Research

Celebrating 23 000 hits with my favourite posts ever*)

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*) Not any more. It is 25 000 now. OMG.

Well, it is one of my guilty pleasures to open the blog dashboard to have a look how many hits, visitors and visits there have been since the last I check. I do it regularly, of course, sometimes a few times a day, but I write down only the certain hoops, like every thousand of views. Recently, in the last few months the blog has been very active and I have registered a whole thousand of views within two weeks only…

I have just checked the most recent ‘celebration post’ and it turns out that it was written in January this year and I was rejoycing the fact that I crossed the line of 15 000 visits. Which means 8 000 since. Not too bad, I have to say!

It’s been very rewarding to see that the blog has had a growing number of readers and that, perhaps, there is something useful and necessary about what I do in the classroom and at the keyboard.

The most popular posts so far

In the post mentioned above, you can check the top ten most popular posts in January 2023. Today, this top 10 includes:

My favourite posts…

Here are my top ten favourite posts and why I really like time out of those 246 posts committed so far:

  • Much Ado About Nothing: realistic flashcards vs illustrations in the EFL world: I love it because it started with a not very pleasant conversation on the social media but because what I said was met with derision and mockery, I decided to prove to myself that, indeed, I am right. And a lovely and very interesting research followed.
  • All you need is…a picture! This is a post that was written after an online conference presentation which had my biggest audience so far (almost 700 people) but I really like because it is the post that really reflects what I do in the classroom. I love using pictures and visuals and illustrations and I am happy that I can share my ways of doing that. There is also the part two because the new ideas keep coming!
  • Setting up the routine. A diary, week 1. This is one of the newest post because this one (and the whole series) was created at the start of the current academic year, in September. I started two new groups of primary, of brand new kids, in a brand new context, for them and for me, and I thought that it might be a good idea to keep track of what we do in the classroom during those first weeks. I am hoping that it might come in handy for all the teachers who start in the area and are on the lookout for ideas and solutions but, surprise surprise, it was also an amazing opportunity for me to reflect on the activities and to understand the process even better. I loved writing it so much that I decided to keep this series going, only now the reflection takes places only once a month, at the end of it. If you haven’t read it yet, please check it out! It definitely deserves more hits than the 33 it has got so far.
  • Tell stories! Please do! This is another post that was written with pure love and this time the object of my affection was storytelling and I wrote it for all the teachers who need a little bit of convincing to start using stories in the classroom or to start using them more, not only because of their impact on the students emotional and cognitive development but, mainly, because of the amazing potential for the linguistic development.
  • A balancing act. Non-competitive ESL games for kids. This post started in the teacher training classroom during the YL course this summer. I shared my long-held opinion that our lessons are overflowing with games that are competitive and that there is no appropriate balance of games and activities that promote cooperation and collaboration. And in response to my trainees’ slightly desperate question (‘But how to do it?!’), I did another research and an article came out of it.
  • What an old dog learnt. A YL teacher goes back to the YL classroom. This post came about as a result of one of the adventures (or, rather, ‘adventures’) of my professional life and a real case of making lemonade of the lemons that the world throws at you. One of the things that I learnt in this Lemonade Year was that my classroom is the classroom full of kids and, I suppose, it is amazing that I was given a chance to check and to double check it, to confirm and to confirm it again.
  • A lesson in structures. Notes from the classroom. Here is a post for all the VYL teachers and for anyone who is wondering how much language pre-schoolers are able to produce in the EFL setting. In one word: LOTS. If you are intereted in details, please have a look at the post. These are simply the notes I took about our everyday lesson procedures at the end of the academic year with my level 2 kids. A lot of possible if you want to and if you apply appropriate techniques. Really. I loved writing this post not only because it gave me an opportunity to be really (really) proud of my babies and myself for doing a good job, but also, because only through this reflection and the list, I could really understand the progress made. I have said it here, on this blog, but I will say it again – there is so much happening in the classroom that we simply forget! It is good to take time to look back at your lesson and lessons to remember and to see it in a better light and in a more realistic way.
  • Jerome et al or how the EFL world started to scaffold. This is one of the oldest post, one of the 2020 lockdown posts and one of the first research posts. It is dedicated to one of my professional gurus, Jerome Bruner and the original research done together with Wood and Ross, about the role of tutoring in problem solving (which is the actual title of the article). I do believe that all the YL teachers need to read this one and my post can be the first step to it.
  • How to see a city. From the series: Teaching English to Art. This one is where it all started for me, with teaching English through Art. It involves the following: a long, long time ago, my teenage group, Georgia O’Keeffe, Frida Kalho and New York. If you haven’t used any Art in class, this is a good place to start.
  • And I love absolutely all of the posts in the Crumbs series, the little ideas from the classroom. These are just the activities that I have created or adapted for my classroom and things that worked with my students. I have to admit that I am quite proud of the format of a recipe with the ingredients and the procedures but upgraded with the ‘why we love it’ section. So far, there have been 72 crumbs worth sharing.

