Lesson Planning

Teaching emotions or Four stories to use in class with primary and pre-primary students

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This was a week of our winter (or dare I say spring?) camp classes or, in other words, a week of alternative timetable and alternative activities at the school. It lasted four days and combined two programmes, the emotions activities organised and prepared by our school psychologist and run by the national language programme teachers AND the English language programme prepared and run by me and my colleagues.

I decided to put it together here, as an example of how a curriculum can be composed without relying on the coursebook. Our programme lasted 4 days within the same week but it equals 4 mini-modules, of two lessons each and, theoretically at least, this could amount to a month’s worth of classes and each of these could be further extended to give children an opportunity for more practice.

It needs to stressed that, because of the context of my school, none of the kids are real beginners at the moment and they have seen and used all of the structures and vocabulary before. None of them had to be properly introduced from scratch, for all of us it was a revision and that it why were could squeeze it in two lessons only.

Just as an idea, just for inspiration.

The house for the frog

Step 1: I’m happy, I’m sad.

Vocabulary: all the emotions (the number will depend on the age and the progress of students), the phrase ‘I am happy’. We also revised the extended characters (fairy tale characters and our favourite animals) and used them to make phrases such as ‘The princess is happy’, something that we would need for all the storytelling. The main vocabulary focus for us was the ‘rooms in the house’. We introduced and practised the new vocabulary and I prepared the Magic Bag with items from different rooms in the house.

Songs: there are many songs that include emotions that can be used here, for example Hello song, Open Shut Them 2 or Feelings and Emotions Song.

Story: There are many stories that could be used here, some of them with a bit easier content but I decided to use one of my personal favourites, Rhinos Don’t Eat Pancakes by Anna Kemp which is also available on youtube. I adapted the story, simplifying it a bit and while I was doing it, I asked the kids to help me with describing the main characters’ emotions.

Follow-up: We had two lessons and two main craft activities. The first one was a house which I described a bit earlier here, the other one was creating a crazy animal from different body parts.

Evaluation: The kids really liked the story, Daisy and her purple rhino are always a hit. The house went great, too, as some kids chose to draw the entire kitchen and some just went for a basic symbol for each room in the house. I also had a whole bunch of frog stickers so the houses ended up with having at least one reptile inhabitant.

Step 2: I’m angry.

Vocabulary: The emotions and characters were a part of every lesson in these series, with teh list of characters growing longer. Apart from that, there is also a lot of potential for body parts to prepare the kids to describe all the wild things.

Songs: There are lots of body parts songs, including Head and Shoulders, but one of my favourite ones is ‘This is Me!‘

Story: I chose ‘Where the wild things are’ by Maurice Sendak also because apart from the book in our library, it is also available in the form of a youtube video.

Follow-up: For this day, I planned the music and emotions activity that I described earlier on this blog for the first lesson. In the second half of the day, after the storytelling session, the kids made their own crowns to become the Kings and Queens of the Wild Things and they played the game that I found here on the Famly Blog in which the kids would take turns to dictate the group what to do.

Evaluation: Making a crown is super easy as it only requires an A4 piece of paper cut into halves, lengthways which the kids decorate, cut out the spikes (optional) and glue together and it is amazing how much fun it can bring. Every time I made crowns in class, they were very popular among boys and among girls, too. I was especially happy that the crown would later become an accessory in our game (which, by the way, is a great bonding and team building activity as the kids can make the group perform a complex dance or just a simple gesture such as bending a finger).

Don’t you just love a circle. At the farm.

Step 3: I’m fantastic, I can do it!

Vocabulary: The vocabulary input here was imposed by the story that I really wanted to use in class and this is how farm animals made an appearance in our lesson. We focused on introducing the names and practising. We did the sound quiz together and we played a simple guessing game in pairs, with a set of mini-flashcards for each pair or team. The younger and lower level students played focusing only on guessing the name of the animal and the more advanced were making simple sentences or questions to find out what their partner is talking about.

Songs: I was planning on using Old MacDonald’s but I changed my mind during the lesson and replaced it with the Eddie song that goes with the story.

Story: I have been using this story in class for about 15 years now and out of everything that you can find in Playway to English series, Eddie, the king of the garden is my absolute favourite. It is quite simple, very easy to understand but with a very powerful message.

Follow-up: In this ‘module’ we had time for only craft and I decided to revisit one of my favourite craft activities, Don’t you just love a circle, this time farm-themed.

Evaluation: The activities went well but this day at camp helped me realise that every lesson should include a craft activity, something hands-on, something that we will make and take home. I was planning to include it, initially, but then decided to abandon the idea, in order to make room for riddles and the quiz. It went well but not as well as the other days when two creative (or two paper activities) were included.

Our book about being proud

Step 4: I’m proud.

Vocabulary: I wanted to based this lesson on different activities that kids can do and those that can fill them with pride. The list was adjusted to what I expected my students to know and included the following: Reasons to be proud.

Songs: In my plans I had ‘Little bird’ that we have known for some time as well as the related game ‘Can you? Show me!‘ but, in the end, we did not have time for that. It would have been a great extension and an opportunity for practice, though.

Story: Our story lesson was based on Pip, the would be guide dog and its adventures which we followed with a video from a real school for puppies.

Follow-up: In the first lesson we made a book about being proud, with each page dedicated to a different skill. We went page by page in the following manner: read the sentence a few times, give ourselves a mark, in connection with how strong we are in the area and draw a symbol to represent the activity. In the end we stapled the pages together into a book. I loved watching my kids while they were assessing their own skills. We used the traditional scale we know from school but it was OK to extend it and that is how some kids awarded themselves with 7+ or even 100 for some skills. It was a beautiful moment.

In the second activity, we prepared diplomas that were handed in at the end of the session because everyone is fantastic and deserves five stars.

Evaluation: This was, by far, my favourite lesson of the series. One reason for it was the fact that I managed to find both videos and to balance a cartoon with a documentary on the same subject. The second reason was the fact that the lessons gave us an opportunity to talk about what we can do, to evaluate our skills and to be proud. I did underestimate the kids’ ability to draw for their friends and the ‘decorate your friend’s diploma’ did not go that well. They turned out to be too young and I should have predicted that, skip that element and focus on preparing the diplomas and handing them out on the last day of the camp. My colleague did the same activities with another group and it was a success. I did overdo it a bit. Lesson learnt.

Happy teaching!

More than drilling, more than flashcards. Teaching vocabulary to young learners.

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It’s been six months now (and four courses) since we introduced the individual consultations to our YL and VYL course and a lot of good has come out of it already for the course, for the trainees and my blog. This post today will be dedicated to one of the course participants, Valentina, who came to the meeting with one question only, namely: ‘I am bored with teaching vocabulary through flashcards and drilling’. This was when I realised that we never really talked about the variety in that area. Hence this post.

Back to the basics…

…or our gurus. For anyone who is not familiar, I would recommend getting hold of Carol Read’s chapter on teaching vocabulary and grammar and all the basic concepts as well as her post in the series of the ABC of Teaching Children in which she highligts the need for the crystal clear meaning, the context as well as opportunites for memorising and for practice.

Carol also offers a lot of ideas for the classroom (as promised) and if you are looking for more, please have a look at the bilbliography where I have left some more interesting links, for inspiration and from two different areas, the teachers of EFL/ESL and just children learning new words. Many of them are quite recent publications so have a look! There is lots and lots to read.

For that reason, also, this post here will focus not on practice activities but on ways of introducing vocabulary to primary and pre-school students, more than just flashcards.

Electronic flashcards

‘Electronic flashcards’ is an umbrella term for a great variety of resources that can be used in the YL classroom. I will try to include here at least the few basic ones

  • Wordwall (wordwall.net), with all its growing number of templates and options. You need to join the community but the membership is free and it gives you access to everything that any member ever created and made public. You can, for example, get access to the whole library that I have created (Azapart). The ability to create resources is only available to the members with subscription but it is cheap and definitely worth it. My favourite resources here to introduce vocabulary include stencil flashcards, cropped images, simple word cards and flashcards or flashcards with the audio.
  • Simple video flashcards of which there are plenty available on youtube, such as offered by Maple Leaf Learning. There are also such products as EFL Kids Videos that present not only vocabulary but also vocabulary + structures.
  • Videos that not only present the new vocabulary but that also offer an option of a game, for example places in the city from Smile and Learn where you get a presentation and a guessing game, ‘What is it?’ games from Fun Kids English or drawing – guessing games from Games4ESL.

Sounds

This might be a more obvious resource when it comes to some topics, such as animals, pets, farm or jungle but it is definitely a lot more potential here. Sounds can be also used to introduce the vocabulary of transportation, places in the city, instruments, Present Continuous or everyday activities and objects, a day in sounds or even weather.

It needs to be mentioned that these materials were not created as educational materials with a specific aim to match the content of one coursebook or another and they are not used to replace the official published materials. They only help to introduce the topic and the idea in an interesting way, with at least some of the items that we are required to cover according to the curriculum.

Gestures

I am a huge fun of using gestures in the classroom. The gesture is king after all! For a good few years now, whenever we introduce new vocabulary we add gestures to it, to help clarify the meaning but also to give the children one more channel that might help them remember and recall the meaning of these new words. This kind of miming can be upgraded to include a lot more speaking (see: a post here) and the children can be involved and invited to come up with their own gestures for certain phrases and express themselves in that way, too! It is not only for the youngest of the youngest. Once we introduced, even my 8 – 10 A2 year-olds loved working with this form of expression.

