I am a trainer and an assistant director of studies. I spend a relatively large part of my professional life sitting in the back of classrooms, observing. I love it.
Not that anyone asked (hahaha, here is one clumsy blogger, at your service. After all, one should start with ‘Many of you have been asking me…’ or ‘I’ve received many questions about…’ I DID NOT) but if I were to give one piece of advice to all the YL and VYL teachers (or maybe not only to them), it would be this: BREATHE.
If I were given a chance to use more words, I would say:
‘Breathe! Pause! Calm down! We care about the efficient use of the lesson time but nobody is in a hurry, nobody is rushing to catch a train. There is time. You will be doing a great service to yourself and to your kids. I promise. Inhale. Exhale. Repeat!’
What do I mean? Here are five ideas.
Instructions
Going slow is absolutely crucial while giving instructions.
Not always but frequently enough our primary and pre-primary students will be doing something in class for the first time in their lives, without any metaphors whatsoever. It is quite likely that we, the teachers are the first ones to introduce a boardgame to them, a role-play, a game with a dice, a pair-work activity, a mingle, the game of pelmanism or a project. Our students might behave like they have never done it before because, very often, they really haven’t. Or they haven’t done it in a foreign language to practise vocabulary or grammar. It really IS their first time! Our classroom IS full of Gagarins, Columbuses or Cabrals (or whoever is your favourite First-Timer Metaphor).
That is why the instructions we give have to be not only graded and accompanied by gestures and (ideally) by modelling but also paced. With the teacher taking baby steps, pausing (and breathing) for all the students to catch up. Before anyone is allowed to take the next step forward.
Taking this one breath in-between the sentences will really make a huge difference. Let’s breathe then!
A listening task, as in: anylistening task
Listening tasks for young learners are another example how pausing can make the world go round and in the right way, too. This tiny (and, really, the most insignificant) movement of the teacher’s finger pressing PAUSE on the CD player / the telephone / the computer can be the factor that decides about the activity becoming a success or a failure. Something that amazes me every single time I see it in action.
PAUSE and the kids have a chance to hear what they are supposed to hear, circle what they are supposed to circle and get ready for the next bit. PAUSE and the teacher has a real chance to monitor while in-task. PAUSE and if there have been any glitches, now is the time to fix things and to save the rest of the activity.
DON’T and they miss the first example because they are still not quite sure what they are doing. Then they miss the second example because the breaks between the pieces of the recording are too short and there are no numbers or beeps to help their focus. DON’T and, inevitably, they miss the third one, too, because they missed the previous two and everything becomes just a mesh of sounds. DON’T and you have no chance to monitor or to give feedback, Although, really, it is NOT a mini-test that the kids should pass. It is only an opportunity to develop their listening comprehension skills. It is ok to help, to support and to guide. Unless it is a real test.
So maybe it is a good idea, to pause and to breathe?
Questions and answers
Here is a question: Do you know how long is the average ‘wait time’ aka the time that elapses between the moment a teacher asks a question and the moment a student is expected to answer it?
Well, fasten your seatbelts because it is quite likely that what I am about to tell you will be a bit of a shock.
Apparently, we, teachers wait as long as long as 1.5 seconds at maximum and most of the time even less than that. One second and a half. Which means that we don’t really wait at all. Either student A knows that answer that we want to get and they provide it or they don’t (more likely) and we move on to student B or C until we find what we want or we just answer the question ourselves.
Extending that wait time can have a huge impact on students’ learning, engagement and, possibly, also on their confidence because they will be given a chance and time to rise and shine. And don’t worry. By extending here I mean ‘waiting three (3) seconds‘, not the whole eternity. 3 seconds aka one inhale – exhale set. Breathe!
Just look at the picture first
This particular issue is going to make an entry here for one and very specific reason: our coursebooks and all the materials for YL are full of great visual material which, sadly, is not given all the attention it deserves.
The first question that I often I ask my trainees during the post-observation feedback session while discussing visuals, photographs, cartoons and drawings is: Why not spend more time on talking about the picture? There are so many things that you can do with a picture! (If you are not sure what these are, have a look at the earlier posts, here and here).
Once we establish that these do indeed have a lot of potential that needs to be tapped into, the question arises of how to do it. And this is how we get back to breathing.
Whenever students are shown a new picture, one that they have never seen before, they need to be given time to take it in, with its narration and all the details. It is more important for the younger learners, since their cognitive skills are still developing but it can be beneficial for the learners of all age groups and levels. If you are in doubt, just have a look at how visuals are dealt with during the speaking part of different Cambridge exams, from Movers, through PET to CAE, although with the higher levels it is hidden under the lengthy instructions from the interlocutor during which the candidates are allowed to look at the photographs they are to describe.
Step 1: instructions, Step 2: one deep breath while the kids are getting ready. Thinking time is precious and it extends on all the activities, picture-related or not.
Classroom management
Last but not least, the main destroyer of the peaceful flow of a VYL and YL lesson makes an appearance, too – the unwanted behaviour, in all its shapes and sizes.
The option of ‘doing nothing’ is out of the question, it is the teacher’s job to react but perhaps it is worth considering whether the immediate reaction is the best solution. After all, there might be some situations in which everyone would benefit from the teacher taking a deep breath and using this second or two to calm down, to consider the options and to see the situation from the little people’s point of view? Maybe the situation was not that serious? Maybe it was just a silly joke? Maybe just an unfortunate mistake? Maybe the reaction does not need to involve the headmaster, the parents and the armoured infantry? At least in some cases. This tiny little pause might help establish that. The thinking time for the teacher. And then – back to action!
The tutor sighs, the manager sighs, the teacher sighs. She wonders, too, whether two cases in the last two months already constitute a tendency. Or not yet. And whether she should be so bothered by all that. Or not. The tutor (aka the manager aka the teacher) does not know. She knows that it has been a good few weeks since the most recent incident and so she is writing all these words with a cool head. None of these silly on-the-spot, emotional reactions. At the same time, somehow, it has been impossible to stop thinking about it since.
And so the tutor / the manager / the teacher is here, typing up.
The statement
‘A teacher working with very young learners must have her/his own children.’ (actually, extends to: all the teachers working with children…)
The teacher sighs
I do. Because first and foremost, I am and I have been a teacher. Whenever faced with a comment like the one above, I look very much like this amazing creature in the photo, spotted in the Louisiana swamps: I freeze, waiting to see what happens next. I freeze, trying to remain a professional, an adult and a kind human being. Whilst hoping that all these thoughts forming in my brain never get verbalised.
If I had been a bit braver (or a bit more carefree), I would have asked: ‘Excuse me, have you just told me that I do not have the right to do my job? Don’t. Mostly because it is too late. I already do it. And I do it well, too. Thank you.’