A few words from the human behind the words

I love teaching and I love writing and it is a just precious that I can combine these two things here, on the blog and I have been doing it for almost four years now (short of a few months). The funny thing is that I started this post as a way of celebrating another benchmark, 23 000 visits, but, somehow, due to the magic in the world, before I was able to finish it those 23k turned into almost 24k overnight. And, over the next two weeks (as in: 14 days) it became 25 000.

I don’t get it but I am happy)

That means, that somewhere out there, in the US, India, Canada, Russia, Spain, Hong Kong, Japan, Egypt, the UK, Germany, Finland, Israel, Cambodia, Italy, Latvia, Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, Brazil, Kuwait, Poland and Ghana, there are people who decided to click and to read about my classroom life. And I hope that they took something out of it.

Thank you, dear readers!

Happy teaching!

All the reasons to use stories with YL

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The classroom before the IH VYL session 7 devoted to storytelling…

Writing this kind of a post about songs was a lot of fun. Here’s hoping to the same results with stories.

Storytelling (a definition for the purpose of this post): story-everything in class: telling stories, reading stories, listening to stories, writing stories, making-up stories, watching stories…

All the reasons to use stories in class when you teach children…

  • Stories, storybooks, traditional stories are a part of the child’s world
  • Stories help children learn about the world and the concepts
  • They also provide models of behaviour
  • They introduce children to other cultures
  • Telling stories and listening to stories is a social event
  • They help to develop focus and concentration
  • They can be a starting point to developing learning strategies such as predicting or making hypothesis
  • They expose children to different illustrations and they help to develop visual literacy
  • They help develop imagination
  • They help to develop kids’ memory
  • Stories help children to know the sounds, rhymes and this way to develop early literacy skills

  • Working with stories helps children learn about the value of books
  • They help children learn about the real and the imaginary world
  • Stories help faciliate interaction between adults and children
  • Children who read and listen to stories find it easier to understand other people
  • Kids who read stories are likely to have higher confidence levels
  • Stories are a natural way of teaching children
  • Stories help children relax
  • Stories help children understand their own feelings
  • Reading and stories can develop critical thinking skills
  • Storytelling and story reading can be a source of fun and pleasure

All the reasons to use stories in class because you teach a foreign language…

  • They create the context for the language
  • They help to build and develop the vocabulary
  • They can be used to introduce the langauge
  • They can be used to practise the langauge
  • They can be used to revise the language
  • They help develop listening skills
  • They expose the children both to dialogue and to narrative
  • Listening to stories is the first step to producing the language
  • They help develop literacy skills
  • Stories are a wonderful opportunity for integrating skills ie reading with listening or speaking with writing.

  • The stories created specifically for the EFL / ESL context have the graded language and they are built closely around the vocabulary and structures that they are already familiar with
  • Traditional stories have the advantage of being familiar to the children already and this will make their reception in a foreign language much easier
  • Storybooks are a source of the beautiful and natural language that can be made accessible to children. Some of them might be known to children (for example Gruffalo or The Very Hungry Caterpillar) and this will make the L2 version more easily understood and easier to use
  • Visuals accompanying the stories can also be used as a resource to introduce and to practise the langauge
  • They are an intergral part of the Young Learners Exam so using stories in class from early on will be contributing to preparing students for them
  • They can help connect studying English at school and studying English at home
  • They can motivate the children to learn the language
  • Using stories in class can encourage children to read for pleasure
  • Storytelling can be used as a classroom management tool as they are natural settlers
  • Some of the concepts in stories can be used to manage children’s behaviour in the EFL/ESL classroom ie ‘Boris goes to school’ is a story about making friends

