There is no need for anything else serious now, not with the amount of work related to the end-of-year procedures, the amount of work related to the summer programmes kick-off or the very important teacher training course that has just taken off. If there are any posts to come in the next few weeks, they will be all of the following kind: light-hearted, frolicky, with a giggle.
A teacher = a chameleon, a teacher = a jack of all trades, a monitor, a manager, a mediator, a diagnostician and a teacher, experienced or not, talented or not, on a good day or on a bad, this very person juggles all these roles and a teacher multi-tasks, playing a few roles at the same time.
But there are the other roles that a teacher plays in the classroom. Here are mine.
I’m a coach.
I work hard with my players. Whenever they are there, I am there, at every single training session, those technical ones, those devoted to developing speed and agility, those before the important game. I have been a player myself, I know what it all feels like, I have learnt how to share this knowledge. I am sometimes light-hearted, sometimes very serious but I know what our aim is and I am going to do everything to get us there.
But, at the same time, I am not the one who is going to play this important game. I am preparing my sportsmen but they are the ones who will be performing themselves. I will not be able to be there and always hold their hand, not on the pitch. They will be on their own and they need to get ready for that. Our time in the training session has to focus on that, on giving them skills, developing their independence and confidence. And then they go.
I’m a gardener.
I have my patch, my garden, my orchard. I plant my seeds and my saplings. I hope for the sun and good weather. I water, every day or even twice a way. I protect from the insects and birds. I check out for the weeds. I look and check up on them regularly. I wait. I wait. I wait. I wait. I wait. I wait. I worry about the wind, storm, temperature drops.
After a very long time and a lot of waiting, the day comes when a leaf appears, a flower, a raspberry here and a carrot there. And when it does happen, it is the best day every and I rejoice. And sometimes, I need to water more or move the pot into the sunnier place, or back into the house. Sometimes, I have plant the seeds again.
I’m a (kind) witch.
I am sweet (or so I would like to believe, at least when I am in the classroom:-) I smile a lot and I laugh a lot. I can turn a lot of difficult situations into a joke, to disperse the clouds. I wear funky socks and funky masks. Funky earrings, too. I am kind. I laugh a lot.
But I am also a witch and there can be no doubt (never ever) who is in charge, who is the boss and who has got all the superpowers. Which she will not hesitate to use. When necessary, the smile will be put away, on the shelf and the witch will do the witch’s things. If the world really needs it.
I know that these might be also referred to ‘teaching personas’ or ‘teaching personalities’ but I am going to stick to the concept of ‘a role’ here. Because ‘personality’ suggests something more serious (and that’s not the word for today, remember) and something more permanent and these described above are not traits, only characters that one assumes while entering the classroom. They can be different on different days, more or less prominent or obvious, they might appear every day or be held in the cupboards, kept for the special day…Perhaps we change as people because of the fact that we teach and that we teach English and that we teach English to kids and because of how we do it. Perhaps we choose our teaching roles based on what we are. Perhaps both. That is a conversation to be had on another day. Maybe.
In the meantine, if you want to share how you see yourself in the classroom, there is the comment box below. I am really looking forward to reading these.
I have no idea how I found myself in that mode, a bit like Alice who fell into the rabbit’s hole and kept falling. And reflecting. That’s me now.
Maybe because we are making a full circle in the online-covid-offline-rapid changes-uncertainty-new reality? Maybe because I started to run again and when you run, your brain wanders and comes back with ideas? Or maybe I took part in Anita Modestova’s series of interviews EFL Around the World and was invited to reminisce and to reflect? Maybe all three. Maybe none of them.
Teachersand foreign languages
…and among them my first foreign language teacher who was not even a teacher of English. My first foreign language was Russian. From the first ‘здраствуйте’ (zdrastvuyte), it was like this new world, that you could enter through some, until then unknown words and a completely new set of letters. I don’t remember much about the lessons, I could not comment on the methodology and activities or even the coursebook. But I do remember my teacher, miss Janina, who was the first language magician and it was thanks to her that I did fall in love with Russian. Love at first sight.
Among them is also my first English teacher, miss Ewa who put together a most random group of kids of all ages, when the lessons of English were still a rarity and a luxury. There were no coursebooks for children so we used what our teacher could find and share.