Realia

Like in the case of sounds, realia would be something that naturally springs to mind when we talk about teaching school objects, food or classroom vocabulary and, perhaps, if you have any access to any friendly children who are willing to share their collection, perhaps also to teach toys, transport or even animals. The other topics seem to be impossible. Or do they?

I think my realia creativity had a chance to skyrocket during the pandemic while we were all stuck at home and with a very limited access to all those beautiful things that we would normally use. A blessing in disguise?

My solution is relatively un-revolutionary and is based on using symbols, items that we agree stand for our chosen concepts. Here are some examples:

  • rooms in the house: a spoon = the kitchen, a pair of socks = the bedroom, a remote = the living room, a key = the hall, a toothbrush = the bathroom
  • weather: gloves = it is snowing, sunglasses = it is sunny, a cap = it is warm, a kite = it is windy, an umbrella = it is raining, a scarf = it is cold
  • school subjects: a tshirt = PE, a mouse = IT, paints = Art, counting sticks = Maths, dictionary = English, a book = Russian, a magnet (from abroad) = Geography, a paper crown or a photo of a king = History etc
  • party aka characters: a star = a sheriff, a crown = a prince / a princess, a red nose = a clown, a witch’s hat = a witch, a flower = a gardener, a plastic stetoscope = a doctor etc
  • seasons: just lots of things, clothes and accessories which we use in winter, spring, autumn and summer
  • family: accessories that different memebers of the family might have, a car = a brother, a doll – a sister, a newspaper = daddy, wool = grandma etc.
  • body: accessories and objects which we use with different body parts: glasses: a nose and ears and eyes, socks = feet and toes, a spoon = a hand and fingers. The confusion might be even beneficial here because we will be repeating the words a number of times.
  • free time and verbs: different objects and accessories that we use, for example: a pen = to write, a ball = to play, a spoon = to eat etc.

Song

In a majority (almost certain here) of our coursebooks songs are introduced as a means of practising and revising vocabulary and grammar but this does not have to always be the case, not when we are in charge.

Since I discovered the existance of the amazing Pete the Cat who is rocking in his school shoes, I have not taught the places in the school (and Present Continuous) in a different way. The song is beautiful, fun and very catchy and the video illustrates the idea of both the vocabulary and the tense in such an obvious way that I am not even looking for any alternatives. We start with the song, we enjoy the music, the video and Pete and only later, we move on to flashcards, drilling and all the other practice activities.

Here are some more examples of songs that can be used in the same way

E pronto? E pronto!

Story

Whatever we do with songs, it can be done with a story. A video, a storybook or storycards can be the starting point in a vocabulary lesson. Here are my favourite storybooks to teach vocabulary:

  • ‘Elmer’ by David McKee to teach jungle animals
  • ‘Marvin Gets Angry’ by Joseph Theobald to teach emotions
  • ‘Cat’s Colours’ by Airlie Anderson to each colours
  • ‘A Very Hungry Caterpillar’ by Eric Carle to teach food
  • ‘Zob’ by Julia Donaldson to teach helth problems

To name just a few. Introducing them will give you a ready made context and it will be a pleasure for the kids to get back to the story over a series of lessons and to be more and more involved in reading and retelling the story. That is a brand new level of the sense of achievement and of the meaningful lessons.

Posters

Admittedly, in the past, a few years ago or in the previous editions of the coursebooks, posters were a more frequent quest. They are not as common today although different schools produce their own posters and so do publishing houses, although not necessarily in connection with a particular title. For that reason, I will extend the definition of poster to ‘any large size visual with a variety of elements’ in order to be able to include any silly pictures, clip art creations to be found on google (really!) or the picture wordlists as these absolute beauties available on the CUP website for Starters, Movers and Flyers exam preparation (but not exclusive to these).

I am a huge fan of using visuals in the classroom and I am proud to say that I have come up with a plethora of ideas for language practice. You can find them in two posts: All you need is…a picture. They can be displayed on screens or interactive whiteboards or even printed and laminated.

As regards vocabulary introduction, however, here are some ideas:

  • labelling the items in the picture together with the kids
  • covering some parts of the pictures with the post-it notes, to elicit from kids (It is a city. What can we see here?) and then to uncover the picture step by step while introducing the equivalents of the words the kids provide, in English
  • covering some parts of the picture with the post-it notes, to uncover them step by step while clarifying the meaning of the words and including elements of drilling
  • covering some parts of the picture with the post-it notes, to play ‘What’s missing?’ (although this slowly moves towards controlled practice / drilling)
  • pointing at two objects in the picture and calling out a name for the kids to recognise. Here, the teacher can use hands (Left! Right!) or, if it is too confusing, two markers of different colours (Blue! Red!), a fun exercise for the auditory practice and word recognition.

Coda

All of the activities mentioned above can be used during the practice stage and they are not to replace flashcards and drilling but to supplement or replace them and to introduce a bit of variety and a breath of fresh air, for the students and for the kids.

The choice will depend on the age and level of the students and, naturally, on the specific set of vocabulary.

Happy teaching!

Bibliography

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

Carol Read (2011), ABC of Teaching Children, V is for Vocabulary here.

How to teach vocabulary: 5 fun and easy ideas (2020) from Begin Learning.

17 ways for kids to learn new vocabulary (2020) from Imagination Soup.

Kids and vocabulary (2011?) from British Council, Teaching English.

How to teach vocabulary. Twinkl’s super seven-step guide (2023) from Twinkl.

6 Science-based tips for teaching your kids vocabulary…the fun way (2022) from Maya Smart.

5 fun ideas to make vocabulary jump out of the page for young learners (2021) from CUP.

30 meaningful vocabulary activities for every grade (2023) from We Are Teachers.

Teacher down, dear teacher!

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The Bosphorus

This post starts in the classroom (Surprise, Surprise!) and they are generated by me but only in connection with what I do in the classroom and how my audience reacts to it. This is everything, aside from the thoughts of the experienced teachers, aside from what we find in the coursebooks, aside from what we learn about in different workshops and lectures. How the kids react to what happens in the lesson…

And since most of my professional life is spent in the presence of the very young one, the reaction and the feedback is immediate, without the intermediary help of the admin, parents or educational supervisors or trainers. If the lesson is good, you know it. If the lesson is bad, you will know straight away. If you can read the signs and reading there must be a special part of the brain devoted to looking out and reading these signs, while teaching, learning, monitoring, supervising and growing goes on happening.

Hence this post.

Teaching the whole child

This is definitely one of the key words in the EFL / ESL methodology, which teachers, trainers, bloggers, authors are more than eager to recite, together with the ZPD, scaffolding, short attention span and many more. ‘Teaching the whole child‘ will also be on that list.

In order to understand what might be hiding under this term, it is necessary to have a look at the list of the key development areas outlined by Sandie Mourao and Gail Ellis: personal, social, emotional development, communication, language and literacy, problem soling, reasoning, numeracy, knowledge and understanding of the world, physical development and creative development. These are naturally the areas, typical for the early years child development, first and foremost age-related and not specific for any particular context, L1 education or the EFL/ESL education. But, especially, because of that, they need to be included in both and in teaching of any subjects to the early years children, be it their L1, a foreign language, Maths, Art or judo.

Carol Read can also be a point of reference. She has quoted her C-Wheel in quite a few sources and apart from the overlap with the areas mentioned above, she also included a few others that would help to better understand the idea behind the whole child. These are: care, community as well as context and connections (i.e. family and school), coherence and challenge as well as the cultural context. The most important factor, the child, is in the centre of the wheel.

But the quote that really made an impression on me comes from a post I found on Teaching Channel where, on top of some practical solutions for implementing the approach, I have also found this way of explaining what it means to be teaching the whole child: ‘by being responsive to children’s understandings, interests, and abilities, allowing them to deepen their natural curiosity and their eagerness to want to discover and learn more’.

It deeply resonates with me because of the conviction that I have held for a long time (and which I have tried to brainwash my trainees with over the years) that the most important thing that a primary or pre-primary school teacher can do is to sit on the carpet with the kids, literally and figuratively speaking, too, in order to change the perspective and to try to see the world from their point of view. This change of the point of view is absolutely crucial when it comes to classroom and behaviour management, staging, lesson planning, craft, literacy skills development and many many more.

‘That is very well but what is your point here?‘ you might be wondering.

It seems that, sometimes, regardless of our good will, professionalism and even experience (yes, I know what I am talking about), we, the teachers tend to allow our methodological principles take precedence over the child in the classroom and choosing between ‘what I need to do today‘ and ‘what the room needs‘, being the professionals that we are, we choose the standards and the rules, not the audience, not the child. It is all well-intentioned and well-meant, of course, but it might not mean that it is also the best decision as regards the said audience.

In this post today I would like to call the teachers to teacher down a little bit! Remember about the standards, methodological, institutional, cultural and what not, but to put them on the back burner and to focus more on the six-year-old beloved crowd insead.

Below, the three areas and some classroom stories from yours truly.