The tutor sighs, too
I do, deeply and gloomily. As a tutor, I would like to ask the world to be a little kinder. To all those newly qualified very young learners teachers and young learners teachers and to all these teachers who are novice in the world of the pre-school and primary EFL. Or to all of these teachers who are only thinking of taking their first steps in the area. It seems that they have a lot on their plate anyway, dealing with the methodology, the materials, the resources, the real children in the classroom and their parents outside the classroom as well as the school admin. They really do not need any more of that ‘entertainment‘ and of wondering they are good enough or not to do the job. Especially before they have had a chance to try and to check.
Some of them might decide that the early years EFL or ESL is not for them and it might be because they do not have children or it maybe because they discover that their vocation lies in one of the other areas. Some of them, however, might grow up to be the next VYL Superhero, the next Sandie Mourao. Or the next Leo Vygotsky. And while they are getting there, they might appreciate a tiny little bit of support. Especially from their more experienced peers. Dear world, please be nice!
The manager sighs, too. But then she gets down to business…
…and she starts digging through the files in her head and on her computer. This particular exercise starts when I am still a bit emotional and so, with a pinch of certain vindictiveness, I take out a piece of paper and I start writing the names down.
Changing anyone’s beliefs is not an easy task and it involves a serious time investment and a lot of effort. What’s more, the satisfactory outcomes cannot always be guaranteed. Some people are simply happier in the box. Their choice, I suppose.
But, if anyone is interested, I am going to share my experience as a manager, someone who for the past nine years has supervised, mentored, trained up, lesson-planned, observed and given feedback, praised and supported teachers of early years, primary and pre-primary. Nine years of that. And counting.
Since this ‘incident’ I have been bombarded by the names of all these amazing professionals, that I have had a chance work with. Some of them were young, some of them were not. Some of them were experienced, some of them were not. Some of them were women, some of them were men. Some of them were mums and dads, many were not.
What they all had in common was the willingness to sit down on the carpet and look at the world from the point of view of a five-year-old (no metaphors here!). What they all had in common was kindness and patience and dedication to their job.
Did I really sit down to write the names of all these mentees and colleagues who taught children and who were great at that despite the fact that at the time they were not parents in their private life?
Yes, I did.
Scribbling on a piece of paper and going back in time, to 2020, 2019, 2018…I stopped at the beginnig of 2016 because I got to the magic number of 100.
And then I smiled.
One hundred fantastic people. One hundred great VYL and YL teachers. One hundred case studies that, perhaps (just perhaps) will turn ‘the statement‘ above into a question, even if a very cautious one. One hundred names that immediately put me in a good mood because they came back and they all brought beautiful memories. For that I am beyond grateful. The end.
Happy teaching!
P.S. Lots and lots and lots of virtual hugs and happy thoughts to all the teachers that I have had a chance to work with over those nine years.
P.P.S. I have also had a chance to work with many teachers who were both: great parents and great teachers of early years. Lots of virtual hugs and happy thoughts to them.
P.P.P.S. I have also had a chance to work with many teachers who were great parents but who would never agree to teach pre-schoolers or primary. Just because they have other intrests in their professional life. Their virtual hugs and happy thoughts are HERE.
My name is Vader, Darth Vader. I am a teacher and a teacher trainer, I work with VYL and YL teachers.
Well, not really. I would like to think that, as a trainer, I smile a lot, I am supportive and open to questions and debates and I only shout at football matches. But there are those moments, on the courses that I teach or just in the everyday mentoring life, when I feel I am taking on some of Mr Vader’s traits. Although even then it is more in the style of the Darth Vader in the photo above.
One of those Darth Vader moments is defnitely induced by some of the concepts and beliefs related to teaching English to young and very young learners. They are out there, in the world, and although they are entirely ‘wrong’ or ‘incorrect’, they have already become some EFL YL clichés that can cause more harm than good.
In the post below I will share with you my top five ‘Think Twice Concepts’ in the early years EFL. A very subjective approach, I must warn you. Are you ready? Fasten your seatbelts! Let’s go!
courtesy of Юлец
Bad behaviour
There is nothing that could be labelled as ‘bad behaviour’, not in the EFL classroom full of pre-schoolers. There is curiosity put to practice, there are emotions in action, there are boredom- induced replacement activities. There is fear that materialises itself as agreession and a general lack of goodwill. There is tiredness, hunger, possibly, or, on the contrary, the high levels of sugar from the chocolate bar eaten five minutes right before the lesson or the memory of the morning visit to the doctor and the unpleasantness of it that still lingers in the air (although the arm really did stop to hurt after a jab about three hours ago). There are, also, plenty of examples of ‘I will do what I have always done in such situations and if it has always worked so far with mum, with nanny, at home, at pre-school and at the playground, it is bound to take the required effect here, too!’
There is no bad behaviour, although sometimes we get to deal with ‘the unwanted behaviour’, that might be getting in the way of our lesson or other children’s physical or mental well-being.
Solutions: first of all, react, ideally to stop this unwanted behaviour, or, at the very least, to signal that it is not what we want to have. If one thing is certain, it is that it is not just going to happen, all by itself. Then, after the lesson, when everyone has already left and when the dust has settled – reflection. Was the first time that it happened? Does it always happen? Is there any chance that some triggers could be identified? Was it in anyway related to the activities, to what the teacher did, to what other children did? What happened later?
It is always a good idea to talk to the parents or carers, too. Not to complain or to blame the child or the adults but mostly to understand what really happened and why. And perhaps (but just unfortunately ‘perhaps’) this information will come in handy the next time it happens.
Egocentric
I don’t think I will ever be able to forgive Piaget for using this particular adjective to describe the little kids’ attitude to the world and to the people in it. It is a perfect example of a concept created by adults and used to refer to people who are not adult yet and whose attitudes and reactions are what they are simply because they have not had a chance yet to grow and to develop fully. In the EFL terms, it would be like sending a seven-year-old beginner to take an FCE exam and then scolding them for failing while they are simply not there, not yet and they should be seen nowhere near the exam room.
Of course, pre-schoolers might struggle with sharing the box of crayons, they might want to always be first and always hold the teacher’s hand. They may not like to sit next to Pasha today and they will not want the other children to touch the car they brought to class, to show off a little bit. They will not be happy about leaving their picture in the classroom for the teacher to display on the noticeboard. And they will all want the princess flashcard. But all of that happens because they are just learning how to be a person in the world full of people and a person in that particular group of children learning English.
Solutions: The most important of them comes from Mick Jagger because, indeed, ‘Time is on my side, yes, it is!’. The group of children starting to study together in September will be changing, from lesson to lesson, and even after a week or two or three, they will be a completely different bunch, only because they have had a chance to interact with each other, to do something together and to find out that a group is not Anka and five other someones but Anka and Sasha, Pasha, Kirill, Mitya and Olya, some of whom we like a little more, some of whom we like a little bit less.