Such as? Such as a magazine for kids, Mishka, made in the U.S.S.R, teaching the kids around the globe about Snegurochka, Baba Yaga, A.S. Pushkin, Red Square and what not, which was published also in English. Today, it makes my head spin, but back then, as a beginner, I was ploughing through and the unabridged text would not stop me because I was in love with the language. Again. We set me off and then we met again in the final year of my high school, to prepare for our A-levels and to help me get to B2+ level.
Mis Ewa was a strict teacher but a fair and inspiring teacher. In her lessons, every single minute had its own purpose and it was used effectively. Once you experience that, there is no going back.
History?
It is actually a beautiful coincidence that almost all my school History lessons, from the middle and high school, seven out of nine years, took place in this very same school and in this very same classroom. With me sitting on the very same chair. Probably.
It was in this classroom that our teacher, professor Janusz Merchut, a real maestro, taught us about the past. His were not lessons, but a performance and I still remember how quiet the whole class were, how focused. We did not listen, we lived it. Maybe it was when I got spoiled and started dreaming of lessons with a few grains of magic, lessons that are not a lecture but an experience.
In the same classroom, a few years later, I met professor Krystyna Kradyna and a new adventure began. Naturally, we did have coursebooks and the curriculum objectives to meet but these were just an idea. It was the time of change and transformation and there were many, many things that were yet to make it to the coursebooks. She introduced them and she did let us think and talk about them.
EnterHieronymous Bosch
There were two other people that I do think about when we talk about ‘My teachers’, both of them my university professors. University of Wroclaw in Poland was my first Alma Mater during the very special five years of my MA in History programme, a long time ago, in the pre-EFL life.
Dr Piotr Oszczanowski appeared in our lives for two terms because, apart from all the obligatory subjects, we were eventually given a chance to choose a few optional modules and one of them was the History of Art. Initially, there was a lot of ‘whatever, let’s take this one’ rather than an informed decision but the best thing since the sliced bread.
Today I would say that dr Oszczanowski knew his subject and had an amazing teaching personality and classroom presence. That he engaged his students very effectively throughout the entire lesson and the entire course. But this is me, a teacher trainer at work, today. Back then, I just loved being in his class and so did the rest of the group.
He taught us how to look at art and how to read it. And it was not the case of getting the one correct answer, and memorising facts. There were different interpretations and ways of approaching the topic. Our second term was devoted to the history of art of Silesia and we spent our class time out and about in the city, looking the past in the face. Plus, we were allowed to choose what we wanted to be assessed on. For me it was Hieronymous Bosch.
‘Miss Zapart, I have no idea about jazz but this is a good topic. Go.’
….is what my tutor, professor Stanislaw Ciesielski said during the first class in our 4th year when we met to discuss our MA dissertations in modern History.
Professor Ciesielski probably sighed when he found out that he would be taking care of us since we were an inheritance from another teacher who had left.
We, on our part, we did panic because people had been saying things and it was not panic the type of a storm in a teacup, it was panic the size of a proper hurricane. Professor was said to be very strict, very accurate, very serious, a great scholar and a great brain and, in general, a force to be recognised. With time, we learnt that all of it was true but these were exactly the things made us respect him for and, really, feel extremely lucky that we were thus ‘inherited’.
I mean, it was not a bed of roses. Professor was tough and there was absolutely no way of cutting any, even the tiniest, corners throughout those two years of my research and dissertation. The job had to be done. Not getting things done was not an option. The very thought of not getting things done was not an option. It’s not that he would shout or get angry, he was the calmest person ever. You just did not want to disappoint him.
We were made to work hard but Professor was with us every step of the way, supporting and guiding and no wonder that we got great results. I also personally got spoilt for years to come as regards the role model for mentor and supervisor, strict but fair and supportive every step of the way. No idea if professor Ciesielski read about Vygotsky and the Zone of Proximal Development but he rocked it.
Coda
Today, I only wish, I could travel (or travel back in time) and return to all these classrooms to say ‘thank you’ and to tell my teachers that they did an excellent job and that they did inspire.