  • Telling stories or reading stories can be an introduction or a follow-up to song lessons or craft lessons
  • Many stories have a set of structures and that makes them easier for the EFL/ESL students to learn
  • A story is usually used in more than one lesson. This repetition is also beneficial for the students as they can get more and more involved in the retelling or the re-reading of the stories
  • Telling stories can be an introduction to role-plays and drama activities
  • Even the lower level students can be encouraged to create stories. They will use their ideas based on the vocabulary they have (Wright)
  • Storytelling activities appeal to children with different intelligences and learning styles (Read)
  • Stories can be used to supplement the coursebook
  • Or they can be used as the basis for a curriculum
  • Reading and listening to stories can help with pronunciation in L2, too.
  • Stories encourage the kids to contribute ideas and to express themselves

Have I forgotten anything? I must have. Although 50 is not a bad number to start with. More later…

Happy teaching!

Bibliography

I will give myself a permission to be slightly reckless about referencing everyone since it is not a very serious research article. While preparing this post, I have consulted:

Sandie Mourao and Gail Ellis (2020), Teaching English to Pre-primary children, Delta Teacher Development Series

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

Reading and storytelling with babies and children, raisingchildren.net.au

Why is storytelling important to children? BBC Teach

Why are stories important for children? The Writers Bureau

Why is reading so important for children? High-Speed Training

11 Reasons Why Reading is Important for Children, EdArabia

Andrew Wright ( ), Creating Stories with Children, Resource Book for Teachers

Carol Read (2007), 500 Activities for Primary Classroom, Macmillan

The importance of storytelling in the EFL classroom, The EFL Academy

Some Tips on Using Storytelling in the EFL Classroom, EFL Magazine

Karen Saxby, Using Pictures and Stories in the EFL Classroom, HLT Mag

Teaching English to Young Learners Using Stories: The Ultimate Guide, The ELT Guide

How to use storytelling in language teaching, Yur Topic

Much Ado About Nothing: realistic flashcards vs illustrations and the EFL world.

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Realistic vs non-realistic? Am I am really inside of a huge glass piano?

Preface

A while ago I got into a discussion on why the realistic flashcards aka photographs are much better for YL than the cartoon flashcards.

Oh wait, not quite this way. First (and foremost), as I am typing up this post, I am glancing left and right, for support. To the right, towards the shelf with my storybooks and all the ‘unrealistic’ illustrations and all the imaginary characters and to the left, where the materials for the next Lesson at the Museum are lying (this week: Natalia Goncharova, more of that – soon!). At this point, I still cannot formulate it very well but my guts (and a few years in the classroom and around kids) are telling me that realistic and photographic IS NOT the only way. I object.

Second of all, this discussion, it just was not a discussion at all. I must admit, I am a bit naive when it comes to the social media and I would like to believe that teacher meet there to exchange ideas, to learn from each other, not to preach, making it look like theirs is the only way to do things and recommending that I should do my homework and read first before I voice an opinion (as if the empirical evidence did not matter at all).

Enough of this bitterness, though. Here I am after all, doing my own reading and research, with mixed feelings, if I am to be perfectly honest. A little bit anxious (because what if the research proves that I was wrong, eh? What then? (I am laughing here) and a little bit excited (because what if the research proves that I was right? (still laughing).

This introduction was planned and written before the actual reading did happen but you, dear reader, looking at the title (courtesy of Mr W. Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon), you can guess now where it is all going (based on the research that I have managed to do so far) so if you have very little time on your hands, I will make it easier for you, here is a summary of the whole post:

When it comes to choosing between the visuals with a high degree of iconicity (aka the resemblance between the picture and the object) such as photographs and the visuals with a low degree of iconicity such as cartoons, storybooks illustrations, there isn’t only one answer, one way out, one approach. It is not a case of black and white, good and bad, left or right. It is a beautiful case of ‘well, it all depends’. Done.

Now, if you have more time, follow me. There is more to come.

Realistic vs imaginary: My teacher is a cat.

Act I: Why choose the real photos

The first (and the most important question) to ask here is: How old is the child? A picture is a symbol, a representation of the real object and children will require a certain level of cognitive skills development (such as symbolic development, analogical reasoning, reasoning about fantasy and reality) in order to be able to process that image and to relate it to something that they know from real life.