Apart from that, there are also all the tricks that the teacher can use throughout the course, to help the little people bond and start noticing the other children and start to learn how to share the lesson with them.
So, no ‘egocentrism’ but ‘social skills that are still developing’.
A typical five-year-old child…
Apart from the knowledge of the language and the knowledge of the methodology, the knowledge of the child development stages is one of the three areas that an EFL teacher working with young learners needs to be familar with (Mourão, 2018: 429) and it is great to see that a summary of these characteristics have made it into the professional literature ( Mourão, 2020: 33 – 39) and are easily available online.
At the same time, there is a danger that teachers will be looking into these and applying them too religiously, without considering the differences between the individual children. As Mourão (2020: 215) says ‘Children develop holistically, show individual differences in development and progress at different rates’. That means that even if we had a group of only five-year-olds, all of them coming from similar environmenta and all of them provided with the same opportunities and, even, why not, all of them born on the same day, they could all develop their cognitive, motor, social or linguistic skills at completely different rates. As a result, despite the fact that the group would be theoretically homogenous, a teacher would still have to deal with a mix of abilities. It seems that a teacher equipped with a little knowledge and induced by this knowledge expectations of the children and of the lesson might be even more damaging that no knowledge at all. Because typical five-year-olds don’t exist.
Solution: an open-mind and an organic approach to the little people sitting in the classroom. Instead of applying strict frameworks and checklists and trying to make the kids fit in the tables (which they are more than likely not to be able to do, as a group or as individuals), reading and researching the age group in a close connection with the specific students whom we teach at the moment.
Short attention span
This is, without any doubt, one of the most important differences between an adult and a child learner and this is the one that gets highlighted most frequently. For a reason, too.
However, at the same time, any attempt at specifing what that attention span is or, even more, at quantifying is, simply, pointless. Much as it may give the (false) impression that once the concept has been assigned a number, it is not as scary and it will be easier to deal with, especially for those of the teachers who have little or no experience of working with the younger children. It is from them that I often hear that ‘an activity should not take more than five minutes’ or, even, ‘it is the child’s age plus one minute’.
Well, I wish it had been that straightforward.
In real life, the attention span will be very much dependent on a number of factors that nobody is able to predict or enlist, and, as such, it is simply impossible determine once and for all. Children’s attention span will be related to their age, to some extent (although it will materialise itself in a way unique for each child) but it will also be affected by absolutely everything that might have had an impact on the children’s mood before and in the lesson and the teacher’s mood before and in the lesson. Such as? Such as the first snow of the year, a spider in the classroom, a visit to the doctor just before the lesson, a swimming lesson just before the lesson, a birthday party attended, a grandma’s visit, candy eaten before the lesson…Or a teacher who has had an especially tiring or stressful day, any malfunctioning technology or a handout lost. Any of these and the tried and tested activity that has always worked with the same group or the same age group, that has had the kids in awe and involved for five or even ten minutes, can quickly turn into a failure or the most boring and unappealing activity in the entire world.
Solution: first and foremost, switch off your adult thinking of what happens in the classroom. The kids, young or very young, they will not be just sitting behind the table, patiently waiting for you to start what you have prepared for the day AND they will not stay involved in it for a prolonged period of time as long as you think they should. Second, while planning a lesson, think about it from your student’s perspective and ask yourself what your students might find interesting about an activity. Is there anything that would motivate them to engage in in? Anything else that just the mere fact of this being an activity done in a lesson.
Then, in the lesson, itself, keeping your eyes open and adapting to who (and in what state) you have in the classroom on the day is the best way of dealing with all the implications of the short attention span. And, although I would argue that this applies to all the age groups and levels, being ready to let go and teaching the students and not the plan, not the coursebook, not the handout and not the activity.
‘They don’t like singing’
Sorry, permission to disagree here and yes, even before I have seen you in the classroom and before I have met your little students. I don’t think it is true, simple as that. Why do the teachers say that then?
Partially, it is because, again, the adult perception of what song and singing is and should be gets in the way. On the one hand, when we listen to songs in our non-teaching life, we do just that, we listen and take pleasure in it, hopefully. There is nothing wrong with it, and, indeed, I believe that listening for pleasure should be sometimes included in our lessons, too. The only ‘problem’ with very young learners is that they might not be familiar with that kind of an exercise and after a minute or two, with no other task, they will be getting bored and distracted. And, possibly engaging in other, unwanted, activities.
On the other hand, when we use songs in the EFL lessons, we expect the students to sing these songs and in case of pre-schoolers or even primary school children, it will take them for them to master all the elements of the song, the music, the rhythm, the lyrics, before they are actually ready to sing. If the teacher expects a real performance in the lesson in which the song was introduced for the first time, they will be disappointed. Again, the children might remain focused for a minute or two and then, again, they will find something else to do and the teacher will arrive at a conclusion already mentioned in the heading to this paragraph.
It is true, that the word ‘singing‘ could be replaced with absolutely any type of a YL activity, ‘craft’, ‘miming’, literacy’, ‘animals’, ‘this game’ and the implications would be the same or almost the same. It is also true that music-related activities are more likely to feature here. Mostly because teachers often worry that they themselves cannot hold a tune or that they are not confident enough to sing in front of others.
Solution: forget about you and your pre-conceptions, your teacher previous knowledge and try. It might be that you yourself are not the world greatest fan of Baby Shark and of pretending that you are a…melting ice-cream (btw, one of the real ideas suggested for the miming game by my students) but the simple truth is, if the teacher does not make an effort and if the teacher does not get properly involved in a song or in an activity, it is almost a given, that the students will not, either. Especially, the little ones. And, really, the most amazing thing about the VYL audience is that they really do not care whether their teachers sing well or badly. The only thing that matters is whether they put their hearts in it or not.
And as for the other problems, be it music or craft, scaffolding and lesson planning is the answer and no two ways about it. If you need any more convincing to why we should use songs with children, please have a look here and if you are looking for some ideas of what can be done with a song to maximise language production, you should definitely look at this post here.
Coda
This post is not only about me having a little venting session on a Monday morning. It is not a critique on the people who use these terms and it is definitely not about my ‘What not to say’ list that I will be handing in to all my teachers and trainees from now on.
I decided to put this post together because it seems that all these clichés start in the very same place and that is when adults try to apply adult categories, labels and concepts to children and to how they see the world, how they learn and how they grow which might lead to misunderstanding, confusion and frustration in the classroom.
Perhaps there should be one more thing added to the list of skills and areas that a VYL or YL teacher should be equipped with, apart from the three mentioned by Mourão (2018)? The knowledge of the subject and of the appropriate methodolody is absolutely crucial and so is the awareness of the child development stages. They are an absolute must and a starting point. Still, they are going to be of little use in the real life if a teacher is not going to be willing to switch the perspective and to try to see the lesson and everything that happens in it from the point of view of a three-year-old or a seven-year-old.