Storytelling

A story first. It was a lesson with my adorable monsters, in our fifth or sixth year together and it was a story lesson. I got everything ready, the audio, the text, the words to be pre-taught, the comprehension task, a game and, most importantly, a while-reading task. I wanted to be very clever and, since the story had a repetitive element and it was perfect for prediction. I wanted to have us read and listen to it but with pauses, with the kids discussing every stage (‘What happened?’ and ‘What will happen next?’). I thought it was a brilliant idea and, perhaps, it really was. However, once we started to go through the story, after two ‘episodes’, one of my students, one of the more confident ones, looked at me and said: ‘Anka, can we just listen to the story?‘

And I don’t know what it was, the tone of voice or how effectively she used intonation to convey meaning, carefully stressing ‘listen’ in the whole phrase, or maybe it was the faces of the rest of the class showing a mix of dedication but this simple human fatigue that made me realise that I overdid it.

I took a story, a great story, that we would be interested in listening to or reading, something humanly exciting and fun and I turned it into an exercise, a learning activity, a task, at the same time, and totally unwillingly, making it dull and tiring, simply because of the context – our classroom. That made me gasp in shock.

Naturally, we read to learn, to extend our vocabulary and to practise grammar and to develop the reading comprehension skills and all the other skills, too. However, a story is still a story and it deserves to be enjoyed, in a human way, even if we are in an A1 classroom full of kids, at least to some extent, at least in a balance with all the very teacherful activities with a clear learning focus.

In the classroom that can be done through: including a variety of stories, coursebook stories, YL exam stories and storybooks, traditional stories and videos, including elements of reading for pleasure, a school or class library, just listening to a story for fun before any reading comprehension tasks are introduced, giving the students an opportunity to express their views about the story and accepting different opinions, also those negative ones, basically anything that we might do with a story in our real L1-life.

‘My students don’t like to sing!’

It is one of the most common comments that my trainees make and one of the most common questions they ask right afterwards and that is: ‘Should we make them if they don’t? How?’

Well, the short version according to Murao and Ellis is 8 reasons to bring songs into the classroom. Carol Read mentions a few more in her book. In an earlier post here, written based on the materials I found in different sources, there are 60 reasons, for the kids and for the adults. There are so many of them that we have enough justification to change the famous song’s title into ‘The classrooms are alive with the sound of music!’ Or, at least, they should be!

But, with all that in mind, or, almost against all that, what we do with a song in our L1 life, as adults or kids, is to simply listen to it and to enjoy the fact that it is on. Sometimes we dance to it, sometimes we might sing some lines, sometimes not. As people, we are not expected to know all the lyrics, to like all the songs and to sing along every single time. We definitely do not listen to complete some comprehension tasks or to focus on a particular structure or an idiom. There is a danger, then, that by imposing all of these on our students we will be destroying the organic character of this resource.

Again, it would be a good idea to remember the need to teacher down songs in the classroom a little bit. Accepting that not all the students will love all the songs equally and that not all the students will want to sing all the songs every single time seems to be the first step here, although that does not mean that songs will disappear from the coursebooks, curriculums and lesson plans. In the everyday teaching, it might mean simply starting with ‘Let’s just listen to the song!’ before we get down to the vocabulary, grammar, lyrics and all the follow-up activities and asking the kids whether they like the songs or not. Getting the students involved in the song selection is another important way of teachering down here and either focusing on those that they actually really do like and including their suggestions in the lessons, too.

‘We have so many things to do today!’ or about the lesson plan

This time the story took place in my Playway 1 lesson, at the end of the year, somewhere in the food unit. Those who have used the book might remember the listening activity in which students have to listen to a boy, one of the charcacters from the coursebook, who talks about his likes and dislikes and mark these accordingly in the picture. One of my students, Sasha, a 6 y.o. boy, didn’t deal with the task very well. ‘I like pears’, would the character say and my Sasha would say: ‘I don’t like pears’ and then, to my horror, he would cross the heart in the book, instead of colouring it in. Every single time Sasha did not agree with the character in the recording, he would loudly comment and then mark the answers according to his preferences.

I was watching him thinking the following thoughts: Oh, Lord, he is not following instructions, he does not understand what to do, he will not pass any of the exams and, in general, I failed as a teacher. None of which is true. I am happy that, despite the way I felt in the lesson, I reacted as a true educator, I went for the child’s well-being and I did not insist on the ‘correct’ answers. Thinking of the lesson afterwards, I was laughing out loud at my professional silliness. My little student told me, in English, what he thought of certain food items, he clearly understood what he listened to and he reacted to the content. The problem was not me or the child but the activity itself that assumed that the little people are able to disentach themselves from the activity and to de=personalised the content in order to complete a task. This made me look in a completely different way at the YL coursebooks content and it has been a turning point for me.

This same approach can be applied to any lesson plan. We go to school not to teach the lesson plans or the coursebooks but to teach the kids, the particular kids in our classrooms. Not everything that the great authors at the famous publishing houses thought of for the particular lesson, unit, activity will be appropriate for Masha, Katya, Sasha, Tomek, Agnieszka, Juan and Pierre that are entering our classrooms. Not everything that we have prepared for the lesson might not be the best idea on a Monday morning after a long break etc.

In the everyday life teachering down might mean:

  • evaluating the coursebook material carefully as regards its relevance for the particular group of kids and appropriate adaptation and adjustments as regards the content, the cultural context, the emotional context, the personalisation or the lack of, etc
  • adapting the lesson plan on the go, depending on how the students are feeling on the day. Pushing the day agenda at all cost will not be effective and might result in frustration.
  • putting yourself in the kids’ shoes while preparing the activities for the lesson and trying to answer this simple question: Why would they want to do it?, apart from the obvious, the fact that a person in the position of authority, older and taller than them, someone that knows their parents and is also able to assess them is bringing this to class and tells them to do it. Is there anything in the exercise, activity, story, listening, song that they would want to do anyway? And if it is not there, can we add it?
  • while things are not going to plan, looking at the situation through the kids’ eyes to better understand what is going on in order to deal with it more effectively.
  • involving the kids in the decision making process about the lesson, as regards the songs to sing, the games to play, the stories to read or even the order of the activities (when possible), to share the responsibility for the learning but also to find out more about the audience and their preferences.

Coda or what this post is NOT about

I wouldn’t want anyone to think that I am calling for a complete abandonment of all the methodological principles, present-practice-production, good teaching standards. Far from it. ‘Organic’ is a nice word to use to describe a lesson and a teaching approach as long as it is not synonymous with ‘I didn’t bother with planning the lesson, we’ll just go for it!’

It is an invitation to keeping your eyes open and to not forgetting that our students are very young and that the age will be very often the most important factor behind their behaviour and attitude. On the one hand. On the other hand, they are people, too and that we can act as people, too, instead of being teachers 24 / 7.

What do you think? Share your thoughts in the comments!

And make sure you come back for more because the second part of this mini-series is coming up! ‘Teacher down!’ is ready now. The post about the need to teacher up is already being written!

Happy teaching!

Bibliography

Sandie Murao and Gail Ellis (2020) Teaching English to Pre-primary Children, Delta, page 10 – 11.

Carol Read (2007), 500 Activities for the Primary Classroom, Macmillan, p. 7.

More than a grade! Teaching the whole child from the Teaching Channel.

How to use songs in the English language classroom from the British Council.

What a difference a teacher makes! A post for all the novice teachers

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The beautiful tiles shown to us by engineer-history.ru

We are approaching a new academic year, new groups, new kids, new beginnings. What a happy coincidence that it is right now that I found this particular report and got to reminisce about this particular lesson that I observed many (many) years ago. Here is my start-of-the-new-academic-year post!

A quote from the report

‘It was a pleasure to watch you with that class and you have no idea what difference it makes to have a teacher who actually feels at ease in a PW class and who wants to be there. The kids can sense it and respond to it. There were many great activities and clear evidence of routine and good classroom management. Well done!’

And it was a memorable lesson for a number of reasons…

The were two teachers working at one of the branches of my school. One of them got in touch asking for help. One of her groups was a group of pre-schoolers and it wasn’t going very well. She went through the initial orientation and lesson planning with a senior teacher but, somehow, as it sometimes happens, it was not coming together. She requested to be taken off the group. It was an option that was being considered but, we wanted to see first if there was anything to be done and I went to observe the group.

Admittedly, it was not the easiest group. It was quite big, by our standards, filled up to the maximum (we had 8 as the maximum number), the kids were beginners but as it sometimes happens in language schools there were of different ages, there was a four-year-old and two six-year-olds and one of the children was also dealing with some attention disorder (according to what I could observe in one lesson).

It was not the best lesson. The teacher was trying, doing her best but, at heart, she must have already decided that this is not something that she wants to do and it was obvious, to the observer and, apparently, to the kids, too.

Two weeks and three lessons later, this group had a different teacher…

And that’s because we were lucky. During one of our training sessions, I literally bumped into the teacher and, in the hallway, in-between the training sessions, snacks and coffee, she asked me if I know of any ‘homeless’ group of pre-schoolers because she said, she would really really start teaching one. She had never done that.

And although I try to avoid doing it, this one time, I found myself observing the teacher in her first lesson with a group. I was sitting at the back of the classroom, with a piece of paper, taking notes and I could not believe my own eyes. Literally.

There must have been some magic done, some spells cast or, during these few days between the two lessons and the two teachers, these kids were tranformed into focused, well-behaved, engaged pre-schoolers! There were a different group of kids.