Does it mean that I was the one happy child in the entire universe who was taught by the amazing teachers only? Ha! Of course not. There were teachers who made me cry, who humiliated me, who shouted at me, those who made me scared or very angry. Teachers who hated their job, those who were unfair and those who simply wasted my time. In some cases I knew it back then, in a few other cases, I realised it only when I became a teacher myself.
Alas, all these will remain anonymous, although, I guess, I should be grateful, I had a chance to learn ‘What not to do’ and this counts as ‘experience’, too.
This is the second part of the post. The first episode can be found here.
A huge part of the everyday inspiration are …
…my students. There is reading, there is research, there is the continual professional development, webinars and conferences presentations and the conversations in the teacher’s room, all of it very useful. The real source of power and of inspiration is the classroom and the kids in it.
If they are not an easy group, that makes you start planning with a sigh and enter the lesson with taking a deep breath (or a prayer), you will be looking for solutions for your problem and sometimes you will end up successfully reinventing the wheel and taking the game to the next level. They might also be a teacher’s dream and, because of that, you really want to go ‘bigger, better, faster, more!‘ and you create, re-create, experiment and, again, become some EFL Gagarin.
I don’t remember the names of all the kids (and all the adults) that I have thought over the years but the thought that there have been at least two thousand of them in Poland, Italy, Spain, the UK, Brasil and Russia does put a big smile on my face. I would like to think that all of them did learn something with me but I know that I have learnt a lot with them and because of them. My state school kids, my summer schools students, my IELTS students and my Business English engineers, all of my pre-schoolers and all of my teachers in training.
Why? Because sometimes, when I ask for feedback and I ask ‘Did you like the lesson? Why?’, I get back real treasures, such as ‘Yes, because I am not scared anymore’ from one of my teens (there must be a post on that story) or ‘Yes, потому что тут Анка’ from my primary. (Yes, because of Anka).
That is more than enough to motivate me to make an effort next time but I usually say is ‘Great students make great teachers’. I really do believe it.
The everyday support aka ‘On the wall in the office’
It might make me look like my teenage version of me, with a bedroom wall all covered in posters. Thankfully, the pop music posters (Europe and Limalh, my dear Lord) gave way to Hieronymus Bosch, the photos of Land’s End and the map of the UK. The huge Trainspotting poster was added a bit later. The thing is, I do like to have something to look at, ‘My favourite things’, in one interpretation or the other. This is how these five end up on the way, all my private superheroes, the source of inspiration.
Batman, the only real superhero here. He is my favourite one because he is ‘only’ a human, without any accidents and mutations, he saves the world only because he’s got access to lots of resources. I mean, he is ridiculously rich but still – a human with appropriate tools. A role model number 1.
General Kutuzov, a field marshal of the Russian Empire and the hero of the Battle of Borodino. During all the teacher training courses and projects that require lots of multi-tasking (which I hate to bits), I do find myself staring at the picture of Mikhail Illiaryonovich, thinking of the troops management, provisions management, morale management and whatever else general was obliged to take care of. Simultaneously.
Leo Semyonovich Vygostky or, simply, Leo. I cannot think of any one that had a bigger impact on what I think about teaching and education. The more I read about him, starting from comments and references in other sources, to articles by Vygotsky scholars and followers, and to Leo’s own papers which I am still going through, the more I agree. Reading and repeating ‘Yes, absolutely!’ or ‘I could not agree more!’. Literally. Because of the conviction that every can, with appropriate support, because of the role of the teacher who is only supposed to be the lighthouse, not the leader, because of the attitude to the level of challenge. I am in love. Plus, we are almost birthday twins with Leo. Which is random but kinda cool.
There is Yuri Gagarin, too, of course. If you ask me, ideally, there would be Yuri on every wall in every classroom. He is on mine, too. And there is Zima Blue, the creator. If you are not familiar, look up Alastair Reynolds or Life, Death and Robots.
The other side of the coin
The superheros have been on the wall for a few years now. When I first took a photo and showed my friend, she said ‘There are only guys, here. Where are the women?’
At first, I just shrugged it off. I didn’t know why. But the question stayed with me and it was bothering me for days on end. Until I finally figured it out and sighed with relief. The answer is actually quite simple, ridiculously simple. As simple as it is beautiful.
