#eflideas

A balancing act. Non-competitive EFL games for kids

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It happened way too many times…

Here is a situation that I witnessed many times during an observed lesson with young learners: a teacher and a group of kids start playing a game, for example riddles. The teacher models, then the kids take over. One student sits in front of everyone, chooses a card for the other students to guess or to identify. Kids start shouting out words, one of them gets it and the teacher takes the flashcard and hands it over to the student who shouted the correct word. The game goes on and it takes about three rounds more for one of the students to get offended / upset / angry / sad about not winning. More often or not, someone starts crying. Oups.

It is not only about losing, although, to be honest, this is a serious problem, too. Here, however, the ‘failure‘ of some kids is clearly visualised with a flashcard. Frequently, it is also very unfair because it is the faster and louder kids that get the point and these are not necessarily the kids who really know the answer. Also, there is another dilemma in a situation when two students shout out the correct answer at exactly the same point. Will the teacher tear the card into halves? No, of course not. Sigh.

That issue, frequent as it was, was always addressed during the feedback session and I am pretty sure every session on games for VYL and YL included the commandment compressed down to ‘Don’t use flashcards as reward points’. This was the bread and butter of a trainer / VYL ados.

My real shock to the system was an invitation to volunteer at Sheredar, our rehabilitation camp for children who went through serious diseases a few years back. I had a chance to go there a few times and teaching kids was an amazing experience. However, before I went, our contact and coordinator, Ksenia, said: ‘They will be one big mixed ability group but you can choose any topic you want. Actually, do whatever, just don’t play any competitive games. These kids have fought enough’. It took me about a minute to understand that I have no games to play. All my favourite activities, those that I frequently used in my lessons, with kids, juniors and teens, all of those favourite ones were competitive. ALL OF THEM.

Should kids even be playing competitive games?

I have been looking for sources on competition in the EFL classroom and I have found…nothing. I started to look around for any texts on kids and competition and it turns out that getting engaged in competitive activities such as sports, for example, can be very beneficial for children.

  • competitive activities can be motivating and encourage kids to improve their skills
  • playing and losing and winning helps children to learn how to deal with competition and with the fear of losing
  • they are also an opportunity to learn how to deal with pressure and how to win and how to lose
  • they are good for building self-confidence
  • they teach kids about the existence of the rules that need to be obeyed
  • they can help form friendships and relationships, with peers and adults
  • and, also, even if they are sports, they can lead to improving academic performance in children

Although, of course, they can also have some drawbacks, such as too much pressure, negative feelings in children and for their self-esteem.

On the whole, competition is a good thing, although it is not a given that all the children take to it naturally. Some of them might struggle, which is natural, bearing in mind that not all the adults have learnt to deal with it successfully, and they should be given help and support.

EFL and competition

As regards our EFL classes, especially those with the younger learners, primary and pre-primary, it would be just reasonable not to abandon all the competitive games althogether but to keep an eye on the balance and on avoiding a situation when all the games and activities that comprise a lesson have promote competition. Apart from competition, there are the other beautiful C-words such as: cooperation, colaboration, cognitive skills development that can and should be the foundations for our classroom life.

Not to mention that everything that we do in our lessons, namely learning a language, is against the very idea of competition. All the kids learn for themselves and although they have the same linguistic aims, their overall results or results in certain areas of language learning do not depend on the results of the other participants. What is more, their progress is measured against their previous results and achievement, although, admittedly, the situation is slightly different when it comes to learning a langauge in the context of a state school where kids’ progress is graded at every step of the way.

Things to consider

The most important thing to remember seems to be the fact that we, as teachers, should not take things for granted and assume that all the kids in our group like competition and competitive activities and that all of them are equally prepared to win and lose with grace.

The other factor to take into consideration is the age of the students. The younger the students, the less likely it is that they have already had a chance to participate in those kind of activities and acquire these skills and that they have enough life experience to be mature about it. It is a combination of their age, cognitive and social development as well as life circumstances such as having a chance to attend kindergarten, playing at home with parents and relatives, having older siblings and so on.

Equally important is the bond between the students. A group of children starting to learn together in September is a completely from the same group in January or even in October, especially in the context of after school groups or afternoon language schools where children might land in a group of complete strangers with whom the only thing they have in common is the age and the level of English, not the family ties, the address or the school. The more they get to know each other, the more they bond, the easier it will be for the teacher to set up activities, including competitive games, and for the kids to handle ‘failure‘. After all, it is easier to lose and get over it when you play with friends.

What it comes down to in real life, with real children, is keeping an eye on the kids, checking how they react to different stimuli and then introducing some competitive games, carefully, step by step. However, with my youngest students, this non-competitive period may span over the entire length of the pre-school EFL. With the most recent group, we started to play only half-way through our third year together and even then it was the whole group vs the teacher (who always lost).