As everything in teaching, nothing happens overnight, and it takes time to develop the ability to observe and to analyse your students and their behaviour and to learn from that. The good thing is that the very willingness to accept the fact that a different perspective is needed is already a big step towards success.
Sometimes, changing the perspective physically can make a real difference, too. In our teacher training courses, we sit at the big tables (of course, we are adults!) but there always comes the time when we transfer to the little stools in a small circle. We do it to practise different games and to reflect on them but this is also a great opportunity to experience how the furniture and the set up can influence the activities and the emotions.
This blog post can hopefully be a good first step, too!
What do you think, dear reader? Are there any other terms that you would add to this list? Please leave your commetns below!
Happy teaching!
P.S. All the amazing animals in the photos live in the streets of Yaroslavl. Mr Vader found a home in a coffee shop Free-da there. All photos – mine, apart from the rooster taken by Юлец and used here with her permission.
References
Development Matters in the Early Years Foundation Stage (2012), to be downloaded here
Mourão, S. (2018), Research into teaching of English as a Foreign Language in early childhood and care, In: S. Garton and F. Copland (eds), The Routledge Book of Teaching English to Young Learners, Milton Park and New York: Routledge, p. 425 – 440.
Mourão, S. & G. Ellis (2020), Teaching English to Pre-Primary Children, Stuttgard: Delta Publishing
This entry was initially a post on Facebook a year or so ago but the list has got longer and more interesting since. What’s more, what started as ‘a page in the photo album’, almost, with time turned into a reflection on professional life, early years development and its impact on the EFL methodology.
Based on one million true stories. Enjoy?
These are the things that my students brought to their offline or online classes:
a dead ladybird, handed to me already in the R.I.P state, as the most precious treasure AND a present
ten plastic jungle animals (all of which participated actively in learning and practising of the new vocabulary)
a bunch of toy dragons (which were not ‘angry dragons’, as I was assured)
a toy lion (also very active, answering questions and all that)
a toy parrot, Pepsi (Pepsi always asked for her own homework handout and always did her homework)
baby brothers and sisters who wandered in and stayed
Pasha, the invisible student
a few cats (purring loudly, only online, though, sadly)
a puppy (running in and out)
a hamster
a plastic shotgun (very realistic, online, yay)
a toy hen (came to visit and befriend our puppet Angelina, also a hen)
a broom, Harry Potter-style, wood, twigs and all
a cape, Harry Potter-style
a set of cars from the collection
flowers growing around (online, of course) and, inevitably, …
a cow, grazing around (online, of course)
the entire vegetable garden, toured via laptop
a snail in a jar (online, thank God)
a sling
flowers, real, plastic and paper
slime
a turn-on/turn-off blinking tiara
a half-eaten bread roll
a birthday cake with no prior warning
a bag of candy to celebrate birthdays, with no prior warning
a huge alarm clock
a piggy bank
and, to finish on the high note, the Black Sea with ships included (in the background of an online lesson)
Why does it matter?
We could look at all these from the angle of the teacher. This teacher is anxious, because, most likely, all these toys and animals willbe a nuisance….As a source of excitement (for the owner and for everyone who will want to look and touch and play), a source of annoyance (for the owner, because even the well-meant attention might get unbearable after a while), a source of drama (because toys get lost or misplaced, sometimes), or, simply – a source of distraction. And, if anything can be said about a teacher of very young learners is that they do not need any additional elements that might, potentially, tilt the balance or make waves in the classroom. There is enough, as it it, by default. And that does depend on whether the teacher is experienced or not, working with a group or with individual students, online or offline.
That is why, on seeing yet another dinosaur in the doorway, the teacher sighs, trying to go over all the implications and the impact that the dinosaur’s might have event in the following forty-five minutes. However, this is a very quiet sigh, well-hidden behind a smile and another ‘Oh, wow!’ A very quiet sigh, indeed.
But there are also the kids’ angle. There’s been a birthday or a no-occasion present from gran, an item found in the park, a random and unexpected encounter. There is, finally, an opportunity to show the teacher and the rest of the group, all the treasures and ‘treasures’ that normally stay at home and that mum or gran or nanny stubbornly refuse to carry to school and back, just for the display purposes and which, finally, can be presented to the whole world (as one of the very few bonuses of studying online). Because it is important, right here, right now. Even if to the outside world it looks like a piece or unimportant junk.
For that reason, the kids entering the classroom, will be far from sighing. On the contrary, there will be a lot of joyful feet stomping, the pleasant adrenaline rush, excited whispers in the line in front of the classroom door and then, inevitably, a presentation by a proud and triumphant owner who, for the time being and for the next few minutes, is ruling the world.
The title of ‘The Most Dramatic Entry’ …
…and a proper showcase and a case study that I often present to my trainees, belongs to one big birthday cake, full of cream, sugar and chocolate that was grandiosely marched in, at the heels of a Sasha boy who was turning six on the day. Three minutes before the lesson, without any prior warning, agreement, permission.
You know how they say ‘his heart sank‘? Mine really did, no metaphors. Of course, it was a big day for Sasha. Of course, his mum wanted to include us in the celebrations. Of course, she meant well. Of course, Sasha and all the other kids were ecstatic. I am not a robot myself, I like cake! BUT.
I had three minutes to make a decision and here are the three options that I was considering:
a) Ask the mum to take the cake away. Meaning: Sasha is heartbroken (reason: the teacher is a witch who forbids him to enjoy his day), the mum is offended (reason: see above), the kids are upset (reason: see above), the lesson is in shreds (reason: nobody can focus anyway)
b) Put the cake away on the window-sill and celebrate at the end of the lesson. Meaning: Sasha is distracted (reason: the cake is on the window-sill, this is the only thing that he is capable of thinking of, also probably with time, the classroom fills with the smell of cake), the kids are distracted (reason: see above), the teacher is distracted (reason: see above), the lesson is in shreds (reason: nobody can focus anyway).
c) Eat the cake. Meaning: Sasha is happy and way too energetic (reason: sugar levels are through the roof), the kids are happy and way too energetic (reason: see above), the teacher is in trouble (reason: other parents will complain to the school about the stranger feeding their kids random foods, but at this point the teacher doesn’t know that yet, it is all to happen in the evening and on the following day), the lesson is in shreds (reason: too much sugar, too much energy and the festivities taking place in the start of the lesson. No matter what the teacher prepared for the day (Try to predict THIS in your ‘anticipated problems and solutions’), nothing is going to be able to come even close to the cake. Sigh).
Now, dear reader, please, pause for a minute. Faced with that dilemma, what would you do, I wonder?