I don’t have any photographs of inspiring women on the wall above my desk because they are all real women that I have a pleasure to know and to have in my life. All the photos are in albums or in folders on the computer. And when I need inspiration, I just talk to them. That’s how blessed I am.
There are a few great mums here, some stars who make the world a better place by helping people, a few teachers, a few translators, a few chefs, a few Leos, a photographer, a biker, and a creator.. All of them are strong, intelligent, funny, beautiful, creative, or, in just one word: amazing.
Also, represented here by some random trinkets. Some of them, at least.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for being in my life.
P.S. It was easy to write these post and it took a lot longer than I had planned. As soon as I finished, I started to be bombarded with thoughts of my teacher trainers, supervisors, colleagues, family members, writers…In one word, enough material for two more posts. I think it is better to post what I have ready now or else this post will never really happen. But, as Terminator used to say: ‘I will be back!’ And on that note…
Most of the time, it is fast asleep, lying peacefully somewhere in the attics of my heart, covered in dust bunnies. Until, all of a sudden, it is rudely awaken because I find myself in the middle of one of the following conversations…
And that’s not everything. There’s more, lots more. Sometimes there are no (silly) questions but what happens is a rather intensive listening / lip watching event, in order to evaluate my presumably low level of proficiency in English or to detect some serious issues with pronunciation which, potentially at least, could justify the VYL-ness or YL-ness of me.
Why? Who knows.
The funniest thing is that, usually, it is not the parents, the students themselves, the HR or the admin of the schools but our own EFL nation, the fellow teachers, the colleagues who initiate these threads in the conversation. And it is not even the trolling on the social media or remarks whispered behind one’s back, no! More often than not, these are the things that people just throw right into your face…They have just met you, you have just been introduced, they don’t know a single thing about you, apart from ‘Anka, I teach VYL and YL‘ and yet, here we go…
Although, really, it would be very easy to turn the tables and start asking questions such as those ‘What?! You are NOT teaching YL?’ or ‘So you only teach (insert any non-YL area of ELF)? Doesn’t it get extremely boring and repetitive?‘
Only of course, I would not do any such thing. Because it is rude and/or unnecessary…And, no, I do not want everyone to be passionate about teaching children. We all have our own preferences and areas of expertise, things that we like and things that we hate, things that we are amazing at and things we’d rather not do.
Guess what? People choose to teach kids.
It is 2021. Out there, in the big, wide world, there are fully-educated, native speakers or non-native speakers teachers of English, male and female, mums and non-mums, private language school teachers and state school teachers who choose to focus on and to specialise in teaching English to children.
Because it is… more interesting, exciting, creative, inspiring, rewarding, fun…Despite the fact that ‘you can’t really have a conversation with them‘ or despite the fact that ‘you can’t ever teach Present Perfect Continuous Passive‘.
Even as I type these words, I can see a long list of names, my friends, colleagues, mentors, trainees who I have had a chance to meet and to work with, people who are amazing professionals, able to work with any level and any age group but who have found their true calling in working with the youngest of the EFL learners.
Many of them have already build their professional portfolio and, on the way, have grown a thicker skin. Comments and questions, as those quoted above, annoying as they are, will not really cause much damage to the system. ‘Sticks and stones can break my bones...’and all that. These teachers will be able to come unscathed by casually mentioning the years in the classroom, the feedback from their students or parents or maybe also a DELTA, an MA degree, Cambridge exams passed, IELTS bands received, publications, conference presentations and what not. Thus signalling that there are some alternative conversations to be had. With some alternative interlocutors, perhaps.
These experienced teachers I am not concerned about. They are and they will be fine. More than fine, in fact.
What worries me is that somewhere out there, there are novice YL teachers or newly-qualified teachers or, indeed, some would-be teachers, having been exposed to this kind of narrow-mindedness, will get into thinking that an English teacher first of all has to choose only one area of specialism and that a choice between ‘a teacher of English to adults/exams/IELTS/Business’ and ‘a teacher of English to YL’ is also a choice between qualifications, professionalism, respect and the lack of them. Which it is not.