Every little helps

Here are some of the tricks and techniques that a teacher can use in the classroom while introducing competitive games or taming of the competitive games we often include in our lessons (tired and tested):

  • Playing the familiar games such as riddles or pelmanism in a less competitive way. First of all, we do not award points for the boardrush OR we award points to both teams for competing the task, not only to the team who is faster (especially that with boardrush at least it is sometimes very tricky to establish who really was the first one to touch the board). Points here can be pluses or hearts on the board or flashcards given out to the winner in a particular round. Instead, we finish the round, the praise everyone and we simply move on. The game itself (the fun of participating, the language produced or used) is the reward itself.
  • We do not determine the order of participation based on the successful participation, for example in riddles, when the student who guesses the word is the next one to play. Instead, all students take turns, one by one to make a riddle for the whole class, regardless of how good they are at guessing.
  • Playing ‘Simon Says’ without excluding the losers by asking them to sit down after they make a mistake, especially that a growing number of non-participating students is very bad for the overall classroom and behaviour management. Or, in the same way, playing the Treasure Hunt without establishing who the winner is. We all look for clues around the classroom or the school, we all participate for ten minutes and in the end all check our answers, without counting the points or the number of the elements or stages completed.
  • With pelmanism, instead of playing 1-1, with kids uncovering two cards at a time, the whole group can do it in pairs, with two kids always participating, ideally in different combinations. As soon as a pair is found, the teacher and the kids cheer for everyone, and the cards are put aside or given back to the teacher.
  • Play the game in the format of the teacher vs the whole group, to create the support for the individual child. If they win or if they lose, they will do it together, with all their friends, nobody will be singled out. Ideally, in such a situation, the teacher loses and has a chance to model the mature behaviour and how ‘a failure’ can be handled, but, of course, bending the rules in order to ensure that might not always be easy to do. If you are looking for ideas, I would recommend pelmanism. It is very easy to get distracted and to forget (or ‘to forget’) where the other card from the pair is located.
  • Any game can be played in teams, a team vs a team, instead of individuals competing with each other. This way, again, the support, the safety net or the safety blanket is created. Enjoying the victory or handing the loss is easier with your team. Even if there is one child who does not handle ‘the failure’ very well, there will be other children in this situation, too. They will serve as role models.
  • Having the teacher participate, as one of the teams, can also help soften the blow of the defeat. Again, the teacher will be the one to model the langauge use, the game rules application and the player’s behaviour, too.
  • If possible, talk to the parents whose children struggle with controlling their emotions while losing the game. If nothing else, it would be great to find out whether there have been any factors that could have played a part, whether the child reacts this way in other situations and to simply inform them what happened in class. Perhaps parents will be willing to discuss this topic at home, to reinforce what the teacher does at school and, perhaps, to also play games at home, to help the child tame that beast.
  • In one of the posts (see bibliography), I found another great tip. What is necessary is a quick game that can be played a few times, in a quick succession, in the same lesson. Some of these will be won, some will be lost, but the quick pace and the repetition will make either of the results, the victory or the defeat, not so relevant anymore and easier to deal with and to even forget.
  • Another approach that I have been using in some of my summer camp groups was the Points Poster that we used throughout the entire camp. It was very simple, only an A3 piece of paper, with the team’s name, displayed on the wall. Every time we played a competitive game, there were points, for example two or three stickers for the winners, a star for everyone else. All the kids took very well to it because winning the stickers was great but the joy lasted a brief moment only and very quickly the stickers won today would quickly get lost among all the other stickers won on all the other days. The defeat, on the other hand, was perhaps not the most pleasant thing in the world but it didn’t matter much because the students knew that they would be another game on the same or on the following day. What is more, because I was using some leftover stickers, of all kinds, sometimes it was more fun to choose one huge sticker for your team rather then three little ones…
  • Finishing each game with the teacher and the kids thanking each other for the game, with a simple handshake and ‘Good game‘, just like all the football or volleyball players do at the end of the match.
  • Any activity that can work towards bonding and building a community is also welcome
  • If there is the students who struggle with dealing with their own emotions while playing games, I have so far tried two things. One of them was pairing this student up with myself, in 1-1 games, in order to be better able to model, to monitor and to help the child control their emotions during the game. I have also experimented with pairing up with this child in the games that we played in teams because, again, losing (or winning) in one team with the teacher was easier to deal with.

Non-competitive EFL games

First, an anecdote. The heading of this paragraph is what I put into my google. Would you like to guess what the amazing Uncle Google came up with? Nothing.

‘Fun games’ – yes, ‘no prep games’ – yes, ‘exciting games’ – yes, sure. There was one post from the British Council (see bibliography) but not many of them are appropriate for kids and not many are actual games. And one article about an activity that still has winners and losers…Nada, nada, nada.