Everyone came, the older and the younger and the suspected ADHD, a full house! The teacher got some information about the group and the course from the previous teacher, she had some time to prepare. The teacher did her best to follow the routine of the pre-school groups that we had at the school and to manage the class. Nonetheless, it was her first lesson ever, with this group and with this age group.

Great teachers are made, not born and it was not her best lesson and it could not have been. She was just starting with the group, she was still at the stage of memorising the kids’ names and faces and yet, it was a good lesson. Not so much because of the appropriate tasks, instructions, staging and materials but because the teacher wanted to be in the classroom and, somehow, the kids knew it and they appreciated that and, as a result, they responded well to whatever it was that she brought with her. Everything else, the great results, the pleasure and the Above Standard lessons came later.

Why it is good news for all the teachers starting with a new group / level / age group / coursebook

  • Great teachers are made, not born. Even if the beginnings are complicated, stressful and scary, things are going to get better and they are going to get better thanks to the number of minutes, hours, weeks, months and years clocked in in front of a group of students. These number of minutes has its beginnings in the very first lesson.
  • You as a teacher, you can really (really) make a difference by planning the lesson and by preparing for who and what you might encounter in the lesson. By choosing the appropriate activities, by considering the things that can go wrong, by writing the lesson plan for your primary or pre-primary students, with a lot of variety, by reading about the first primary lesson survival kit and about the first pre-primary lesson survival kit, or about all the things that I wish I had known before my first lesson in pre-primary.
  • You, as a teacher, you can really (really!) make a difference by preparing yourself mentally for the first lessons and by believing in yourself! The one piece of advice that I always give my teachers about to step into the pre-school or primary classrooms is this: SMILE! That is because a smile can get us far and further! It is not so much about maintaining your muscles pulled into a shape of a croissant but about remaining cheerful. Things might not go to plan in this first lesson but it is absolutely necessary to remember that they will get better in lesson 2, 3, 4 and 5. As it is necessary to remember that we are great teachers and we love what we do. And that we do our best. When we do our best, of course, although, I personally think that most of the teacher try to do their best, on daily basis.
  • We are all a little bit stressed and feeling uneasy before the first lessons, all of us. Even those who are experienced teachers and trainers. Sorry! It is true the levels of confidence go up and the levels of stress go down with time but it is never completely relaxed. The only difference now is that at this point I am aware of the fact that things might not be perfect but I will know how to handle it. It is not ‘Oh, no! What if…’ and more like ‘Oh, ok, bring it on.’
  • Power to you, dear teacher!

What other advice would you give to a teacher who is about to start teaching Young Learners? Leave a comment in the comments box!

Happy teaching!

Picking at the seams: Potential problems and solutions in a YL lesson

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Stone drawings #5

This is the second chapter of the post devoted to lesson planning habits worth developing in a teacher of a YL teacher. Here you can find the first part of it: Variety and it is all about looking back at a lesson already planned to check that includes the necessary variety of interaction patterns, materials, settlers and stirrers and learning styles.

One more item that needs to be added to the list of Things To Think About while planning for young learners are all the potential problems and solutions. It is an indispensable element of the formal written plan for any kids’ lesson (or at least it should be). It is also a habit that a teacher needs to develop for the every teaching when no plans are written.

Here is why:

  • Looking at the lesson from the perspective of all the potential disasters and (‘disasters’) to happen can help troubleshoot
  • Problems and solutions can and should be applied to the instructions, interaction patterns, materials, activities, learning styles, behaviour, participation, time, seating arrangements and the amount of language produced.
  • Coming up with the list of everything that can go wrong helps to generate at least some of the solutions for them and get the teacher better prepared for the lesson and, ultimately, fewer surprises in the classroom.
  • This is especially important if the teacher is doing the activity for the first time ever or if it is a new approach or technique never used with a particular group of students.
  • Analysing the problems and solutions can result in the teacher having to adapt the original lesson arrangements, in order to improve the lesson.
  • Predicting what can go pear-shaped and then comparing it with a list of the things that worked out or that didn’t is another fascinating exercise that a teacher can do as part of the post-lesson reflection. How many of my predictions were true? How many of them were not? Was I overly optimistic or overly pessimistic? What were the biggest surprises?
  • Writing these down is an option but, most likely, in there everyday teaching life, with 20+ lessons to teach a week, there won’t be any time for that. It is a lot more important to allocate time for that, though, and, although it might take a bit longer in the beginning, it is definitely one of the teaching skills that become automatic and, with time, require less and less time committment. Speaking from experience here:-) Over the years, it turns you into a teacher who takes literally a second to look at a handout or a game or a coursebook page and who can see a list of its benefits and pitfalls. Upon which a decision can be made whether to use it in class or not.

Happy teaching!

One word of advice: Variety. Planning lessons for young learners

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Stone drawings #4

This is the week of the summer teacher training and may it be the first of many. I love being a trainer for many reasons and one of them is the fact that just as many ideas come are born in the classroom, in the presence of kids, in the same way, many are born in the classroom in the presence of trainees. Being, talking, observing and reflecting and, ta-dam, you find yourself talking and making mental notes for all the posts to add to this blog.

Here is the first post dedicated to my summer trainees from the June 2023 group.

Lesson planning process in three easy steps

  • Check the coursebook content, choose the lesson aims and the main activity
  • Plan the whole lesson (in the way you prefer to do it, with taking notes, without taking notes, with colours like I love to do or just on a set of post-it notes, like my teacher-friend Irina likes to do.
  • Once it is all done and ready, take another look at it and assess it, analysing it from the point of view of variety. If something is missing and/or is in excess, adapt the lesson plan

Here comes the variety…

Settlers and stirrers

This is probably the one that I would recommend starting. First of all, because it is quite straighforward and easy to spot, even for a newly qualified teacher. Young learners accumulate energy fast and they need to be given an opportunity to release it in order to be able to concentrate on those tasks that require focus. If they don’t, they will become distracted and wriggling in their chairs. In such a situation no teaching or learning is taking place.

Second of all, it is a good one to start with because it is just very easy to deal with and to fix, without any major effort. Most of the time, what it takes is to shift stages around the lesson. If a lesson is too active, a stage in which students work on their own on a task can be added. If, on the contrary, the lesson is too calm, too still, too book-bound, all you need is a song or, even better, a few songs, to punctuate the whole lesson and to give it a proper rhythm.

Materials

This one is quite easy to take care of as there will always be the board and the markers, the coursebook and the workbook, all the flashcards and a set of markers or pencils. Throw in a puppet, a soft ball, a few die, perhaps a few storybooks and some magnets and a blob of blutack and your basic set is ready. Then, to make all the dreams come true, I would add a beautiful multifunctional box, some coloured paper, a few pairs of kids scissorss and a few gluesticks, some trinkets to be the checkers, a bag of stickers, painter’s scotch and a homemade magic wand.

The computer and the screen, with the Internet access and the cornucopia of goods available online is already in the classroom.

The only thing is to make combine all the elements in a clever way and make sure that the set changes a bit, from lesson from lesson, and that some occasional pretty pieces such as playdough, watercolours or food.

Learning styles

On the one hand, ‘learning styles’ is one of the terms that features in many (if not all books) on teaching young learners. On the other hand, it is one of the most frequently mocked concepts at many (if not all) conferences, workshops and lectures on teaching English.

But, as I have been telling my trainees over the years, those who say anything about learning styles with the tiniest even traces of derision are, quite likely, the people who have never worked with children. If they had, they would have embraced any movement, action, songs, music, chants, colourful flashcards, realia, blocks and posters, not because they would lend themselves to be neatly labelled as kinesthetic, auditory and visual but because variety of learning channels means less boredom in the YL classroom and, even if only for that one reason, better results.

And it’s not that the song in the classroom is only going to be sung only by those kids who actually like singing. Quite the contrary, the song is there for all of the kids to participate only some will enjoy it more than the others. So will the flashcards, posters and realia or boardgames.

Here you can find a lovely summary of the debate on the learning styles.

Interaction patterns

I got to this paragraph in the post and I smiled. And it’s because, as soon as we get to this point in our coversations with teachers or trainees, there is always somebody who raises up a hand to say that ‘Primary school children don’t know to work in pairs’. I smile.

It is true, that on entering a classroom with a bunch of primary school kids, you cannot just assume that you will be able to go ‘Together, together, together. Work in pairs. Here is the handout’ and it will just happen. It will not but it is not because the kids, developmentally, are unable to work in pairs. It is because it is a new environment, a new teacher, a new group of peers, a new classroom and, in our case, a new language.

Pairwork is possible in primary. Pairwork is absolutely necessary in primary and it can be done. It can be done even with much younger students and here you can read about how to go about it. For that reason, and taking full responsibility for my words, I can say that in a lesson with primary students, as a trainer, an observer, a mentor, an educator and an ados, I would expect to see some whole class work, some indivdual work, some teamwork AND some pairwork.