For example, newborns, who have not become symbols users, when presented with a photographic image and a real object, would always choose the real object over the visuals but, at the same time, if the real object was not present, they would interact with its image in exactly the same way as they would with the real object. These examples come for a truly fascinating article by Gabrielle A. Strouse, Angela Nyhout and Patricia A. Ganea which you can find here.

As shown in other studies they mention, too, it seems that although these young children can transfer the concepts both from cartoons and photographs or realistic drawings to the real world, the more realistic the image the easier the transfer. And for that reason, we find plenty of recommendations for such books to be used with the younger pre-schoolers. This attitude seems to be especially popular according to the Montessori method (although to be honest, I am not very familiar with it, I know it only from reading, not from the classroom, so forgive me for any inaccuracies or faux-pas that I might commit here).

Another interesting argument, and this time applying to not only the youngest children, is how the information presented in the picturebooks might have an impact on children learning about the world. As Strouse (et al) claim, it seems that ‘Fantastical context used in stories may cue children that information presented in books is not transferable to real-world contexts’, especially when the children do not really have any opportunities to connect the book world with the real world because, for example they live in the city and have never been on a farm, or are not supported by adults in their journey through books. The authors claim that it might impact the learning of physics and biology or moral learning. All these arguments would support the use of photographs and realistic cartoons.

Apart from that, there is the obvious argument, applicable both to children, teenagers and adults, alike – we like photographs. According to the professionals such as graphic designers (because this is where this reasearch has taken me, too), photography is used when we strive for accuracy, professionalism and when promoting the object is the real aim. The latter two might not really be relevant to the world of EFL and ESL but the first of them, accuracy is going to be our key word. When presenting vocabulary to children we want them to understand clearly what we mean and a photograph of an elephant will illustrate it better than a drawing of an elephant. We might not only see the tiny little details such as the shade and the texture of the skin but, quite likely, the elephant will be photographed in a natural environment so we will be also able to notice how big it is and what kind of a habitat it lives in. The elephant will most likely be doing something, walking, running, eating or sleeping and this will help us understand a bit more about it. Not to mention that it will also help us produce more language (the secret aim for anything that the English teachers do).

It seems to be especially important in the English lessons while teaching the concepts that students are not familiar with and which they do not encounter in their real life such as the jungle animals (while teaching in Russia), snow (while teaching in Brazil) or Polish pierogi (while teaching outside of Poland). The photographs will help the children understand these concepts better than drawing, although, it has be said that no photographs of snowy landscapes will help you get the real idea of what winter is like unless you have rolled in snow yourself and unless you have actually tried to catch the snowflakes on your tongue. As regards preschoolers, there arises one more question, too – Should we even introduce the concepts, ideas and vocabulary that they are not familiar with in their L1 and in their lives? My personal (and very subjective) answer would be: ‘no’, not in the EFL context, with a limited language exposure and the limited lesson time available. With a very few exceptions, of some cool animals. Perhaps.

Realistic vs illustrations: Two Cookie Monsters

Act II: Why choose illustrations

First and foremost, as children are growing, they develop their cognitive skills and they become better at recognising symbols, using symbols and, last but definitely not least, at creating symbols (here you will find my earlier post devoted to symbolic representation and the EFL with your starter kit). Using illustrations, cartoons and drawing is necessary!

Children are progressively better able not only to distinguish between these and label them as more realistic and a less realistic representations of an animal…

…they might also appreciate the cat on the far right as it is most likely to resemble the cats that they draw in their pictures. And as they are learning to hold a pencil and to produce marks, scribbles, lines and circles, it will be quite a long time before their drawings look like the cat in the middle or anywhere near the cat on the far left. As Bernadette Duffy (see bibliography) says ‘If we intervene with a view that the purpose of art (or, in this case anything that children create (own comments) is to produce an image that is as realistic as possible and therefore think of children as failed artists we may do great harm by imposing inappropriate expectations that do not match children’s developmental stage‘.

Then there are the visual arts and these are full of ‘hurdles’ for a rational mind. Picasso’s faces are far (far far) from realistic. Chagal makes his characters float in the air, as if they were kites (sometimes accompanied by goats). Warhol stubbornly chooses the ‘wrong’ colours and Malevich replaces the whole world with one (amazing) square. And then there is Miro, Bosch, Rothko and many, many, many more. It is, of course, possible to give up on teaching art to such young children, but, before you do, please read why it is a good idea and how it benefits them. For that very reason, all the major galleries and museums include programmes for kids.