Here are some suggestions from the non-competitive games that I have played

  • Musical flashcards: a simple movement game, an adaptation of the musical chairs game, only without any kids dropping out. The teacher puts out all the relevant flashcards on the floor, kids move around with some music playing. When it stops, every child picks up a card and makes a sentence for example: I like bananas (topic: food), I haven’t got a cat (topic: food), I am wearing a blue t-shirt (topic: clothes) etc. Afterwards, the flashcards go back onto the floor, the teacher puts the music on for another round of the game.
  • All the logical games such as Find the difference (for example those that we have in the YLE Movers and Flyers) or Odd one out (for example YLE Movers) that can be easily adapted to any topic. A similar activity will be also based on the silly picture scenes that I described in an earlier post here.
  • I Spy: a variation of the game with a set of visuals such as a poster or an illustration from the coursebook. Kids work together as a group (in the early stages) or in pairs, they describe something in the picture, with the relevant sentences, depending on the age and level (I spy with my little eye something. It is big, it is green. It is next to the cat. etc). The student or the students who listen find the relevant object. This game is not competitive because there are no winners / losers and the game goes on until the child / children guess. As the game proceeds, the kids can offer more information and support to help their partner, for example the first letter / sound, the gestures etc.
  • Riddles: the same principle and procedure as above but it can be played with flashcards or a set of word cards or a set of words prepared by the kids.
  • Back to the board: it is a very popular game that can easily be played in a non-competitive way and this way it can go help build and develop a sense of community and give the whole group a chance to work together. One of the students sits on a chair in the centre, facing the group. The teacher writes a word or a simple sentence on the board and signals how many words it includes. The group work together to help the one student guess and recreate the word on the board. With the lower level kids, flashcards can be used instead of words although using simple sentences works wonders for the students to learn and to work better with the grammar, the sentence structure and, progressively, with the meta language.
  • Monster game aka Hangman aka Let’s save the little human: I love playing Monster Game with the lower levels because it helps the students work with literacy, spelling and blending and we always play it as a whole group with all the students contributing and working together to guess the letters and the words and to help the little human who is slowly losing parts of the ladder, the boat or the hotair balloon. To make the game less cruel, the element of getting points can be added (i.e. when the kids guess a part of the word or when they guess the most common letter or when they get all the vowels etc) and with my summer camp group the game finished with the kids drawing some food for the hungry monster because they developed empathy for someone hungry, even though it was a monster.
  • Telephone: this game is a variation of something known as ‘Whispers’, with the whole group sitting together and passing a word or a simple phrase, from the end to the beginning of the chain. This is not a very generative game or a very communicative one but it helps the kids work together towards one goal and it is easy enough even for the youngest kids.
  • Stations in the classroom: this is not really an activity but a format of completing tasks with kids. The teacher sets up a few stations in the classrom, for example in the four corners of the room. Kids move from one station to the other and complete the task such as unscrambling words, completing a simple handout, matching words and pictures, playing a round of pelmanims and many more. Kids complete a few tasks during the lesson and their job is done when they complete a full circle but they do not compete with everyone else in the group. It is up to the teacher to decide when then task is done and they can move on and in this way, even the ‘weaker’ students can play and participate without any pressure from the group.
  • Community building games: on of the 30 Creative Team Building Activities. I haven’t tried these yet but these definitely caught my eye: Cross the Line (22), Paper Chain Race (30), Shrinking Classroom (18), Building a tower (6 and 10). Or 22 Fun Team Building Games and Activities for Kids. Here I really liked: Forehead Dots (4), Some of them have the ‘choose the best / fastest team’ element which works to some extent as it helps the kids to bond within their team but I would still skip this element altogether.
  • Last but not least, among the things that has been on my wishlist of the things to try out in the classroom is the parachute and all the parachute games. Some ideas can be found here.

Coda

But, perhaps, the situation is a little bit better than it seems. While working on this post, I asked my audience on the social media about their opinion and I was very happy to find that those who responded use a mix of competitive and non-competitive games. At the same time, the teachers admitted that they have to deal with the competition-related stress in the EFL classroom, although not all the time and ‘some games, some days, some kids’ was the most popular answer.

What about you, dear reader? Do you play any non-competitive games with your YL students?

If you are interested in the topic (and a subscribed reader of the Modern English teacher), I do recommend reading my article from Nov – Dec 2024 that is the continuation of that post. You can find it here.

Happy teaching!

Bibliography

Teaching children to lose gracefully so they can lose with dignity as adults (oregonstate.edu)

Pros and Cons of Competition Among Kids and Teens (verywellfamily.com)

The pros and cons of competition | BabyCenter

How To Teach Children To Cope With Losing | Casa de Corazón (casaearlylearning.com)

6 Tips for Teaching Children How to Lose — Better Kids

australiansportscamps.com.au/blog/benefits-children-playing-competitive-sports/#:~:text=Competition Can Improve your Child%27s,high school and tertiary studies.

Six collaborative games for competitive English language classrooms | British Council

ETF 57/3 pg14-23 (ed.gov)

Problems with Games in ESL/EFL Classrooms (and Solutions) – BINGOBONGO (bingobongokids.com)

P.S. A request!

It is very simple.

I would like to know a tiny little bit more about my readers. There are so many of you, popping in here, again and again, and the numbers of visitors and visits are going up and make my heart sweel with joy. But I realised I don’t know anything about my readers and I would love to know, a tiny little bit more.

Hence the survey.

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

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Stone drawings #5

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

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

Here is why:

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

Happy teaching!

Crumbs #61 How to make a shaker

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Ingredients

  • A4 pieces of cardboard, one per child. I have used just regular craft cardboard, sold in sets. I had the colourful one but I needed the back side of it, in order to decorate it so white carboard will be even better.
  • Glue, to be used before the lesson
  • Markers to decorate
  • Scotch and scissors or a very good stapler
  • Something to put inside, for example buckwheat (raw).