Dear colleagues, dear amazing VYL and YL teachers! Thank you for being in the world! Thank you for your enthusiasm, dedication, ideas, creativity and energy. Thank you for caring.
And don’t forget – you rock!
Happy teaching!
P.S. What a rant, hey?:-) If you want to read some more positive notes on being a VYL teacher, check out this post on the hidden perks of working with the little people.
You will train yourself to be extremely well-organised. Never again will you forget to make a copy, to bring the crayons, to arrange the chairs or to pick up the realia from the teacher’s room. Why? Because once you enter the classroom and the kids come in, there is no going out, until the lesson is over. What’s more, all your toys and tools are most likely to end up in neat piles around the room, within an arm’s reach. One of the first things you learn in the VYL classroom is that there is never a minute to spare or, in that case, to look through the lesson plan or to search for the misplaced whatever. If it is not there when you need it, you just get on without it and make sure it is always there, in the future.
Apart from that, you will become very resourceful. No matter how carefully you prepare, things will happen and you will have think fast on your feet and come up of ways of making do without the CD player, the computer or the tablet, the glue or the storybook that got left in the bag. And you will, every single time and with time you will get amazingly good at coming up with last minute solutions. It will feel a lot like being about to do magic, actually.
You will become greener because you will find ways of recycling pretty much everything: milk cartons, chopsticks, ribbons, wrapping paper, pots, cereal boxes. Nothing will ever be thrown away. At your house and at your friends’ houses, too, possibly. Because as soon as they find out that you collect and recycle they will be bringing you things, including the unusual things that you will later try to use in class.
You will discover your hidden talents or believe in your so-far-unused talents for singing or drawing. Such a confidence boost! You will have to draw or sing at one point or another and what a revelation it will be to discover that those (little) people do not care which key you are singing in and they will just accept your involvement. As well as absolutely all your attempts at drawing a cat, a dog, a panda, a dinosaur…
Whether you were born with micro-staging skills or whether you have worked hard on crafting and polishing them, over every lesson with your preschoolers, eventually you are going to get there and you will rock at dissecting any random task or activity at a glance, down to the most minuscule details and, no matter how complex the task, your instructions giving skills and modelling will be simply first-rate.
You will enjoy any lesson with adults twice as much only because they: do not rock on chairs (even if they do, you are allowed not to care), they pick up the resources, flashcards, cards, notes and put them back together, with the paper clip on, they will not cry because there is only one pink pencil, they will open the book and find the page all by themselves, they will to the other side of the handout but they will still focus on the right page, they will not get irretrievably distracted by your earrings or by another student’s fluffy tiara…
You will learn that lesson planning should start in the classroom and with the studentswho are there, not just any typical 4-year-old beginners and not with the activities that the coursebooks authors intended for them. Typical 4-year-olds don’t exist and who turns up on Friday is Masha, Katya, Anya, Egor, Petya and Sasha. They are the lesson and if some pages of the coursebook are not compatible with the bunch in the room, these pages have to go. Good riddance.
You will quickly become a champion at devising a good plan B (or even a good plan C), to resort to in any given situation, an additional copy of the handout, a spare puppet in your Mary Poppins bag, a glue stick in the back pocket and, on top of that, three more ideas in your head. Just in case.
It is not going to happen automatically but once you believe and see that your little EFL students can go beyond one-word answers, beyond rehearsed and drilled lines and that they can use full sentences, complex sentences and can produce language spontaneously (because, yes, they CAN!), there will be no stopping you. Because if the pre-schoolers can, they absolutely everyone can! High five to the level of challenge!
Developing learners’ independence and involving them in the shaping of the lesson is something that the VYL do on daily basis. The kids learn to make decisions, choose their favourite games and songs and given the chance to be the teacher and lead the activities. This ‘democracy in the classroom’ (which I first heard about at the wonderful presentation given by Katherine Bilsborough) should be a part of the lesson with primary, juniors and teens. It really does work wonders!
A chance to forget about the traditional assessment in the form of tests, quizzes and standardised exams because the little people just don’t take part in those. Instead, the teacher can just focus on assessment for learning and start experimenting with all the alternative methods of assessment, better suited for the pre-literate, pre-school EFL students.