I guess, I did know straight away what we would do, I went through the hoops of considering all the other options only to be able to say that I did try to be a reasonable and cool-headed professional. We ate the cake and we sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to Sasha.
Then I tried to save what was left of my lesson and in the following week, I kept myself busy sorting out the complaint from the parents.
Not sure what I would do today, and with my current groups and parents. Maybe it would not even be a problem because, by now, we have managed to negotiate an accepted list of potential English lesson snacks and we always celebrate with Kinder, Barnie and this one brand of juice. It is some kind of achievement, too, I suppose, that when the birthday surprise bags were brought into the classroom I did manage to pull off the ‘let’s-put-it-on-the-top-shelf-we’ll-open-the-bag-when-we-say-goodbye‘ stunt. It might be because I am more experienced and because a more effective set of rules and routines is in place. Perhaps, it’s because we have known each other for a bit longer than with the other group. Perhaps all three?
What to do and what not to do?
Luckily, not all the situations are as dramatic as the Dreaded Cake Day but the teacher still sighs when the (plastic) dinosaurs are arriving.
‘No toys in the classroom‘ is one of the options, of course, especially if agreed previously with the parents, carefully discussed and explained. And with time, children get used to the fact that even if the teddy (or the banana) come to school, they stay in the hallway.
‘Bringit on‘ is another. Turning the tendency into a part of the classroom routine might benefit the lesson and the kids. Bringing toys (or else) can be an opportunity to produce the language as even the youngest kids can answer the questions such as ‘What is it?’, ‘What colour is it?’, ‘What can you do with it?’, ‘Why do you like it?’…
‘They are sleeping‘ could also be an approach. If you have a table or a shelf, all the toys could be welcomed, interacted with and then, after having been granted the permission from the owner, left in this one special place. I am sure that they are tiny and very very tired. Ideally this place is out of reach but visible to everyone (especially the owner:-) and this way, the precious things are there, visible but out of the way.
The shameful thing is, perhaps, the fact that I got bored with both of these approaches. We used to have a beautiful poster in the hallway, in English and in Russian about toys staying behind, but to be honest, I was really more interested in all the treasure (and how a piece of real junk can become ‘my precious’). But I am not into cutting a piece of the lesson every single time and devoting it to random guests, either. Instead, we just mix and match. We always inspect the new arrivals and we look at them (in awe). Sometimes we have a little chat, sometimes not. Sometimes we put them away and sometimes they join as in the circle, to sing a song. Sometimes they play the games with us (which means twice as much production, YAY) but sometimes they don’t and they are just picked up later, already half-forgotten, at good-byes. I guess, I might call it the ‘Go with the flow‘ approach. And this what I preach at the moment.
I will happily blame the pandemic for that attitude. I rule in my little kingdom but it is easier said than done in the online classroom. On the one hand, it is a definite advantage that all these distractors do not physically invade the classroom . On the other hand, no physical presence means no actual control and, there is a lot more potential for the unexpected. No matter how good your lesson planning skills are, try predicting that a student of yours will be sitting outside, in the field, and that cows will be walking past and that, they, too, will become a part of your lesson!
Happy teaching!
P.S. Don’t forget to check out the wonderful directory of all the useful things in the VYL world created by Sandy Millin. You can find it here.
‘Symbolic representation – making something stand for something else’*
Symbolic representation, its importance and development in children are a truly fascinating topic and one of the crucial ones to anyone who works with the little children.
Tina Bruce’s definition of symbolic representation has become the title for this paragraph and that means that absolutely anything can become a symbol of something else and being able to read these symbols is an important step in child development.
Symbols are everyone around us. Some of them are universally recognised such as mathematical symbols, musical notation or the letters of the alphabet, some are personal. While growing up, children are learning to differentiate between the symbol and the real object, they learn to recognise, learn and, eventually, to create symbols.
Examples? Imagine a cat, a black beautiful and soft murmuring creature. Now, imagine a flashcard of a cat. Obviously, as adults we have no problems differentiating between these two and understanding that the flashcard, no matter how realistic, is not a cat and that it only represents it. We can even take one step further and look at ‘CAT’ written on the board also understand that it is not the cat itself, only its symbol. Or that when we move one of our hands in the air (with the fingers spread apart and crooked a bit), while saying ‘meow’, we also want it to represent a cat. Although we are not the cat ourselves. One more step would be going in the direction of what the cat or the black cat itself might represent…
It is basically the development of abstract thinking. Why does it matter to us, the teachers of English? Well, there are a few reasons and a few immediate uses in the classroom.
Flashcards…
This is probably the easiest to highlight and, at the same time, the most obvious way in which the symbolic representation and its development influences our daily life in the classroom.
Flashcards are the staple resource of a VYL and YL teacher. We can bring toys into the classroom or plastic fruit to introduce and practice vocabulary with them but it is not possible with all the topics. Sadly, we can never have a real elephant or a real princess in the classroom, sadly, and for that reason we have flashcards. They help us work with the language as they are not only easy (or relatively easy) to obtain but they also help use the language and the variety of channels: visual (as they are colourful and pretty), kinesthetic (because we can manipulate them) and auditory (with the language produced by the teacher and the students).
However, there is the question of what exactly we want from the flashcards. They should be colourful and durable and visually appealing but they should also clearly convey the concept, not to confuse the children. The situation is much better nowadays, the materials that we work with are of a much better quality but you can still find a few ‘gems’ that should have never seen the daylight. I am collecting those and perhaps I am going to share with you my most precious finds (or rather ‘finds’).
It is a fascinating thing to be producing the flashcards to represent a less obvious concepts for example adjectives.
These first two are very straightforward, a frown is easily associated with ‘I’m sad’ or ‘sad’ and thinking of food with ‘I’m hungry’ or ‘hungry’.
The other two were a bit more challenging but I did assume that an owl is considered to be a very wise animal and it is often used in such a way. That is why we have also adopted it in our class. The other was even more challenging but I assumed that kids (or not only kids) often cover their eyes when they are scared and don’t want to look at what frightens them (although they sometimes peek through the fingers nonetheless:-). This is how we have ended up with these two symbols for ‘I’m clever’ and ‘I’m scared’ (or ‘clever’ and ‘scared’).
But things got really interesting and challenging recently. I needed a flashcard for ‘It’s scary’ (or ‘scary’) because we are in the unit of pets and animals and we learn to describe them, including what they like to eat, what they can do and what we think of them.
I already had a flashcards for ‘I’m scared’. For a moment I was considering using an image of a monster but those nice ones were sweet and funny and those that were really scary and illustrating the concept well, they were just too scary, even for me. In the end, I decided to go for a spider (as most kids don’t like them and I hate them so my reaction to them is always very real) but I covered it with a flap. My reasoning was that if something is scary, we don’t really want to look at it. So far it works well. And my kids love to pull off the flap while telling me that it is NOT scary.