Practical notes

  • I like to colour-code different areas to better see the balance or the lack of it.
  • I sometimes use it as a reflection task before teaching the lesson, sometimes it is a post-teaching entertainment.
  • Most of the time, I use it in my everyday lesson planning, and then I only focus on one or two areas here and that is usually when the lesson plan just ‘doesn’t feel right‘ and I am trying to identify why I am not happy with it.
  • This is also a technique that I have used in teacher training, with evaluating the lesson plans of my trainees, while preparing an observation report and, naturally, also during the lesson planning sessions of all kinds. Because of that, the main objective would be different, either to identify the weaker areas and to create the connection between the lesson planning process and the lesson itself or while lesson planning to problem shoot and to ensure that the lesson is balanced, at least on paper.
  • Here is another post on lesson planning for YL
  • A lesson for YL when you suddenly land on Mars and
  • A new take on the lesson plan
  • And, just in case, the first lesson in primary survival kit
  • Don’t forget to check out the other post related to lesson planning reflection: Potential problems and solutions

Happy teaching!

Why you DON’T want to mix age groups and levels. Adventures of a teacher

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Sigh.

This was my first reaction to the context I had a chance to teach in last week. To be honest, I am still sighing because an experience like that does not wear off too easily. Yes, it was not a positive experience.

Now, even being just dead inside and very very angry (not a contradiction) at the time it was taking place, I was still a devoted teacher and, even more importantly from the point of view of this post, I was a trainer, reflecting and assessing. So here we are. For you, what not to do and why.

What happened

Last week I had a chance to teach an extremely mixed ability group. I am an experienced teacher and an experienced trainer and, over the years, I have had an opportunity to work in a variety of contexts with different students and mixed ability groups in all shapes and forms and types of a mixture. Last Wednesday I reached a new level.

There were nine kids in the classroom. Three of them – real beginners who should be learning colours and their first hellos. Seven of them – pre-literate students who would require an alternative set of materials. Two kids – of a higher than ‘just pre-A1’ who should be in a more advanced group. One child, aged 5 (according to the information from the admin) and aged 4 (according to what he told me) – a pre-schooler who should not be spending in the classroom more than 30 minutes. Three kids, aged 10 – who should be in a completely different group where they are given a task on a higher cognitive level of challenge than just a picture to colour. And yet, there we were, myself and all nine kids (all of them called Sasha, traditionally), in the same classroom, for 4 academic hours of a lesson.

We all survived. Here are some notes from this memorable day.

The youngest Sasha…

  • The youngest Sasha was completely out of place. He did not understand what we were doing and the only reason why he even stayed in the classroom was that his older sister was present and involved. He was trying to join in, though, and the result of it was a little boy babbling in some kind of a newspeak, that was neither pidgin, nor Sasha’s L1 and not any langauge known to mankind. Albeit, to be honest, it to someone who did not know English, it might have sounded like English, from afar. My heart was literally aching at his efforts.
  • The youngest Sasha had no idea of the way you interact in the classroom. On countless of occasions, he would get up, come to the board, pick up markers to draw on the board (since the classroom was not baby-proof, I did not expect a pre-schooler), to try to nick a few post-it notes. He did not understand why he did not get a set of mini-cards (and some kids did, the leaders of all the small teams) and when he got a small heart for the other activity, he did not want to give it back. Because why would he? At one point, I felt like being on the playground and ‘fighting’ over toys.
  • It was beyond the little Sasha’s understanding why we would even dictate the colours for each other to use in a colouring dictation. ‘But I want to colour it blue and green!’, he said, already on the verge of tears and, later on, naturally, he was thoroughly confused that his picture was different from the teacher’s, his sister’s, all the other kids’ and he kept asking if he did a good job and if he completed the task well.

The Sashas in the middle…

  • Generally, these Sashas were under control. After all, they are the kids who have spent the longest period of time in the classroom and they are the kids who have had a chance to experience and to benefit from the routine of the previous two weeks. High five to the teacher who made an effort to build this routine. It was worth it. These are also the children who constitue the biggest group and the activities were generally designed for them and graded to their linguistic, cognitive and social skills. They did participate, they did produce, they did work well in pairs and, unknowingly, they were the kids that the teacher was looking at and sighing with relief. ‘Not all is lost’, thought the teacher. ‘I have not run in vain’, thought the teacher, quoting her favourite quote from the Bible, albeit a very un-religious one.
  • But, still, the atmosphere of the lesson, chaotic and messy, unravelling and tense (my bad, I know that) also took its toll even on them. My amazing twins were on the edge and, at one point, a heated debate broke out because one of them wanted to play a simple gussing game (as intented and as they were instructed to) whereas the other wanted some hints and suggestions (because that is how we played in the previous weeks). ‘Why aren’t you miming? Why aren’t you telling me if it is big or small and if you like it?’, he was asking. They ended up getting upset with each other and breaking up for a minute. The other pair, Sasha girls were sleepy and tired and on the verge of tears and even though they did play, they also spent a moment discussing whether they should just divide the cards into two piles or take them from the same pile and how much time is necessary to make a decision which word you want to use to talk about (Answer: not too much, the sooner, the better).
  • The day is quite long and the kids like to ask how much time is left. We have established a routine that when they want to know, they should ask (‘What time is it?’) and the teacher checks the watch and writes how many minutes are left until the nearest break. I don’t quite like it but they are quite young, they cannot tell the time using the clock and, still, they need something to understand and to manage the lesson time. We have drilled the question, it is always on the board and, although it is slightly annoying to hear the same question over and over again, it gives me an idea of how involved the group are. The more frequent the questions, the more ‘trouble’ we are in. Unsurprisingly, in that particular lesson, this question was popping up again and again and again.

The oldest Sashas…

  • The oldest Sashas finished the task way too quickly for teacher’s liking and we all had to wrap up a bit faster, although, indeed, they got convinced into taking part in some kind of an extension and it did buy the rest of us some time.
  • The oldest Sashas, because there were more than one, spent the lesson being on the brink of getting involved in some alternative, mostly illicit activities. In the end, they did not, with an experienced teacher present, but, oh Lord, there was so much potential for it. If there had been only one older Sasha, they would have been more easily contained. With two or three, at times, they could bounce their exciting ideas off each other, fueling the behaviour that were not quite welcome.
  • It was almost a miracle that the older Sashas enjoy colouring and that they got midly interested in completing the task. They were most engaged than I would have expected from children of their age. I can safely say that, yes, I did get away with it.
  • In an ideal world, these Sashas would be getting a much closer monitoring from the teacher to ensure that they are using the same material but producing a lot more langauge than the average student. Unfortunately, with the kind of mix that I actually had to deal with, it was not possible. Apart from the storybird activity that involved a 1-1 interaction with the teacher, closely supervised. Overall, the teacher was not happy at all.
  • I have also noticed that one of my older Sashas has got a very strong inclination for bullying. Nothing happened but I do not like the vibe and the way he behaves around the younger children (aka all the other children in the group). He is naturally a leader without any skill to be one and he has absolutely no one to look up to and to be inspired by. He would benefit more from being in a group of older children in order to develop his social skills and to learn from the other kids.

If I could think of a metaphor for that day…

A sweater that is fraying uncontrollably, at three different ends.

Washing the windows in a flat ont the top floor, in a blocks of flats. Standing on the chair and reaching out to this little piece in the corner, thinking that this may all end up in a very, very bad place.

A flooded kitchen, with you trying to make decisions quickly and to save something, to wipe the floor and not to let the flood spread to the neighbours below you.

A three-course dinner for ten, prepared by one relatively skilled chef, on one hob, with a pot and a pan.

A herd of cows that your grandma asked you to bring back from the pasture, walking them on the main village road, with all the tractors and all the combine harvester coming back from the fields and using the same road AND all the neighbours and villagers standing by the fences of their houses, watching the god-damn show because a city teenager trying to manage a task she had no preparation or knowledge of. Speaking from experience, in case you are wondering.

Any of the experiences that you spend hating every second of and yet you go on and you survive. Exhausted. And then you just sigh and vent in a post on your blog.

Coda

There is not much to say here apart from this one thing: all these kids should not be learning English together. There are too many factors that come into the picture that make it an almost impossible task for the teacher. It is true that English language groups are rarely homogenous and it is especially true in case of young learners groups and, especially especially, in case of primary school students. Teachers are simply obliged to deal with that issue on daily basis. Managing a group of kids who are on the same level of English but who are of different ages – it is possible. Managing a group of kids who are of the same age but have different levels of English – it is manageable. However, this kind of a mix, different age groups, different levels of English, different levels of literacy skills, cognitive skills and social skills development with such a number of kids is simply not a good idea. If you have a choice, please, DO NOT DO IT.

Happy teaching!

Off the leash. Creating the curriculum for preschoolers

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How it started?

Throughout my teaching career…oh no. STOP. No energy for all these big words.

There have been many different context in which I have met my pre-school students. There has been teaching for big schools and for small schools. There have been groups and individual kids. There have been institutions and neighbour’s and friend’s kids. There have beenn the English clubs, temporary and permanent, courses based on songs, stories, craft, Art and courses based on coursebooks.

This time, however, with my private student, Sasha (it is always Sasha:-), I found myself in a completely different place. She was already quite a mature preschooler, about to turn 6 and she was not a complete beginner. The initial reaction was that I would test her to evaluate her level and then, somehow, match it with one of the courses (aka coursebooks) that I am familiar with. Because it is just easier this way and although I am not a zealous follower of a coursebook, I suppose, I wanted to have a ready-made curriculum at hand.

There is nothing wrong with that approach, essentially, but I started to think about all the implications. I needed to find the coursebook in my country. Sasha’s parents would have to find the book in her country. She is between the levels so we would not be able to use only one book and I would have to supplement anyway. Too much hassle. I decided to let go of the coursebook and to let go of the whole coursebook-related curriculum. I decided to let the teacher (myself) off the leash and to put the student in the centre of this whole adventure. And see what happens.