A unique opportunity to sing and jump and put on voices in the middle of the day and to forget about the world for a moment, about the mortgage, the heartbreak, the tiredness, the pandemic, about anything that is not the lesson and the students. Time out, for the teacher this time.
A new perspective on the world as you will be learning again to see the world from the height of 70 above the ground, getting lost among the pages of the book, forcing the pencil to stand still and to produce scribbles…Brand new world!
So here we have a resourceful, creative, green, well-organised, confident, calm, open-minded teacher who is great at giving instructions and planning student-centred lessons…Any student’s dream, right?
Happy teaching!
P.S. Here you can find another post on being a VYL and YL teacher…
This is the first post in the series of ‘Reading and Research’ in which I would like to at least try to bring forward the great thinkers and researchers that stand behind everything that we do in the classroom, in the hope that in the worst case scenario it will be a tiny contribution to spreading the word and in the best case scenario, someone is going to reach out and read the original article and look at the procedures in the classroom from a different angle. Today: Jerome. Then Leo, Lily and all the other ones. And yes, I am using their first names as a sign of my utmost respect because over the years, we have grown really close.
Let me introduce my first superhero, Jerome S. Bruner.
However, before we get to scaffolding and the EFL classroom, please start with watching one of the last interviews that Jerome S. Bruner gave, in 2013, three years before his death. Why? Just to find out more about the life of a great scholar who cheated in order to be able to be enlisted to fight in WWW II, served under general Dwight Eisenhower and who, upon moving to England to start teaching at the University of Oxford in 1972, wanted to take his boat with him so badly that he basically organised an across-the-ocean sailing do with a bunch of his friends…
Now, scaffolding.
It is probably one of the very few methodology terms that made it into the everyday vernacular of teachers, used not only by trainers and resource book writers but also teachers. Such a concept! So much potential!
That is one single reason why digging deep (and deeper), it is worthwhile to be inquisitive about the beginnings of all of these concepts that are so familiar and yet so unknown and which, initially, had nothing or, indeed, very little to do with learning language.
Jerome S. Bruner and his two colleagues David Wood (University of Nottigham) and Gail Ross (Harvard University) carried out an experiment on a group of children, aged 3, 4 and 5 in order to find out how these childrenfor the first time introduced this term in relation of learning and, funnily enough, initially it had nothing, or very little, to do with learning languages.
The article was the report of the research that the three psychologists conduced on a group of children, aged 3, 4 and 5 to find out how these learners behave in a specific learning situation and how the tutor’s support, its amount and quality, varies in relation to the child’s age. This research was carried out in the light of the socio-cultural theory of learning which assumes that adults (teachers, parents, older siblings also known as ‘experts’) help children (or not adults, not experts but novices) to learn. Based on what they observed, they defined scaffolding as the ‘process that enables a child or novice to solve a problem, carry out a task or achieve a goal which would be beyond his unassisted efforts’ (Woods et al, 1976: 90).
The research
The experiment itself is a fascinating piece of reading and I would recommend having a look at it to every teacher working with young or very young learners.
Let’s take the task, first of all. The three gentlemen designed the task (and ‘the toy’) themselves with a few objectives in mind, namely it had to be interesting enough for the children to be willing to get involved or as they call it ‘feature rich’. It had to be complex to challenge the kids but at the same time achievable, both for 3 y.o. and 5 y.o. and for example it could not be very complex as regards fine motor skills of physical strength as the younger children would not be able to participate in it. What is more, it had to be repetitive to enable the children to learn while dealing with the task and to apply the developed skills in later stages of the activity.
The final result was a set of interlocking blocks, that, if used properly, come together as a pyramid. The children were allowed to play with the blocks alone, under the supervision of an experienced tutor, who would apply what techniques she found most suitable to help each child complete the task as independently as it was only possible in each case. Then, the quality of this support was analysed and conclusions drawn.
The findings
The most fascinating part of this research are the differences in they way in which children of different age groups of preschoolers reacted to the task.
During the interaction with the tutor, the youngest children needed most help but also, that, because of their age, they were not quite interested in observing the demonstration and instructions. The other children, most likely already familiar with the school set-up and the roles of the learner and the teacher, were indeed ready to listen, ready to be taught.
