class a little bit more bearable: no stickers for homework, homework replacement that he could do in class when I was checking other kids’ tasks and deal with his in the end, praising him and putting more effort in creating opportunities for him to bond with other children, making sure he is fine.

And walking him downstairs to the cloakroom after the lesson.

Today, it would have been different. I would have more energy and more confidence to talk to mum and voice my concerns and try to work with her more closely.

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!