As for the graphic designers, among the advantages of the illustrations is the fact that they can be used whenever it is necessary to show the unique features and to stand out, since all the photos of the cat might look the same and the drawings will differ as they will depend more on the artist style, abilities and techniques, when a simple design is needed (for example an icon) and to depict the imaginary.

The last argument seems especially fitting in the world of the early years. Or in the classroom. Children love stories and these feature real children, talking animals and a whole array of imaginary characters such as mermaids, fairies, dragons, dwarves, fish with fingers and children who are going on a bear hunt (something that you should not really be doing in real life, not when you are five and, actually, although this is yet a very personal opinion, never ever ever). This imaginary world is a part of being a child and children do grow out of it, eventually and naturally. Although, still, some of us, even at 40, we like to revisit this world, accompanying Harry Potter to Hogwarts, Frodo to Mordor and Zima Blue in his search of the meaning of life.

Another thing is that, as a material designer for preschoolers (and I am that, too, as all teachers are), I sometimes tend to choose illustrations over photographs specifically because they are simple and easier to colour for my 3- and 4-year-olds and because I want to convey the general meaning of the word ‘bird’, rather than anything specific, for instance ‘a sparrow’

Another reason for choosing the illustrations over more realistic drawings or photographs is that some animals look too realistic and scary. I am one who does not really like touching the spider flashcard (cartoon, but too real and disgustic) and some of my students feel the same way. So, in case of a crocodile, for instance, I might opt for the one on the far right.

Realistic vs imaginary: a class portrait and a teacher of seven fingers (but with amazing eyelashes:-)

Act III: Why do we have to choose? Variety is the answer!

That’s it. A ridiculously short Act III. Nothing more to add. We can and we should use both. Also because the realistic is not always true, either. Have a look at the photo that introduces this post once more: Am I or am I NOT sitting inside of a huge glass piano?

I hope you have enjoyed reading this article as much as I have enjoyed researching for it and that this is definitely not the end.

And a request to you, dear read. All of the sources that I have used directly have been referenced throughout the post. Below you will see some other treasures that you might find interesting. If you have anything else to add to this list – please, let me know in the comments sections.

Two requests, actually – if you have any stories related to children’s reactions to the photographs and visuals used in class, more or less realistic, please share these, too!

Happy teaching!

Bonus: One of my favourite film adaptations
Много шума из ничего (1993) – IMDb

Bibliography and further reading

All the sources that I have quoted have been referenced throughout the post.

Here are some more things that you might want to read

Why children need real images – how we montessori

Drawings – stages, meaning, Definition, Description, Common problems (healthofchildren.com)

An introduction to the visual arts in early childhood education – THE EDUCATION HUB

Teaching Preschool Art Lessons — KinderArt

Around the world: Art allows all children the freedom to explore (pearsoninternationalschools.com)

Why Real Photos? What about Cartoons? (stageslearning.com)

Picture This! Why Books with Real Photos Help Kids Discover the Big, Wide World (kindercare.com)
Pictures and Images in Flashcards – Are They Even Useful? (universeofmemory.com)

The Truth about Flashcards for Toddlers Who Don’t Yet Talk – teachmetotalk.com

The Pictorial World of the Child (nih.gov) (a review of a wonderful book that I am getting as soon as I can come up with a reason to treat myself)

How to Introduce Toddlers and Babies to Books • ZERO TO THREE

Which Works Better: Illustrations or Photographs? – Ecommerce Platforms (ecommerce-platforms.com)

5 Reasons To Choose An Illustration | Holywell Press

Bernadette Duffy, Supporting Creativity and Imagination in the Early Years, Open University Press, Maidenhead

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

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Ha! It was working!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The group

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

The course

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

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

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

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

Stage two: a new game: week 13

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

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

Stage three: students take over: week 14 – 18

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stage five: pairs: lesson 19 – 24 and onwards

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

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

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

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

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

Reflection

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

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

The contributing factors

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

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

References

*) This is the presentation I gave at the BKC IH Conference: Exprience, Excellence, Expertise, Moscow February 2020