When it comes to the oldest children in the group, because of their cognitive development, they were ready to deal with the task, almost from the word ‘go’, with a minimal tutor support. It can be assumed that for slightly older children, the presence of the tutor would be completely redundant.
What do we, the YL teachers, get from this?
A better understandig of how the same task may or may not work with students from different age groups.
This is especially important for the teachers of very young learners. It might happen (and it often does) that, for whatever the reason, children of different ages end up studying in the same group, for example a 3 year-old with a 5 year-old, since they are both pre-school beginners. Or, even more frequently, the same coursebook is used with a group of 3 year-old beginners and with a group of 5 year-old beginners, although they are miles away in terms of social, cognitive, linguistic development.
No need to panic, however, here is the good news from Jerome et al: we can make it work. In most cases there is a leeway and the same resource, activity, handout, craft, game can be used with the younger and with the older preschoolers and the things to change will be the instructions, staging and the amoung of the teacher’s inolvement and support. A post with more examples and practical solutions soon to come!
A better understanding of what a VYL or YL activity should be, from the perspective of child development
For language teachers the most important factor to take into consideration while assessing materials and activities is their potential contribution to a meaningful language production. However, teachers working with early years, primary or pre-primary, are aware of the fact that they cannot open the book or bring a handout and hope that their students will get involved in completing the activities just because this is something that the teacher wants them to do. The criteria that Bruner et al outlined while designing their ‘toy’ are a good starting point for the teachers who can be asking the following questions while lesson planning
Is the task going to be ‘interesting’ for the students? Why would they want to do it? Is it a game? Is it fun? Is it colourful? Does it involve their favourite characters? It does not mean that all these criteria need to be met every single time but is it a little bit more than ‘exercise 2 on page 11’?
Will they be able to do it? Is it achievable for the students whose hands, brains and social skills are only 4 years old? Is it challenging enough (in terms of the congitive skills, the linguistic skills, the motor skills)?
Is there any point in investing the teacher’s and the students’ time and energy in it? Can it be recycled later, in any way? The game which might be possibly time-consuming to set up the first time but that can be played again and again, with different sets of vocabulary…Learning a song that, intially, might be too long and to complex but which will become the group’s feel-good anthem…Making the puppet of a favourite character that perhaps will not generate too much language in the first three months but that will be your students’ safely blanet and will make them feel safer in class…I don’t think there is one one definite answer here that would work for all the children, all the teachers and all the groups but, nonetheless, it is a good question to bear in mind.
A better understanding of how we can support our students in class
Before the concept of ‘scaffolding’ became one of the key words in EFL and before it got watered down a bit, Wood, Bruner and Ross, based on all their observations of children, managed to highlight six ways in which a tutor (or a teacher) can actually scaffold an activity. Among them (only) three are directly related to teaching:
demonstration (or modelling and instructions appropriate for the students’ age, level and cognitive skills),
marking critical features (or monitoring and feedback)
reduction in degrees of freedom (which stands for what is most frequently associated with scaffolding – task simplification by providing more support for the student).
The other three are more related to the fact that the group were preschool children and involve
getting the kids interested in the task (recruitment),
making sure they stay interested (direction maintenance)
dealing with tantrums and demotivation (frustration control) in order to enable them to complete the task.
So every single time you are demonstrating, getting your kids’ attention, calling their name to get them back or every time you praise them because you can see they are struggling and are about to burst into tears…Every time you are colour-coding the handout or manipulating it in any way to make it doable…Anytime you are putting on your silly voice to turn it into magic or counting down to signal that they should be settling down, you are, in fact, scaffolding! And that is the way to go!
References
Wood, D., J.S. Bruner and G.Ross (1976), The Role of Tutoring in Problem Solving, Journal of Child Psychology, 17, pp 89 – 100.
This has become a great tradition in the last few years that both the renowned speakers, authors and educators as well as the local teacher trainers share their presentations and webinars online to make them accessible for a wider audience. Yay to that!
If you were looking for them, here they are!
This has become a great tradition in the last few years that both the renowned speakers, authors and educators as well as the local teacher trainers share their presentations and webinars online to make them accessible for a wider audience. Yay to that!