Gestures
The gesture is king! By adding gestures while teaching kids vocabulary or structures, we multiply the number of channels through which the kids are operating (visual – with flashcards, auditory – the words spoken and kinesthetic – through gestures) and we help them remember and recall the language with more ease.
It does not really matter if we use gestures (or symbols) that are universally recognised. It is an advantage if we can, of course, but I doubt that any culture has a gesture ready for the vocabulary that you are studying at the moment, for example ‘It is snowing’, ‘it is windy’ or ‘a clown’, ‘a doctor’, ‘a princess’. It does not really matter, though. The English classroom is a sort of a bubble, a mini-universe where its own rules apply. It is almost natural that this world will have its own set of symbols or gestures.
I have already committed a separate post on different ways of using it with preschoolers learning English as a foreign language. You can find it here.
Vocabulary and structure or How to teach grammar to preschoolers
Symbols and their application can be especially useful while teaching grammar to preschoolers. First of all, taking the students out of the one word production world and into the phrase- and the sentence- or perhaps even the discourse-level is a challenge all by itself. Our EFL students have a limited class time (unlike the bilingual or the ESL children) and a limited exposure outside of the classroom. Second of all, pre-schoolers are indeed very young and their cognitive skills and the ability to deal with abstract concepts (such as grammar) are limited. Last but definitely not least, they are pre-literate in English and the structure cannot be just presented to them using the written word. Primary children, who learn grammar but depend heavily on the context (which is an advantage and a source of support), still receive the basic form of the target langauge on the board or in the coursebook for example ‘I like…’ which helps them remember the key structure and which supports production.
For that reason some other solutions have to be found and, at least, for me and my students relying on symbolic representation has been a life saver.
It started with a heart, you could say. I needed a symbol to stand for ‘I like’ and ‘I don’t like’ and at first I went for something resembling a face of a child that might be saying ‘Yummy’ but when I brought them to school, my students looked and said ‘happy’. Not good at all. The distance between the symbol and the real thing was too long and our new symbol resembled another symbol too closely. This is how we ended up with a heart – a coloured-in heart and a crossed heart to stand for ‘I like’ and ‘I don’t like’ respectively.
We use them together with the food, pets or colours flashcards and they simply work wonders. Both main components of the sentence are represented here visually, it is easier to remember them, to produce and reproduce them and they can be manipulated physically, too, as each of the students can have their own heart, double-sided. The heart can be put on the flashcard face up or face down depending on how the kids feel about it. It can be also held up, show the other students ‘the right side’.
It is amazing to see how quickly students accept this particular symbol and how effectively they use it. It is even more amazing to witness how they try to adapt it to the situation to make sure that they express their opinion and that this opinion is also reflected in how the symbol is used. In one of my groups we were using it with more complex food items and one of students said that she didn’t know whether she liked steak or not because shed had never tried. After a brief moment of hesitation, she decided to hold the little cardboard heart side-ways (or edge-ways) so that it expresses neither ‘I like’ or ‘I don’t like’.
Another way of applying symbolic representation are the mini-emotion flashcards which we use to describe the feelings of others. These are quite small, small enough to fit on the character or family flashcards and to make it for almost ‘real’ experience when ‘mum’ looks really happy or sleepy or hungry.
These mini-cards can be used in phrases ‘a happy princess’ or in sentences ‘The princess is happy’ and the position of the card will reflect the change in the phrase ie if the card is on the left of the flashcards it reflects the position of both words in the phrase in which the adjective comes first. If the mini-card is on the flashcard (for the purpose of realism and fun) or on the right we produce a full sentence in which the noun comes first, followed by the verb ‘is’ (the only part that needs to be remembered and which can be represented by a gesture) and by the emotion.
Unfortunately, it is not always easy to find a suitable visual symbol for each structure we teach but it does not necessarily have to be a picture, gestures will work equally well. For example for ‘I’m wearing’ I motion my hand from my neck down to point at the clothes and for ‘I can see’ I tap my finger twice on my chest (for ‘I’ and ‘can’) and then point at my eyes ‘(‘see’).
I think it can be safely said that I am (slowly?) adding symbols to my collection. Plus, it is fun to make the ghost scared, for once and this lesson always puts me in a better mood.
And then there are letters, too!
Letters and alphabets or any writing systems are a fascinating set of symbols and, eventually, children get to know them, in their L1 and in English, too. When they are ready. This is an adventure that deserves its own post (or, indeed, a series of posts), soon, especially that when we take the first steps in the world of the written word, it is with a background in another alphabet and another set of symbols, some of which are the same, some of which are different and some of which are false friends because they look the same but they represent different sounds.
Developing literacy skills is as much a challenge as it is fun. Especially that children as young as four and five comment on the fact the English ‘Pp’ looks exactly like the Russian ‘Rr’ and that ‘Ww’ turned upside down turns into ‘Mm’ (well, at least the capital one). Or that ‘Xx’ is a Russian ‘Hh’ or ‘A cross, Anka! It looks like a cross!‘
More on that later.
Kids grow up…
Of course the use of the symbol in the EFL classroom is not limited to pre-school, only later on the symbol is not an essential component (at least in my head) but a pleasant supplement that makes things fun, colourful and a bit easier. Examples? The ghost in the cover photo which we use with my primary kids to stand for the silent letters that started to appear everywhere in our A1 materials or the gestures that we used while learning and practising some basic adverbs of frequence: always (5 fingers – 5 days a week), usually, sometimes and never.
Happy teaching!
*****
If you are interested, make sure you have a look at these:
Symbolic Understanding in Infants and Young Children, a lecture by Dr Judy DeLoache (2013)
Symbolic Understanding in Infants and Young Children, a lecture by Dr Stephanie Carlson (2013)
Tina Bruce (2005) Early Childhood Education, pp 105 – 125
Really, the whole story is between me and a pair of blue, three-year-old eyes. The world around does exist, of course, and the world around is watching, with curiosity, but not really participating.
‘Spider’, I say.
‘Spiderman’, he says.
‘Spider’, I repeat, pointing at the spider flashcard.
‘Spiderman’, he repeats, as if not noticing.
‘Spider’, I say, yet again.
‘Spiderman’, he says and, I’d swear, he nods, too.
***************
The blue eyes belong to a little Sasha who is quite young, true, but who feels empowered and a lot more confident than any other typical three-year-old might have been in any relatively new environment. It is because this little Sasha never walks alone, he has his older sister as the source of his superpower. He is pretty much fearless. That is why he gets into this, well, debate.
The conditions are perfect. It is a warm May afternoon, the summer is round the corner, and the audience are waiting for some entertainment. After all, the parents have come to see what the kids can do and what the teacher is teaching them. Everyone is present, all the children and all the parents. The teacher is there and even the trainee teacher. Who could have wished for more?