Procedures

  • Partially, the materials had to be prepared before the lesson. I folded and glued the A4 pieces of cardboard into envelopes a few hours before the lesson, to give them a chance to dry completely. Each cardboard sheet was folded into three and glue was applied along the shorter edge.
  • One model shaker was also prepared before the lesson and then presented in class. We learned the word and we passed it around for all the kids to touch it and to try to use it.
  • The envelopes templates were given out, we wrote our names on them and we took about 5 minutes to decorate them.
  • I set up the assembly table with all the other resources and as soon as the kids were ready, they were coming up one by one to the teacher to finish the shaker.
  • The final stages completed by the teacher went as follows: 1. close one end of the envelope with three layers of scotch. 2. fill the envelope with buckwheat, to about 1/3 of the envelope 3. fold the other edge of the envelope and close it with three layers of scotch 4. try it with the kid
  • The most important part was our attempt to use the shakers. We tried out two activities. The first one was a simple Listen and Repeat with different rhythms ‘dictated’ by the teacher and, possibly, also by the children. The other one was singing of a song that we all know very well with the instruments. We chose ‘If you happy and you know it’ by Super Simple Songs. For one song we all became an orchestra and we agreed to shake twice (after the words ‘clap your hands’ because, indeed, there are two claps) and once (on the words ‘clap your hands’ because, again, there is one clap there). The same patterned followed in the other verses, with stomping, oh no and take a nap.

Why we like it

  • First and foremost, I am excitingly happy with the design of this shaker which I came up with myself. The topic of the lesson was Music and one of the activities suggested was making some easy intruments. There are lots and lots of amazing designs that I found on Zing Instruments’ website and I want to make so many of them but, last week was very busy and I simply had no time to collect plastic bottles or to ask parents to give their kids one. I did not want to use plastic cups because I did not have the right kind of glue and I have always had some reservations about collecting toilet rolls that frequently feature in these activities. I spent the whole evening breaking my head over that dilemma, getting angry by the minute because the ideas were not coming. Until I finally gave up and went to sleep. My last conscious thought that day was the answer to my question. This design works. The materials are easy to get, the task is feasible for everyone and it has a universal appeal, too. All my kids were equally excited and involved in the task, the one aged 4 and the one aged 10.
  • I was a bit dubious about the durability of the shaker but it did last a whole full day of extensive use. We made it in the first lesson of the day but the kids were carrying around and using it throughout the entire day. I cannot guarantee, of course, how many days they would last afterwards but, even if they break later on, they can be easily fixed with a piece of scotch and some buckwheat or remade and although I do not wish it on my educational parents, the worst case scenario will not be a real disaster. The raw buckwheat can be easily cleaned up and I don’t imagine, kids would want to eat it, because it is just not tasty or pleasant to eat.
  • The cardboard envelope was very easy to decorate, easier than a roll or a plastic cup and we could use regular markers instead of all the other materials featuring on the designs I found on the website, such as the painter’s scotch, decorative scotch, permanent markers or acrylic paints. The kids could draw anything they wanted, either very simple patterns such as stars or hearts or something that was very special to them, for example a blue whale, a white tiger or a skyscraper.
  • As I have already mentioned above, the shakers became the real treasures almost instantly, to all the kids. ‘Are we going to take them home?’ was, naturally, one of the questions that every single child asked while we were producing them, just to make sure. And yes, we did take them home but the kids agreed for me to take a photo of all the beautiful shakers. Mine does not even feature in the photos, it was definitely the least interesting:-)
  • The finished product helped us in developing social skills. In the final stages of the lesson we became an orchestra and we worked on doing something together, listening to the teacher to repeat the rhythm and, even more importantly, listening to the song and shaking our shakers to the rhythm of the song. This particular group really really needed this kind of an exercise and I was very happy that we managed to become an orchestra for a few minutes. If it had been my regular, long-term group, I would produce some of these shakers to keep in the classroom and to repeat this kind of an exercise more regularly.
  • I was a little bit worried about me having to deal with sealing the envelopes but I could not delegate this task to kids as it is quite tricky, for any young learner hands. However, because there were only five children present and of different ages and of different levels of interest in drawing, it all came together. My youngest Sasha completed the task of decoration first and his shaker was the first ready. But then, having had a look at what everyone else created, he went back to his table to add some elements and afterwards he started to play with the shaker. A similar thing happened to all the other students and there was no dead time. However, if we make the shakers again, I will start playing our favourite songs during the time when we all decorate our shakers. This way the kids can start using the shakers with the music as soon as they ready. And, even if they are still working, they can still sing along.

Happy teaching!

Dear Diary…My favourite activities from this year’s summer camp

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Here is a most random post of a kind that I have never tried to get involved in: one long, constantly updated, written-throughout-the-entire-summer post, with all the fun things I did in class. A kind of a Summer 2023 Diary.

A little bit of a background: this summer I am teaching at a non-residential summer camp, for primary school children that has a special curriculum and a set of materials that were prepared by the educational management team at my school. Naturally, we, the teachers, are allowed to adapt and supplement these and, naturally, I am doing a lot of that. Here are my favourite bits so far.

I really like to swim

This is a small case study in the theme of ‘How to use a song effectively to teach vocabulary and to practise a grammar structure’ and I am very happy to share it here. Here is to hoping that the framework and the pattern can be adapted and re-used with other songs.

The song that we used was the amazing Milo and ‘I like you’ from Super Simple Songs. I love this song not only because of Milo but also because it includes a long beautiful list of verbs (hobbies and activities) that, as a result of the song, become a part of the kids’ vocabulary.

We started with the vocabulay introduction, with the teacher and kids miming, drilling the verbs and the structure (I like to read books) and playing Mime&Guess, with the teacher leading the game. I didn’t have flashcards to represent all the verbs that feature in the song so I prepared a set of my own mini-flashcards. Afterwards, we worked in pairs and the kids were miming the verbs for their partner to guess, each pair with their own set of cards. This way, the kids got a chance to get ready for the song itself. We listened to it and watched the video. At this point, I was singing but I didn’t push the kids to do so. I wanted them just to watch it and to enjoy it.