About: Both presentations give an overview of what working with VYL is and why and how play should be included in the EFL lessons, based on an example from some kindergartens in Portugal.
About: An overview of what teaching pre-primary is about (critical period hypothesis, key principles, ideas for activities based on the material from from Super Safari by CUP)
About: Two short videos we made for the parents of our students at BKC IH Moscow (in Russian)
I’m a teacher. What’s your superpower?
This is our online teacher training and learning community. You can find the recordings from our webinars on youtube. The sessions on VYL have been listed below but there are many more interesting ideas there. Have a look!
A reading list for the pre-primary EFL teachers (an attempt:-)
Here is a new project.
Deeply rooted in the fact that I keep losing things and if I start piling the resources here, I will also be able to find them myself easily. Selfish, as usual.
But, here’s to hoping that this post will come in handy to all those teachers who are looking for things to read about the very young kids and the ways of approaching them.
P.S. The list is highly subjective. So are the mini-reviews.
P.P.S. It will be continually updated!
P.P.P.S. Make sure you also have a look at the Bibliography Part 2: Webinars Treasure Chest.
Books: EFL
Sandie Mourão and Gail Ellis (2020), Teaching English to Pre-Primary Children: Educating very young children, Delta Teacher Development Series. About: Waiting for my delivery but based on the IATEFL presentation in Liverpool, this book is dream come true.
Vanessa Reilly and Sheila M. Ward (1997), Very Young Learners, Oxford University Press. About: Some nice practical solutions but, beware, the VYL world has moved on since 1997. Take it with a pinch of salt.
Herbert Puchta and Karen Elliott (2017), Activities for Very Young Learners, Cambridge University Press. About: Lots of practical ideas for the beginner VYL teachers.
Opal Dunn (2014), Introducing English to Young Children: Spoken Language, Collins. About: Some insights on what teaching pre-primary should be (although I cannot agree with all the approaches include here)
Opal Dunn (2014), Introducing English to Young Children: Reading and Writing, Collins. About: Some theoretical background in a reader-friendly mode and some practical ideas.
Lynne Cameron (2001), Teaching English to Young Learners, Cambridge University Press. About: Not really VYL-focused but an excellent introduction to the world of the non-adult learners.
Sandie Mourão (2015), Discover with Dex, Teacher’s Book, Macmillan About: The best pre-primary Teacher’s Book so far (the overview of the age group, the implications for the classroom, the solutions).
Research articles EFL
Sandie Mourão (2014), Taking play seriously in the pre-primary English classroom, ELTJournal, 68 / 3, p 254 – 264 About: On the importance of play in the EFL/ESL environment.
Sandie Mourao (2018), Research into the teaching as a foreign language in early childhood education and care, In: Garton, S. and F. Copland (eds), (2018), The Routledge Book of Teaching English to Young Learners, Milton Park, New York: Routledge, pp. 425 – 440. About: For those interested in a more academic look at EFL in pre-primary. Start your reading here! Spoiler alert: very little research in the area. Surprise surprise!
Daeun Song and Jang Ho Lee (2019) The use of code switching for very young EFL learners, ELT Journal, 73 / 2, p. 144- 153. About: The results of a small scale study from South Korea on the benefits of the bilingual instruction in the pre-primary EFL classroom.
Pawel Scheffler and Anna Dominska (2018), Own-language use in teaching English to pre-school children, ELT Journal, 72/4, p. 364- 383. About: The results of a small-scale study on the use of L1 in the pre-primary classroom in Poland (they do and they don’t mind).
Books: Early Years Education
Tina Bruce (2015), Early Childhood Education, Hodder Arnold About: An absolute must. Nothing to do with EFL, lots and lots about the youngest learners in general.
Tina Bruce (2001), Learning Through Play: Babies, Toddlers and the Foundation Years, Hodder Arnold About: A little more on play and why it matters.
Tina Bruce (2004), Developing Learning in Early Childhood, Paul Chapman Publishing About: An introduction into the cognitive development, the social skills development, communication and the importance of play in early years education.
Janet R. Moyles (1989), Just Playing, The role and status of play in early childhood education, Open University Press About: Even more on play, its types and value, including play with and through language.