Sasha is not doing it on purpose. One of the most important words in his life now is ‘Spiderman‘ and it does resemble something that the teacher is saying. It feels like a cool game to recite it, together with the teacher, well, almost ‘recite’ it. Sasha continues to play.
He doesn’t see how the world freezes waiting for any reaction. He notices that his teacher’s face has become a bit tense but he does not think that it might have anything to do with the new game. He wouldn’t know that the teacher’s blood pressure is slowly going up because of what is happening and what is happening is this: a student making a mistake and the teacher not correcting him, fossilising the error for the years to come and this little boy confusing the little eight-legged creature with a superhero.
It might be that the parents have not even noticed or realised. It might be that the parents have found it to be funny, too. In the teacher’s head, however, the world is crumbling and the teacher is failing, despite all her experience.
Ideally, the teacher would have just waved two flashcards to illustrate the difference. Only, of course, there were no Spiderman flashcards just lying around.
***********
‘Now, Sasha, spider – Spiderman’, I say. Again.
‘Spiderman’, he says, smiling, probably thinking that I have finally managed to learn the right word. I smile, too.
‘Sasha, listen. Spiderman is a boy. Yes or no?’, I say.
‘Yes’, says Sasha.
‘Mhm. And Spiderman is big or small?’ I ask.
‘Big’, said Sasha, looking at the teacher with curiosity.
‘Right’, I say. And then I ask, raising the spider flashcard. ‘Is THIS big?’
‘No’, said Sasha.
‘Is it a boy?’ goes the next question.
Sasha looks up from the flashcard, he looks at the teacher and smiles.
‘No’, he says, and you, know
‘No’, said Sasha and, you know, the teacher would swear, something sparks up in Sasha’s three-year-old eyes.
‘Exactly. Look. Spider – Spiderman’, I say, once again pointing at the spider flashcard, also adding gestures ‘small’ and ‘big’ ..
‘Spider’, says Sasha, pointing at the flashcard. And then he adds: ‘Spiderman’
***********
Victory? Probably. A memorable moment? Absolutely.
In hindsight, also a bit of revelation that a little adrenaline rush and, all of a sudden, it turns out that it is possible to use CCQs, concept check questions, with very young pre-schoolers who are somewhere in the pre-A1 level. I had never thought it would be possible but, hey, there you go. When there’s a will, there is a way? Aka the games my brain likes to play.
Friday, twenty minutes before the start of the lesson. Two of the girls (5 and 6 y.o.) remember about the amazing game they played about a month ago and, immediately, decide to play it again. There is only one rule in the game: to follow the teacher around the school, as she gets ready and fixes the last bits before the lesson and to say ‘I’m hungry. I will eat you‘ to which the teacher offers various things to eat (‘Do you like books?’, ‘Do you like markers?’), *) to which you have to answer ‘No. I’m hungry but I only eat people‘. And you roar. A lot. The other kids are arriving gradually, the hallway is filling up with parents, grandparents, nannies and brothers and sisters.
Friday, five minutes before the lesson. The lion game is getting better by the minute so now there are four lions running around (Did I mention running before?) and roaring. And, believe it or not, four lions roaring make a lot of noise. It’s not that we pretend that kids are made of sugar and they are always sweet and quiet and picture perfect. Kids are kids and they should be but the teacher picking up the flashcards and taking the last sip of water in the teachers’ room thought, briefly, of an avalanche of noise and ‘unwanted behaviour’. The lions did not really care, they were having lots of fun.
Friday, 2 minutes before the lesson. The teacher is ready and is collecting the group to start the lesson properly. Alas. The lions are roaring, more and more loudly. ‘Let’s go!’ (Roar). ‘Please, stop’ (Roar roar), ‘OK, everyone, 10, 9, 8, 7…(Roar roar roar).
The teacher suddenly understands that she is not in the hallway of the school but on the edge of the cliff, on a windy day, on an empty stomach hence double dizzy. The lions do not like those lions that might calm down any time soon. The parents, grandparents and nannies have raised their eyes. The security guard, too, came out into the hallway and was observing the almost-mayhem in the hallway. The remaining 120 seconds should be used to re-introduce the order. The order should be sturdy enough to last sixty minutes of the lesson which is about to start.
You could say that’s not an ideal situation…
***********************
There were four things that I could do.
a) do nothing – not recommended, even if only because of those sixty minutes in the classroom to come.
b) let someone else sort it out – not recommended, not really. True, the kids have parents but at this point in the game, I don’t think I would want them to get involved. That’s why when our security guard (that the kids know and respect) started to saying something, I just shook my head and put a hand up to stop him. This mess was my mess and I had to deal with it. I think this is something I learnt during my five years at the state school – other people might be called to help with the behaviour management but at the end of the day it is your pack and you should be considered its leader.
c) talk to the kids in their L1 and sort it out – not recommended, not really. Why? Because I never talk to them in their L1 and this was serious enough, not yet anyway, to resort to that. I decided to keep it for another day and another occasion.
d) talk to the kids in English – tricky, with 5-year-old pre-A1 crowd but this is exactly what I decided to do.
I had no idea what I was doing, really. There were no previous cases that I could rely on, no plan of action but hey, if I don’t try, I will never know…Challenge accepted.
**********************
The teacher looked at her lions, still roaring in a small circle around her.
‘Now, where are my students? I want to start the lesson. Where are my students?’, said the teacher.
‘We are not students. We are lions!’ said the lions and they roard.
‘That’s a shame.’, said the teacher, feeling how someone continues to pull the rug from under her feet. She took a deep breath. She looked at the first lion on her left.
‘Are you a girl or a lion?’ asked the teacher.
‘A lion’
‘Are you a girl or a lion?’ now the teacher asked the second lion.
‘A lion’ said that second lion, with a beautiful smile.
‘Are you a girl or a lion?’
‘A lion’ said the lion and the teacher realised that almost all is lost.
‘Are you a girl or a lion?’ asked the teacher.
‘A lion’, said the fourth lion and the teacher was feeling pretty desperate then. The parents, the grandparents and the nannies were all watching then. Of course.
‘Right’, said the teacher. ‘It is a real shame but the English lesson is ONLY for boys and girls, not lions. I am sorry. Bye bye, lions’, said the teacher waving her hand and started walking towards the classroom. She stopped after a few steps where a little boy was sitting with his mum.
‘Hello, Sasha! Are you a boy or a lion?’ asked the teacher.
‘A boy’ said the boy.
‘Great! Let’s go to the classroom!’ said the teacher and off they went. They stopped again after a few more steps where a little girl was sitting with her mum.
‘Hello, Sasha! Are you a girl or a lion?’ asked the teacher.
‘A girl’, said the girl.
‘Fantastic! Let’s go to the classroom!’ said the teacher and all three went to the classroom.