The following step was a proper pairwork. Each student got their copy of the handout and they were instructed to mark the activities they liked and didn’t like with pluses and minues. When this step was ready, we paired up, compared our lists and reacted (Student A: ‘I like to count stars’, Student B: ‘Me, too / I don’t’). This was something that we had already done in our lessons so it all went quite smoothly, including re-grouping. With six kids in that group, every student had a chance to talk to three different students.

At the very end of the lesson, we played the song again and, this time, I tried to encourage the kids to sing. Today, when I am writing this post, we have had only one lesson with this song and I am convinced the next time we meet in class, the response to this song will be even more active and productive.

Elephant

This is not a new idea. I have created this activity for my English and Art classes, again, with my pre-school students. However, the interaction of salt, water and paint is interesting in itself and it has a lot of potential for the older kids, as a science experiment and it was a part of a lesson with three experiments (together with the other two mentioned here, static electricity and the rainbow Skittles / M&Ms).

We went on with the drawing just like we did with the younger students, but the version for the older students included the following: learning the names of all the ingredients involved, trying to predict what we will do and what will happen (‘We will…’, ‘It will…’), describing the experiment while it was happening (Present Continous) and assessing it afterwards and grading it on a scale from 1 – 10.

Sugar Rainbow

No matter how old they are, the kids and the adults are simply in awe when they see the rainbow in a plate. Even if they have done this experiment before. Even if they are teachers. Speaking from experience here.

This is a very well-known experiment and you can find all the details here. I have used it so far in a lesson with my super advanced primary school kids to introduce and to practise the zero conditional. This time, since it is camp, we used it as a proper science experiment. The younger levels focused on the colours, the older and the more advanced ones could predict and assess and talk about the sugar dissolving fast and slow in the hot and cold water.

My little monster

I really love the folding surprise drawings and I have used them a few times in class already, although so far it has been done mostly with pre-schoolers and the follow-up activities involved a simple presentation, saying hello and a few Q&A, depending on the structure that we were practising at the time. It was an interesting experience to try to bring into the classroom with the older and the more advanced kids.

First of all, I decided to make it more creative and instead of a drawing dictation, with all the kids following the teacher and ending up with the same puppy or kitten, we all went our ways and created the monsters we wanted. One group used the collage technique using old newspapers and markers, the other opted for creating their own drawings and, indeed, in a short period of time they were actually able to draw their own beautiful monsters.

Second of all, I wanted a lot of language to come out of it. For that reason, as soon as the monsters were were, we sat in pairs and talked about them. The lower level group focused on describing the monster using the same structure (‘My monster has got…’), in a few rounds with different partners. The more advanced group had a set of questions starters (‘Has your monster got…?’, ‘Is your monster…?’, ‘Can your monster….?’ and ‘Does your monster like….?’) and they were able to keep up the conversation for a while themselves. The only requirement from the teacher, apart from the sentence starters, was to ask 20 questions.

Storybird

Storybird is a wonderful tool to develop kids’ imagination and the love for telling stories. You have to subscribe to be able to use it extensively but if you do, you get the access to a multitude of stories written by other users and their students and, even better, the access to a multitude of illustrations by budding artists which you can use in your stories. There is also an option of the trial period so you can start playing with everything that the website has to offer without investing and then you can make a decision whether you really like it or not. As for me, I haven’t even managed to go over everything that it has to offer but I am going to tell you about the one feature that I have used many times in my classes and why I love it.

We use Storybird to encourage the kids to express themselves more freely, in writing, without the hassle of actually having to write or type, during this delicate period when the students already have something to say but they do not yet have the fluency in writing, holding the pen, typing up or, in case of some my students, they do not write in English at all because they are still in pre-school. With the use of Storybird, I select the pictures and then kids talk and the teacher (yours truly here) is their secretary with quite a reasonable WPM (word per minute) numbers.

So far, I have used it in four different formats

  • The oldest learners, in a group of 1-1s: a set of thematic pictures, with the same characters, that we look at, figure out the story, order and then tell the story, slide by slide. This can be done at any point during the course.
  • Any group of learners: a set of any pictures, as the Year Book, at the end of the academic year, with the students choosing a picture to represent themselves and they can include anything they want about themselves, as they would in a year book.
  • The younger learners in a group: a set of thematic pictures for example toys or animals in which a student chooses one for themselves and then talks about it, using a set of structures, depending on their levels and skills. Students take turns to talk to the teacher and there is also a need for a task that all the kids will be doing alongside such as a colouring page or a wordsearch
  • The younger learners 1-1: a set of thematic pictures, for example toys or animals, with a student choosing 5 or 6 or how many of their favourite and they talk about every single one of them while the teacher is typing up.

Kids talk, either producing a discourse or a narrative with dialogues, the teacher types it all up, we publish it privately, we read it together, with either the students or the teacher reading the text and then, and this is definitely the best part, the book can be pdf-ed and downloaded and shared with everyone. There are even two modes for that: a simple e-book or a craft-version, for the kids to print it and assemble it into a real book which they can later read together with their parents.

If you are curious about the final product have a look at these stories we created together with my online and offline students: The Ballerina Cat and Her Friends, Our Toys and The Circus Story.