After all, the whole pre-A level is like an ocean – big, surprising and pretty much uncharted and you are allowed to do whatever you want. My favourite set up, you might say.

How it’s going?

In one word, it is going great and I am having a lot of fun desigining the curriculum and adapting it to my students’ particular needs. In the beginning I did consider using some handouts and coursebooks-related materials, when applicable, but it was only an initial idea. With time, these were phased out and at this point the course materials inlcude: wordwall games, miro activities, songs and videos available on youtube and all the resources we use to develop our literacy skills, such as specific phonics platforms and resources and the notebook we used for writing.

Overall, I am very happy with my student’s progress and development, in all the areas and skills. And, apart from that, I am having a lot of fun on the way. I have especially enjoyed the freedom that this approach gives the teacher and the opportunity to find out more links and new links between different topics, themes, structures and vocabulary.

All my reflections and tips, in the paragraph below.

How to go about creating a curriculum for the EFL pre-schoolers?

  • Choose a time frame for your courses in order to better manage the time and the content. With two real hours of the lesson time per week (2 x 60 minutes) available, I decided to work on the monthly basis, choosing a different theme for each calendar month.
  • Make a decision regarding the target vocabulary, as regards the topic and the number of words to be introduced throughout the entire unit. This list will depend on how old the students are and how many of these words overlap with the words in the students’ L1. For example, in the topic of animals or jungle animals, words such as ‘a tiger’ or ‘a zebra’ are not new for the L1 speakers of Polish, Russian or Portuguese.
  • Make a decision regarding the structures and / or the target language to be introduced and practised alongside the target vocabulary. These should be relevant to the kids’ age and life experience and, at the same time, relevant and connected to the target vocabulary.
  • Select the songs, stories, videos and craft activities that could be included in this unit. This requires some research and googling but it is also a lot of fun because new videoes are created and added, more up-to-date, more fun and more EFL-friendly. There are some topics that I taught two years ago, for example, and today I use completely different materials to those that were my favourite in the past. The same applies to stories and craft.
  • The coursebooks can be consulted for ideas or resources since there are a lot of lovely, ready-made resources in all the published materials but I wanted to avoid doing that, on purpose, in order not to be bound by everything that has been created so far.
  • The sequence of topics as well as structures chosen has been determined by one or more of the following factors: the time of the year (Christmas, spring), student’s interests (life aquatic) and the connection between the topics. We have managed to move from one to the other, at every step revising the previous units. Some of the decisions were predictable, some of them were completely unexpected,
  • This is a fully student-centred curriculum. It is a combination of what I would like us to cover and of what she is really interested in. Understandably, it is much easier to achieve with a 1-1 student and it would be slightly different with a group, although the students’ views would also be taken into consideration while shaping up the curriculum. Some of the topics appeared in a most random of way like life aquatic which we started to deal with because my student simply fell in love with orcas, dolphins and whales and I decided that not using this passion to learn English would be a waste. Apart from learning the key vocabulary and revising everything that we did in the ‘animal unit’ a few months earlier, I figured out that we could use it to learn and to practise talking about what the animals can do. We started with the basic verbs (because the ocean animals cannot really do a lot, apart from swimming, jumping and walking) but we extended later on. In the same way, my idea to introduce the topic of transport fell flat on its face and had to be directed towards the city because Sasha was not especially interested in cars, boats and helicopters.
  • The course aims are as they would have been for any pre-school EFL course but I do make an effort to formulate the aims for every single lesson I teach as has been my habit and since I started, this has had a huge impact on my teaching and lesson planning. You can read more about it here.

Topics we have covered so far

  • Food, fruit and vegetables and I like, I don’t like, Do you like? as well as What’s your favourite food / drink / fruit / vegetable?
  • Animals: wild animals and pets, habitats and adjectives to describe animals such as big and small, fast and slow, beautiful and ugly. The main structure was the verb to be (3rd singular), used to describe the animals and to make riddles, in the affirmative, negative and question form. We also managed to revise like / don’t like while talking about the animals’ favourite food but in order to keep it coherent we used the plural form (Lions like to eat meat).
  • School: school objects, rooms in the school and Present Continous to describe what we do at school. This unit was fully based on Pete the Cat, Rocking in my school shoes.
  • House: rooms in the house and verbs in Present Continuous to describe where we are and what we are doing. We also revised the family members and started to talk about them.
  • Weather: an opportunity to revise a few different sets of vocabulary and structures: clothes (It is sunny. I am wearing a dress), feelings (It is sunny, I am happy), objects (It is sunny. I’ve got an umbrella).
  • Christmas: Christmas characters and decorations, more adjectives to describe these (long / short, cold / hot) to make riddles about these, as well as prepositions of place (in, on, under, next to) which we need to describe where the Christmas decorations were located. We also managed to go back to the rooms and Present Continuous (‘Mum is in the kitchen. She is cooking’)
  • Life aquatic: different animals that live in the ocean, adjectives to describe these animals with a few body parts typical for animals (legs, a tail, a head, ears). We also started to talk about what the animals can and cannot do, starting with the aquatic animals and three main verbs (swim, jump, walk) and then extending the number of verbs and all the animals.
  • Transport and the city: different means of transport and places in the city. We further extended the list of adjectives (fast / slow, loud / quiet) and we talked how we travel to different places (I go to school by car). We also revised the prepositions of place while constructing our own city (The school is in Green Street. The school is next to the park.)
  • Professions: our target langauge in this unit is related to professions, although I am planning to extend it towards characters (fairy tales and people in our life). As regards grammar, this is our first step towards talking about other people. We have already covered she / he is and, only yesterday, she likes and he likes.

What’s next?

To be perfectly honest, I have no idea. This is still an ongoing project and I have not been planning it with a lot of time in advance. The professions unit is coming to an end and it seems that we are going to take it towards fairy tale characters, superheroes and ‘people’ in general as this will be a chance to revise and further reinforce the 3rd singular (to be and likes / doesn’t like). That will be our May.

As for June and July, I have not decided yet. I know that I would love to introduce some elements of the past tense and a structure to talk about the future, too, but I am not sure how it is going to go. The more immediate plans involve the extension of the current unit by revising the family and introducing a variety of fairy tales characters which will allow us to start telling stories. Then we will see. I am sure to be reflecting on it here in the future.

Happy teaching!

The first primary lesson survival kit

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Context: it is a new place, a new group of kids. In lieu of an induction, one line only and it goes: ‘You will be in room 5, miss Anka. Don’t forget to fill in the electronic register after the lesson.’

Lesson aims

It is all very simple: this particular lesson happens to give the kids a chance to meet the teacher and to give the teacher an opportunity to see the kids in their natural habitat. Since there will be quite a few new things for the children to deal with such as the class, the teacher, the first lesson in a foreign language, the coursebook, the classroom, the songs, games and the content, it might be best to keep the expectations on a reasonable level. It is a lot more important to focus on the child, on the student and on the routine, rather than on some ambitious linguistic aims. After all, there is going to be a whole year for the latter.

Before the lesson

In a perfect world, it would be possible for the teacher to see the classroom before the lesson, to take stock of the environment and all it can offer and to plan building the routine around the actual classroom. Is there any area without too many pieces of furniture which can be used for the movement games or for the start or the ending of the lesson? Is it possible to move the furniture to create a circle or are the desks to heavy for that and you will have to sit in rows as they do in their regular classes?

In a perfect world, it would also be possible to get the register of all the kids to figure out how many we are to expect and, last but not least, to talk to their class teacher to get to know them a bit before the lesson or, in a super-perfect-ideal-over-the-rainbow world to find out what they did in the previous academic year (if we are talking about year II and year III kids).

Alas. More often than not this is not going to be possible so I will base this lesson on the worst-case scenario: there is no chance to see the classroom, there is nobody who knows anything about the kids or the English they might or might not have had.

This is the worst-case scenario but it is not the end of the world, surely.

The overall structure of all these lessons will be the same but I will include some ideas for the year 1 and year 2/3 kids which might have had some English.

Entering the room

If the lesson takes place in a new classroom which you are entering together, line the kids up in front of the room. If they are entering with you or if they are already in the room, come in, say hello and do the roll call. It will help you remember their names and associate them with the place where they are sitting. It might be a good idea to write them all up on the board, in the order in which the kids are sitting. However, if there are more than eight or ten, this will take forever and will be counterproductive.

The official start of the lesson

It is great if this part of the lesson is marked in a special way.

You can:

  • ask the kids to close their eyes (please demo), count from 10 to 1 (or from 5 to 1) and say ‘Open your eyes’ and say and wave Hello to everyone.
  • ask the kids to stand up and do a bit of gymnastics (stand up, shake your arms, clap your hands, march (on the spot), dance, touch your hand, tummy, back, shake your friends’ hand, say hello), with the teacher demonstrating and participating, too.
  • clap once and ask the kids to clap once, clap twice and ask the kids to clap twice, clap three times and ask the kids to clap three time, say: Hello, kids say: Hello.
  • Whisper: Hello, have the kids repeat, then have them repeat: Hello Anka. Repeat a few times and then officially reply: hello everyone. Repeat with all the kids in the room:
  • Hello Piotrek (point at Piotrek) Hello everyone (says Piotrek)

Even if you don’t know or can’t remember the kids’ names, the students will help you. These types of activities are great because they mark the start of the real lesson and of communicating in English, they involve everyone in an easy way (clapping, touching, saying Hello) and there are a bit out of the ordinary hence fun.