At the classroom door, they stopped, and formed a line. The teacher opened the door, walked in, sat at the door and started saying hello to the first student in line (a part of the routine). They were in the middle of the chat about howareyoutoday and green pencils and yellow schoolbags, when one more person appeared at the end of the line.
‘Anka!’ she shouted, ‘Anka, hello! I am a girl!’
This was the first of the used-to-be lions and the other three quickly stood in line behind her. A miracle!!! In the end, we had one human teacher and seven human children taking part in this lesson.
***********************
This is a great VYL anecdote, of course, and I am sure, in the years to come, I will be going back to it to smile and to remember how difficult it was not to giggle when a girl-turned lion-turned girl came up to announce (in English) that she changed her mind and was ready to take part in the lesson for humans.
It is also a story about what it might be like to be a student at five and that what the big people see as being naughty (running around, roaring, pretending to be a lion) is just a lot of fun and an opportunity to do something different and to experiment with the ways of the world.
Finally, it is also a story about using or not using the L1 in the VYL classroom. You an use it, you don’t have to but using L1 is not the only way. It is a challenge but it is an interesting one. And it is possible.
Some people do sudoku to exercise their brains, some enjoy complex Maths thingies (that clearly not me), some like to guess the ending of a crime story before it is officially revealed in the final chapters. My brain seems to revel in such child-development-and-language-grading games. Especially when there is the added bonus of a high profile audience, of parents, supervisors or trainees…
I will leave the Spiderman story for some other occasion.
Happy teaching!
*) The text in italics is what the kids said in L1.
This post is a lesson I taught with a group of 4-year-olds in their first year of studying English, based on the materials from Playway to English 1, 2nd edition by Herbert Puchta and Gunter Gerngross from Cambridge University Press.
It was taken from unit 6 (The Weather) and it is called ‘The Little Seed’.
Story cards ‘The Little Seed’ Playway to English, 2nd ed by H.Puchta and G.Gerngross, CUP
Pre-Story
Vocabulary revisionand practice with flashcards, the weather dice, the song, the weather sounds etc. Kids sit in a circle, on little stools.
New vocabulary introduction: a bee, a butterfly, a flower, a seed. We used finger puppets because these three feature in my garden finger puppet set (together with a ladybird and a caterpillar) which I once got as a present (thank you, Cheng <3). I put them on my fingers and we practised saying ‘Hello, bee!’ ‘Hello, butterfly!’ The kids got really excited so we did spend some time, playing with them, trying them on and saying ‘Hello, bee!’ ‘Hello, butterfly!’ These activities were done on the carpet, with kids sitting in a circle. I forgot to bring real seeds so this time, we skipped this stage but I am planning to include them in the follow-up lesson (see below). Of course, the same can be done with regular flashcards or handmade toy butterfly and bee.
While-Story
Just look: I hold the cards and show them to the students, one by one, in silence. Kids just look. Sometimes, I draw the kids’ attention to some of the elements, by pointing at them. Sometimes, I point and say the words or encourage the kids to name things they can see but, really, that is not the priority here. I just want them to take the story in, to build it up in their heads, before we add the language layer to it.
Listen: I play the audio and we listen to the story and look at the pictures. Again, I sometimes point to the key elements in each card. I also use the gestures to reinforce the ideas and concepts and to add another learning channel to the visual and the auditory. In this story we are using the following: hands together, under your cheek with the head slightly tilted (The little seed is sleeping), face up, as if enjoying the sun, with a smile and a happy sigh (It is sunny), hands moving up and down, with the fingers spread and wiggling (It is raining), hands going up and arms stretching high up for (The little seed is growing, growing, growing), pointing with one finger at the picture (Look, it’s a beautiful flower). Some of these gestures have been used so far (the weather), some are new. I don’t pre-teach them, the kids join in when they are ready.
Listen and say: We retell the story together, using the cards. I lead but this time I pause frequently and elicit the words and structures that the students know or, alternatively, I produce the phrase and encourage the kids to repeat.
What do you think? This is the stage for the students to personalise and to express opinion. Usually this is done through a very simple question of ‘Do you like the story?’ or ‘What’s your favourite…?’ In this particular story, we asked ‘Do you like the story?’ ‘Is it a happy story or a sad story?’ ‘Is it a beautiful flower?’
The finished product
Post-Story
Look at my picture: I show the kids the final product and we try to retell the story once again, in its simplified version, this time focusing on the structures that the kids can reproduce: The little seed is sleeping. It is raining. It is sunny. The little seed is growing and growing. Look, it’s a beautiful flower.
Craft: I give out the cards and we create the pictures with kids, while retelling the story. I create another picture, step by step, to model the activity for the kids. This stage took about 10 minutes. I was considering adding the butterfly and the bee but decided that it would take too much time and that is why they do not feature in the picture.
‘The little seed is sleeping’, I give out a small blob of white plasticine, I stick it ‘underground’, ‘Stick and press’
‘It is sunny’, I give out yellow markers. We draw the sun in one corner. We repeat the key phrase as we draw. The kids who have finished drawing can also use the gestures for ‘It is sunny’. I collect the markers.
‘It is raining’, I give out blue markers. We draw the cloud and rain in the other corner. We repeat the key phrase as we draw. We use the gesture for ‘It is raining’. I collect the markers.
‘The little seed is growing, growing and growing’. I give out a piece of green plasticine. We kneed it and roll it to create a string. ‘Let’s roll and make one piece of spaghetti’. We stick it to the picture, as the stem of the flower. ‘Stick and press’.
I give out two pieces of green plasticine, we make two blobs and attach them as leaves. ‘One leaf, two leaves’. ‘Stick and press’.
‘Look, it’s a beautiful flower!’ I give out two big pieces of blue and red plasticine. ‘We need three red pieces’ ‘Let’s make the flower’ ‘Stick and press’. ‘We need three blue pieces’ ‘Let’s make the flower’ ‘Stick and press’
3. Let’s tell the story: We show the pictures and go through the story again. The kids are now better able to tell and show the story.
4. Homework: Kids listen to the audio at home with parents, while looking at the pictures in their books. They complete the task in the book by sticking stickers in the gaps.
5. Follow-up: In the following lesson, we are going to retell the story again. I am also planning to start our own classroom garden with some flowers and beans, water them and watch how they grow.
This lesson plan is, of course, one of the many many ways of using this material and teaching this lesson. Enjoy!
From a seed to a flower here – a lovely video that I used when I was teaching Maths and Science to pre-schoolers in one of the lessons devoted to plants but it can be used as a follow-up activity in the story lesson.
How plants grow – an interactive gamethat demonstrates how much water and warmth a plant needs to grow. On the one hand, it is kind of cool and very informative, on the other, however, I could not apply the water and warm fast enough and ended up killing the plant. It made me sad (yeah, really) so, eventually, I decided not to use it in class, either.
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…