The only thing that I have a love-hate relationship with on Storybird is that since it was not created for the EFL teachers per se, it has a huge range of illustrations sets but in a rather random order. It gives me a lot of joy to be going over them and admiring the artword BUT it is time-consuming and you can use only the illustrations of one author in a book, without the options to collate different pictures. On the plus side, there are so many different styles and approaches represented that it can be used to teach Art, too. And, once you have found your favourite bits, you can reuse them with different groups.

Apparently, the best transport in the world…

The best transport in the world

This type of a speaking activity can be adapted to any set of vocabulary. We did it with transport because that was the theme of the day but I have already tried it with animals (‘The best animal in the world’), professions (‘The best job in the world’) and cities and countries (‘The best place in the world’), with different age groups and levels. This week’s camp group were kids aged 8 and 9 who are somewhere in the A1 level, mixed ability.

Before we started the game, I introduced the question (‘Which one is better?’) and a few comparatives to use while describing different means of transport (faster, slower, louder, quieter, more beautiful, more interesting, more expensive, more dangerous) and it is important to highlight that the students already knew all of these adjectives as we used them in some of the previous lessons of the course.

There is only one resource necessary and that is either a set of flashcards in a pile, a set of word cards or even a set of the electronic flashcards such as these, anything that guarantees that the words will be coming up at random.

The teacher or the students taking turns pick up two random cards and compare them, i.e. a boat a nd a bike, answering the question ‘Which one is better?’, they justify their answers and choose the one. Then we proceed to another random pair and so on, until we go through all the cards. The ‘winners’ or ‘the better ones’ in each pair are kept separately as they have qualified for round 2. The activity continues until there is one winner, the best transport in the world.

There are a few variations to the activity, for example, with bigger classes, the students can be divided into smaller groups and they can do the whole activity on their own, choosing their best trainsport. As the whole class feedback, the groups present their results or they can have the final of the finals. Another solution is diving the cards among the groups and having them run the qualifiers for the whole class debate to choose the winner. For the classes where the students don’t know each other very well or when they do not quite get on with the group, to avoid any kind of competition or peer pressure, the final stage can be replaced with choosing your Top Three, individually. Last but not least, there is the option of extending the activity into choosing the worst of the worst from among ‘the losers’. That is also a lot of fun.

transparent background toys clipart – Clip Art Library (clipart-library.com)

Colouring dictation

I am pretty sure I have already described this activity somewhere here because I have been using it successfully for ages but this summer I am revisiting it and with a lot of joy, too.

Preparing the activity is very simple as you need only a picture to colour with a copy for each student and a few sets of pencils, crayons or markers, one per pair. As for pictures, I usually use the YLE Cambridge Starters, Movers and Flyers listening materials (without the audio) or, even better, the black and white clip art. Googling ‘toys’ or ‘zoo animals’ or ‘clothes’ will give you a nice set of pictures. If there are some more complicated and less common words, I create my own pictures, also with the black and white clip art.

The more important aspect here is the setting up of the activity as its success (maximising production) will depend on it. I start with putting the students into pairs and assigning roles (‘a teacher’ and ‘a student’). Afterwards, I give out the copy and the pencils but only to the students as they will be the ones working hard.

The next step is modelling. In an ideal world the real teacher can do it with one of the stronger students, at the board: The teacher says ‘The rocket is green’ and the student colours the rocket green, then they continue with the other toys. ‘The teacher’ is the one making all the decisions, the student is listening and colouring. That’s the ideal world. I have had classes in which it was necessary to have a round of the teacher starting the activity in all the pairs, one by one and only later monitoring. It is not the most efficient as some pairs will be just waiting (and only possibly obsesrving) but it has been the most effective way of setting it up with new groups and students who have never worked in pairs before (yes, they do exist).

The students continue speaking, listening and colouring for some time and then they swap roles. They can continue colouring the same picture or the teacher can give out another set of copies. It is important to note that not all the items have to be coloured in. The roles swap can take place after 5 minutes, for example, depending on the group and the remaining items, toys, animals or clothes, can be coloured in later on. The kids can finish the picture in any way they want, without their partner’s instructions.

The best thing about this activity is that it can be done with even the lowest levels as the structure used is pretty simple but it gives everyone a chance to practise the key vocabulary and to listen and to speak. There is another way of extending it, in the feedback stage. Since all the kids will have a different picture, with different colours, they can share what they have either in a whole class feedback (Teacher: My giraffe is green and yellow. S1: My giraffe is pink. S2: My giraffe is yellow. etc) or, with another partner after they have been regrouped. A lot of production:-))

astronaut clipart – Clip Art Library (clipart-library.com)

My astronaut passport

This is the lesson that I designed while trying to come up with an activity that could become a fun project lesson, something else than just a poster or a role-play. It is not my original idea, I have come across these online but I needed something that would be feasible with a group of primary beginners.

The main idea of the project is a kind of a role-play in which one student interviews the other in the format of a test. Our days was space-themed and that is why the kids were taking a test for an astronaut, answering the questions about themselves and about their skills (‘Can you…?’) because this was our target language on the day. However, this can be adapted to many topics such as a test for a traveller / explorer, a test for an athlete, a test for a student of English and so on.

I was considering a few different set-ups for this activity but since my group was a mixed ability group, my two strongest students did a lot of interviewing, with the kids taking turns to come up to the table to answer the questions and to demonstrate their skills. In the end, they also interviewed each other. All the kids who completed the test, were getting their passports with a stamp and they could sit down to decorate and to colour them. In the end, we had a small awards ceremony, with the appropriate music and applause.