Hello song

I would say it is a definite must, even in the very first lesson. First and foremost, it is something that the whole class can participate in, even if they don’t speak too much English because there will be gestures, rhythm and music involved. Second of all, it is great to start building the routine from the very first lesson and a routine or the lesson framework for primary school children must involve a song.

If possible, take your students to a safe corner (at the back or in the front of the room), go there yourself and call your students, one by one, to join you. Use their names. As soon as they get there, use one of the punctuation marks to signal the start of a new activity. It can be clapping, counting from 10 to 1 or just asking the kids (‘Are you ready?’ ‘Yes, we are’). This will help the kids navigate around the lesson and to get ready and to focus for whatever is to come next and it is especially useful in the beginng of the course. As the course progresses, it can be used less and less frequently because the kids develop the habit of tuning in.

Show the gestures for the song and go through a few dry runs, with you modelling and the kids repeating, in the correct order and in a random order. One of my greatest hits is Hello Song from Super Simple Songs. It is fast and cheerful and it includes 6 different, easy to mime emotions (if you need ideas for the gestures, have a look at the song video). There is an easier song, also by Super Simple Songs, Hello Hello, Can you clap your hands? This one includes some few verbs that will get the kids moving (clap, stomp, turn around).

After the presentation and the mini-rehersal, we listen to the song and try to take part as much as possible. It doesn’t matter if all your kids are not one amazingly coordinated choir. After all, it is the first time they hear the song. Things will get better in lesson 2, 3 and 15.

Both songs are accompanied by videos, of course, but I tend to skip those in the first few lessons, focusing instead on audio only, not to overload the kids as there are too many things in the first lesson anyway. Afterwards, we clap to thank each other and we sit down. Again, the teacher calls our students, one by one (or in twos in really big groups) to invite them to sit. This might take some time if the group is really big but it is the time well-invested (building the routine!) and it helps to avoid the chaos and the noise. As soon as the kids get back to their seats, use your punctuation mark again.

If there is no space that can be used as the dancefloor, these can be done while sitting or standing by the table, although then I would use the first song, the emotions can be easily demonstrated with everyone sitting at their tables.

New material: Class I

These kids will be brand new, straight out of the box, with no English whatsoever, although, of course, you might get a few that attended some classes in pre-school. For that reason, revision as the next stage of the lesson will not really work as there is nothing to revise.

In such a case there are a few options to go for

  1. start introducing the colours because, more likely than not, this is going to be the first topic / unit in the coursebook. Another advantage is that even without any specific realia the kids will have plenty of colours on them and there will be plenty in the classroom and these can be used in a variety of games. There is no need to prepare any special flashcards either and a set of markers, coloured pencils, blocks or even pieces of coloured paper can be used instead.
  2. rather than colours, go for pets of jungle animals for the first lesson. It will be necessary to prepare the cards here (or any kind of visuals) but the obvious advantage is the fact that animals are likeable, fun and at least some of the names will be familiar to kids and/or recognisable (cat, giraffe, zebra, lion) and the animals create lots of opportunities for a variety of resources: animals produce sounds (and can be used in a guessing game), animals move in a certain way (and can be mimed), animals have specific shapes and colours (and can be recognized in game ‘through the keyhole’).
  3. Another good topic for the first lesson is school objects. The objects themselves are not as cute and fun as the jungle animals but these are definitely the things that we are going to be using in every lesson and that makes them worth investing in. Not to mention that they are already in the classroom and that each student will have a set and they can be used in a simple call out activity ‘show me your pencil’ etc. They can be also used for miming (with a bit of imagination) and for some guessing games, too. Most of them are small enough to be put in a Magic Bag and used for guessing. And through the keyhole can be used, too, with realia or with flashcards.

Regardless of which topic is chosen, one of more of the following activities can be used:

  • Introduction and drilling using a variety of voices (saying it with emotions, different volumes of pitch, pace etc)
  • Creating simple chants by organizing the cards on the floor / board and saying them in a rhythmical way ie

‘Yellow, yellow, blue. Yellow, yellow, blue. Red and green, red and green. Yellow, yellow, blue.’

‘Pencil, book and ruler. Pencil, book and ruler. School, pen, schoolbag, pen. Pencil, book and ruler.’

  • The cards can be put up around the room and with the teacher (or the kids) calling out single words, the group have to listen and to point at the tiger, zebra, lion and monkey.
  • Riddles: the simplest version of it is the teacher miming the words for the kids to guess or playing the audio for the kids to guess or drawing a part of the picture on the board for the kids to guess.
  • What’s my secret word? Kids, chorally in the first lesson, guess which word the teacher is holding. After a few rounds the kids can take over.
  • In the same way, a simple memory game can be played, too, either with the realia (ie markers or books of different colours) or with the flashcards displayed on the board or on the floor. Kids close their eyes, the teacher removes or covers one of the items, kids open their eyes and guess. It might happen that at least some of them will be answering in their L1 at this point and it is ok. Please praise them and provide the word in the target language.
  • Bearing in mind that this will be the kids’ first language lesson ever, five new words seems like a very good number for the first lesson.

New material: Class II and III

Essentially, all the activities mentioned above can be simply used with the older kids, too. Any of the topics will be a revision for kids and if the youngest of them can deal with that, so can the older ones. It might also be an interesting activity for the teacher to evaluate the abilities and skills of the kids against each other as, most likely, the year III kids will be able to participate more freely and in a bigger number of games mentioned above and with a bigger number of key words.

If the teacher is more adventurous it would be a good idea to involve the kids in an activity that will help them show off as regards the vocabulary (or structures) they have learnt so far and those that they remember. This can be done in the form of the alphabet game.

There are practically no resources necessary, apart from the alphabet, as a poster and small cards any picture scene, either a paper poster or one of the beautiful illustrations in the YLE Starters Picture Wordlist which can be displayed on the electronic whiteboard or printed and displayed on the noticeboard.

The teacher demonstrates by choosing one of the letters of the alphabet and calls out all the words in the picture begining with that letter. The kids join in, too.

The game can be played in teams, with the class divided into smaller groups, with each team working on one of the letters. It would be good to avoid scoring the kids as some of the letters are more friendly or generative and it would simply be unfair. It is also not necessary to introduce a lot of competition in the very first lesson. The teams can be awarded a point for completing the task, regardless of how many words they produce or remember. It might be also a good idea to remove all the unfriendly and rare letters from the set (ie x, v, w, y).

One more advantage of this game, especially for the first lesson, is that it can be played for as many rounds as there is time for. It can be stopped at any time.

Music and movement

Depending on the classroom, this stage of the lesson can be done in the back of the room or at the desks. Again, the kids are called out, and they join the teacher, one by one. Again, the punctuation mark is used to mark the start of a new stage.

It can take a form of a gym break (see above) or it can be another song. One of my favourites for the first lessons is ‘Head and shoulders’ or ‘Open Shut Them’, both for the same reason: they involve lots and lots of movement and are easy to mime and all the kids can be involved in taking part. As in the case of the first song, gestures go first, then the music and the song itself, also without any video.

Table time

Ideally, this element would be included in the lesson, too. In my primary groups I like to give them a chance to produce something, with class I or II to check whether they can write their names and in case of class I – how well they hold the pencil.

At the same time, it has to be something simple and perhaps the simple handprints aka autumn leaves might be a good choice here. This kind of an activity will only involve minimal resources (paper, pencils, crayons or coloured pencils), it does not take a long time and it can be made more or less complex ie only the handprint, the stem and the veins or the leaf, the veins and the colouring, the name written by the teacher, for class I students or the kids decorating their leaves in the way they choose and writing their own name. The leaves in class I can simply be displayed on the noticeboard at the end of the lesson, the older kids from class II and III can also be encouraged to describe their leaves and to compare (ie Sasha: My leaf is green) with the other kids raising hands if theirs are, too. The older kids’ leaves end up on the noticeboard (or the door or the wall), too.

There is one great activity perfect for this age and level that we used to on every first day of the summer camp: a folder, homemade and highly personalised. In class, the kids would get an A3 piece of paper and they would decorate it following teacher’s instructions (first write your name in big letters, draw your favourite fruit, draw your favourite drink, draw your favourite sport etc). After the lesson, the teacher would add another piece of A3 and staple each of these into an envelope. We used to keep those in class, on the shelf or on the window-sill and everything we produced during the sessions would be nicely collected in these folders at the end of each day. This activity takes a bit more time and might not be appropriate for all the context but it can also be used in its basic form: a personalised name poster.

At the end of the stage, the kids help up with cleaning up by putting away their pencils, crayons and handing the posters to the teacher. The teacher uses the punctuation mark again.

Goodbye

Since the kids will be still at their tables, it might be best to say goodbye just there. The teacher says ‘Thank you everyone’ and to all the kids individually. If the group is very big, it might be a good idea to do it super fast and in twos (Thank you, Masha and Sasha) but it is a nice touch and going over all the kids’ names, once more, really helps to remember them better)

I personally like to include a goodbye song also with primary, at least in the beginning of a new course to help create a framework for the lesson, for example Bye, bye, goodbye or See you later, alligator but later on, with the limited lesson time, we replace it the final game.

As regards homework, it might be a good idea to skip it during the first lesson. This element of the everyday routine can also be added later.

Instead of a coda

  • The list of the activities and the format of the lesson will depend on its length. If the lesson lasts 60 minutes, the teacher can use two, three or even four flashcards games and extend the leaf making. If the lesson is only 40 minutes’ long, it is better to focus on fewer activities, without rushing the kids. It might be a good idea to skip ‘the paper’ altogether, with no coursebook but also with no handouts or crafts, focusing on building the routine and interacting with kids in the target language. In that case, the leaf or the poster activity would be done in the lesson 2 of the course.
  • The same applies to stories, videos or online games. They are great resources and can be introduced later on in the course. The first lesson will be made of many new things anyway and it is better not to overload the children and to save some surprises for later.
  • As for the rules and the rewards’ charts, these are of course very important with a group of primary school kids but this also can wait until a bit later than the very first lesson. The lesson plan might be introduced from the lesson 2 as well.
  • There is one more element of the first class with primary that has not been included here but only because it is a very important one, it deserves its own post and this element are the parents. Regardless of whether we like it or not, the parents of our younger students will be in the classroom with us and it would be necessary to acknowledge their presence. A face-to-face meeting would be ideal but a note or a message in the electronic register or in the Whatsapp group will do to get you started. The parents might be coming from different background and have a different previous English learning experience, as students or as parents. That is why it is absolutely necessary to let them know how you are going to work with your students and their kids. More of that soon!

Here you can find some tried and tested activities for primary school kids (although perhaps not necessarily all of them for the very first lesson!)

If you are also about to start teaching your pre-primary, you will find some ideas here.

Here you can find my first VYL lesson survival kit and a post about what I wished I had known before my first VYL lesson.

And here the series of the unexpected in the classroom aka landing on Mars, with the pre-school group.

Here you have a set of great posts from Sandy Millin devoted to all three age groups and everything that you might want to know before you start.

Happy teaching!

How do you know that you are ‘an experienced teacher’?

by

Based on real events.

This week’s story

I am on the move, resembling Snufkin from the Moomins now more than ever. It did so happen that this week I was asked to teach a demo lesson. While on the move.

Here are the details, just to give you a full picture

  • The lesson was supposed to last 30 minutes
  • The kids were 5 years old
  • There were eighteen kids in the group
  • I had not seen the kids before
  • I did not know the level of the group
  • Since I was on the move, I had no resources of any kind, no flashcards, no ball, no dice, no magic wand.
  • What is more, there was no flashcards at the school and I was not aware of any options related to the access to any electronic resources. I had to assume that there were none.
  • My laptop with its screen was just not good enough for such a big group.
  • Buying any new resources was absolutely out of the question
  • I could not consider any written work or craft for the same reason, no photocopying and getting enough markers and so on.
  • My performance was supposed to be evaluated. Of course.

There is a happy ending to this story…

…is probably the next thing that I should say while telling this story.

Desperation came first. And how else? I had a lesson to teach, a lesson that I wanted to teach but no tools to do it, no tools whatsoever. None. I could not use anything that I had ready and, because of my crazy timetable, I could not really set aside any time to produce the flashcards or to wander about a new city to look for resources… So, it started with desperation and anger and the foulest of mood followed. And then I just gave up.

Not on the lesson as such, although, of course that was an option, too. I could have just called and, in an attempt to be a reasonable adult and a professional, I could have called it all off (‘My apologies, that is all just plain impossible, I will have to say no.’) and forgotten about the whole business.

However, either because I do rejoice the unreasonable or because I did enjoy the idea of a challenge, I decided to go on with it. As soon as I ‘gave up‘ (on the resources, on the safety blanket of the experience so far, on the idea of a traditional lesson), I calmed down and things got interesting.

The first thing I did was to make a list of all the available resources or rather ‘resources’ aka junk, stuff, things that could be used in class and to come up with a topic, an aim and a set of activities that would match them.

The list included:

  • my magic trousers (red genie trousers with purple elephants, a sovenir from Portland, Maine)
  • my toy hen, Angelina, who travels everywhere with me anyway
  • and a set of random objects which I have gathered around Ola’s flatt (a shell, a towel, a straw hat, a storybook, in Polish) and my rucksack with a water bottle and a few coins.
  • the Invisibles and Intangible: the experience, the charisma, the presence

The thoughts accompanying me in the taxi, in the morning were of the following kind: ‘It’s either an amazing challenge or an attempt at the professional self-destruction’. I would want to say that I was nervous or anxious because it was really difficult to predict the outcomes here, it could really go one way (aka the success) or the other (aka a complete disaster).

But I was calm. So calm, in fact, that I started to suspect myself of having given up on the entire project and of sabotaging it subconsciously by not preparing meticulously.

While in the taxi, I was on life support from my best friend and in response to my list of resources, I got a comment along the lines of ‘The magic trousers and Angelina? That is a killer combo!‘

I arrived at the kindergarten running…

…almost late. I washed my hands, I kicked off the trainers and there I was, on the carpet, with a bunch of kids, left to my own devices and to my random resources. It turned out that the killer combo is just that. We had a great lesson.

I decided to go for the topic of the beach and things we do there, to introduce a few verbs and chunks in the Present Continous and to be able to use them in a game of the actual going to the beach and playing on the beach, to focus on TPR and movement and to avoid any handouts or paper altogether. The language was presented through realia since the five-year-old kids are ready to make a connection between two coins and ‘I am eating ice-cream’ or between a towel and ‘I am swimming’. I carry all my songs and chants, real and made-up in my brain and I do not hesitate to use them and it was great to have Angelina and have her help me keep the lesson in shape.

We had fun, we ‘went to the beach’ and we produced the language. The lesson aims were definitely met. I would also like to say that I love the fact that now I can say that my most fun job interview (because that’s what it was) involved me lying on the carpet with a bunch of kids. We were sunbathing, after all…

If anyone wants to look at the lesson notes, you can find them here.

To be perfectly honest, I am aware that apart from the Invisible and the Intangible that were obviously there, I was lucky: the kids were old enough and I could at least hope that they would be behaving more like students in the context of the classroom. Plus, the novelty value did work to my advantage, this crazy lady, in colourful pants, coming in, talking for herself and the hen, laughing a lot, that is enough to keep the kids interested for thirty minutes. I also had the safety blanket of the impossibility of the set-up, the reasonable trainer would always be able to say ‘What did you expect? That would never work’…

Only it did.

Conclusion: How do I know that I am ‘an experienced teacher’?

I know it because, when faced with an impossible challenge, I do not panic and I am able to get over the initial and the unavoidable discomfort, I can focus on planning, without bending over backwards but rather taking stock of what is available and making do, in order to meet my aims and keep the standards where I want them.

I know it because, when the conditions are favourable, I am willing to experiment and to go for it, in order to push myself, on the one hand, and in order to push the boundaries a little bit, if only possible.

What about you?

Somewhere through this post I realised that this conclusion is a very personal and a very subjective one. What is more, the answer to this question will be changing because I myself would have answered it differently a week or two ago. I caught myself thinking that I am unbelievably curious about what my fellow teachers think. I decided to ask and this is how this post got really interesting.

It quickly turned out that there are as many approaches as many people and the answer to this question is and will be very subjective, personal and precious. It can be measured in the number of years worked but only in the eyes of our employers or according to the labour law of your country and it has got nothing or very little to do with what we think of our own skills and abilities.

Here are some of the ways in which you can get the bagde of honour. You can call yourself ‘an experienced teacher’ because…

  • ‘when the lesson plan works’, not necessarily beacuse the lessons have to go plan but because it can be taken as evidence that we understand the group and their needs and because we can prepare activities for this particular group of kids
  • you can teach a good lesson even when you do not really have enough time to plan. It is not because being experienced gives you a green light to take the preparation lightly but because when it is really necessary, you can get by with the Invisibles and the Intangibles and still do a good job. You can handle it even with zero prep whatsoever in case of a last minute cover or some class details confusion.
  • you are observed by a senior teacher and you get a great feedback
  • you are observed by a peer and you get a great feedback
  • when your students start using the new vocabulary and grammar in class, especially when it is not in the tasks directly related to this grammar point and without the teacher’s reminders to use these
  • when your students get great results in the external exams or in their regular classes or in any context that could be labelled as ‘outside of the classroom’, especially, as Maegan said, because the fun in the EFL classroom translated and transferred into progress in a more traditional approach in the school
  • ‘not sure about that’ was also one of the answers that I got. Perhaps this is something to work on, perhaps not. I will just leave it here.

While chatting about with Maegan we also bumped into the idea that this feeling of ‘I got this’ is not a long-lasting one and perhaps it should not even be. On the one hand, because, at least partially, it is based on the external factors. On the other hand, due to the fact that we live in the moment, in every single lesson and every single activitiy, focusing on that is a lot more interesting than the constant feeling of pride and confidence. I am also thinking that perhaps this is how we protect ourselves from feeling complacent. Perhaps.

If you have something to add, any comment, question, story, please, pretty please, add it in the comments section below! I will keep asking and researching)

Happy teaching!

Big thanks to my contributors: Irina, Michael, Vita, Maegan, Anastasia, Nina, Aleksandra.