I was happy because everyone really did practise the language and the kids were very excited about completing the tests successfully. So excited, in fact, that during the follwing lessons, on seeing some templates in my hands, they would ask again and again whether we would be doing the passports again. If you are planning a similar lesson, you can find my template here.

Going shopping

There is a separate post describing this activity and the resources necessary. You can find it here.

Making instruments and making music

This activity and this lesson has also become a post. You can find it here

Monster bookmarks

Again, there is a separate post devoted to these beauties. You can find it here.

To be continued…

Happy Teaching!

5 times when a piece of paper made a difference (in the EFL classroom)

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The EFL classroom, just like the Mary Poppins’ bag, is full of the little pieces that to other people might be just random junk but to the teachers of young learners, they are the true gems and the amazing, life-saving fireworks. This post today includes only 5 of them, something old, something blue, something borrowed, something blue or, in the EFL words, something for production, something for games, something for classroom management…Because sharing is caring.

One: paper hearts

You need: a set of small colourful cardboard cards, which stand for ‘I like’ (the colour side) and ‘I don’t like’ (the side with a small cross).

You will need these to encourage the kids to start expressing opinions. The hearts are used as a symbolic representation of the structure when it is introduced, they are used in all the handouts, even with the youngest kids, but they really start working when the students can physically hold them and use them to react to express opinions by showing the appropriate side of the heart, depending on their opinion. First come the gestures and the symbols, then the language itself and then the hearts become unnecessary because the kids are ready to just talk about the things they like and those that they don’t. It works amazingly well with small groups and it works even better with the bigger groups because all the kids can talk at the same time and the teacher gets the immediate group feedback with all the hearts up into the air.

Two: Little random word cards

You need: a set of regular small cards with the key vocabulary from the unit. They can be handwritten or printed. For the younger kids these are replaced with a set of mini-flashcards, with the images and the text or only the images.

You can: use them in a variety of games to practise vocabulary such as: riddles (make a definition to guess the word), questions (ask a question with the word for your partner to answer), similar or different (taking two words at a time to look for similarities between them), categories (with students grouping the words in any way they want), random stories (telling stories with the words taken out of the pile in a random order) or testing each other (to check the meaning or spelling of certain words) or pelmanism if there are two sets of words per group or pair. Anything for more vocabulary practice and use.

Three: Faces

You need: a set of cardboard circles with emoticons for them. The disposable paper plates work amazingly well here, too.

You can use them during the hello circle to help the kids answer the question ‘How are you today?’ as they are allowed to manipulate the cards while talking to the teacher. We also use them all the time while telling stories to help illustrate all the emotions involved and while working with any visuals that accompany listening or reading activities in the coursebook. The emotion flashcards can also come in handy with different behaviour issues. Knowing the words such as ‘angry’, ‘sad’ or ‘ill’ can really come in handy in many class situations.

Four: Stars

You need: a set of cardboard stars, cut out of regular or, if you are really fancy, out of some colourful cardboard paper, and some blutack or magnets. In a super upgraded version these cardboard stars can have a piece of magnetic sheet glued to them (aka this is how we recycle the merch magnets given out at out local pizza place, cut them up and glue them to things we want to use on the board).

Why? These have become my go-to, clutching-at-straws solution to motivate my kids to speak more English in class at the point when my sweet primary kids grew up and became more talkative and they were more likely to choose their first language to chat away. The stars, given out demonstratively with an excited ‘Oh, what beautiful English!’ worked in two ways. On the one hand, they made them focused on using the target language, on the other hand, somehow, magically almost, it got them to use the target langaguage from the higher shelf. Once they got into the habit of communicating mostly in English, we could stop using the stars in every lesson.

Five: Names Cards

You need: a set of small cardboard rectangles, with each of the students’ names on them, one per card, possibly laminated, to make them year-long-lasting.

You can: use them for any pairwork or group forming activity without getting personal. The cards can be kept in a box or a bag and drawn out by the teacher to organise the kids in a fun way. Even more so, the students can be involved in the draft. This way the grouping and pairing will be the most impersonal, the most random and the most genuine ever. It might also make it easier for the students to accept the outcome, even if they end up working with the classmates whom they might not like very much. After all, it will be due to luck, good or bad, not due to some very arbitrary decision of the teacher.

Happy teaching!

Top 10 kids books to have in the classroom

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This is my number 1 storybook illustration ever. Marvin Wanted More by Joseph Theobald

This post came about as a result of conversations with some of my trainees and colleagues, most recently with Vera, and it inspired me to reflect on not necessarily on my favourite storybooks as this list would be much, much longer but on the list that I would start a storybook library from and the titles that I would buy first.

Making this list was not entirely pleasant because as soon as I got to number 10, I started to revise it as I was being flooded by the titles and the characters that also wanted to make it. It is quite likely that this list will be modified in the future.

Here we go then. The Very Personal List Of My Favourite Storybooks To Be Used In the EFL Classroom with some very short rationale and some interesting links.

  • Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle: It is a true classic and it is quite likely that your students, no matter how young, have already read it in their L1. It has a great character that we can relate to (I know I can) and it can be used to teach food, emotions (‘I am hungry’, ‘I am not feeling very well’), the life cycle of butterfly and, potentially, the seasons and weather, too. It can be combined with a treasure hunt in the garden and in the park and with a craft lesson.
  • Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell: This is a storybook that I know it by heart and I did use it in class a few times with only a box and a set of flashcards. It is a great resource to teach and to practise all the animal vocabulary but it is a great starting point to teaching adjectives, too. I used it to introduce the idea of a riddle which we later extended to make our own. It has been
  • Marvin Gets Angry by Joseph Theobald: I have a special place in my heart for Marvin and his antics. This book can help you to teach the basic emotions (happy, sad, agry, tired) and it is great in the first lessons, while establishing class routines and teaching kids how to behave but it also helps to accept that we all get angry sometimes and we need to find ways of dealing with. Other than stamping on the flowers, frightening the hens and biting the cow’s tail. It works for body parts, too.
  • Brown Bear by Bill Martin Jr and Eric Carl: It is a wonderful book for the first lessons with year 1 students because it has a repetitive text and it works very well with colours. It can be also used to teach ‘What can you see?’ ‘I can see / I see’ which is a good first functional phrase that will be used throughout the course.
  • Barry And the Scary Hairy Monster by Sue Hendra: It is not the first book of the series, but it is the first one I used and I fell in love with. It has a great plot with a fantastic surprise at the end and I normally use it in the beginning of the year 1 course, to practise emotions, colours and some simple questions such as ‘Where are you?’, ‘Who are you?’. It is great for involving kids through miming and counting. It also normalises the fact that we are all afraid and it helps the kids to deal with the fear.
  • Three Billy Goats Gruff (traditional): This is my favourite traditional story to be used in the EFL classes although the reasons for that are rather random. I started using it with my students only because I found it lying around and came up with ways of dealing with it. We use it to talk about emotions and food because all the goats offer some random food items to the troll trying to bail themselves out. At least they do in my rendition.
  • Where Is My Baby? by Julie Ashworth: Here is another book that I am very attached to emotionally. We have a history, you could say. Naturally, I know this one by heart, too. It has some repetitive language, it can be easily turned into a role-play with the whole class and it is a perfect resource for teaching and practising body parts and adjectives. I love the ending, too because it helps to teach the idea of tolerance. It can be combined with a craft lesson.
  • Zog by Julia Donaldson: I love Zog because it works well in the EFL classroom to teach body parts, health problems (‘What’s the matter?’) and ‘I can’, ‘I can’t’. Apart from that, it also has a great story that includes an underdog hero, a princess that does not care about castles and honours and who wants to do something real and a prince that learns that it is not necessary to fight with dragons, all the great ideas that can help teach kids develop and believe in themselves.
  • Don’t Eat the Teacher by Nick Ward: This books made it to my top ten because it includes aquatic animals and a shark as the main character and a lot of school vocabulary. It has got a funny plot and can be used to teach imperatives and the rules of classroom behaviour. It is one more book that I like to use in the beginning of the year. It can be used in the unit on animals or, specifically, on life aquatic and it can be combined with the Baby Shark song and craft, too.
  • Rhinos Don’t Eat Pancakes by Anna Kemp: This storybook might be a bit too challening for the youngest of students, in terms of concepts or vocabulary, but it is still an amazing resource. It has some potential to be used in lessons on colours, emotions, house vocabulary, animals, verbs and adjectives. It is a fantastic resource to start a conversation on the power of imagination and the relationship between the kids and the parents. I am also planning it to use it in my Art and English classes. This is also the storybook that I used with all the ages of students: from pre-school to my advanced teachers.

Those that almost made the list: Elmer by David McKee, Marvin Wanted More by Joseph Theobald, Pete the Cat by Eric Litwin, James Dean and Kimberly Dean, Hugless Douglass by David Melling, Dinosaurs in the supermarket by Timothy Knapman and Sarah Warburton, Perfectly Norman by Tom Percival, The Colour Monster by Anna Llenas, The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalk and Oliver Jeffers, Lost and Found by Oliver Jeffers and many many more…

Happy teaching!

Some interesting links:

Crumbs #59 Hello Elephant!

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Ingredients

  • One piece of A4 paper per child. It can be the regular photocopying paper or a sheet of the drawing paper, of regular texture, from a drawing album that kids use at school.
  • Markers or pencils, scissors and glue.
  • My elephant was inspired by the design I found at Creative Family Fun website, which I adapted to the needs to my group.

Procedures

  • Show the kids the finished product. I do not always do it but in case of this craft it seemed important to help the kids see the final product and to visualise how they are going to proceed during the entire activity.
  • Check that everyone has all the materials by going through the list, picking the items up and showing them to the camera, asking ‘Have you got…?’
  • Fold the A4 paper into halves, crosswise. Open the paper and draw the line in / along the fold. Cut into two.
  • Put one of these halves aside. It will be used later for the trunk and the ears.
  • Take the other piece of paper, hold it lengthways (with the longer edge on the top), draw a line along one of the shorter edges
  • Closer to the top edge draw two eyes. It might be a good time to decide if the elephant is a boy or a girl and add eyelashes and / or a bow on the forehead.
  • Open the glue and apply some glue along the line that has just been drawn along one of the shorter edges. Roll and glue into a tube. Put it on the side.
  • Take the other piece of paper. Draw a circle. Cut it out. It is ok if it is not a perfect circle.
  • Fold the circle into half and draw the line in / along the fold. Cut into two semi-circles.
  • Draw the line along the diameter of the circle, on both semi-circles.
  • Apply the glue on the line, on one of the semi-circle and attach it to the side of the head of the elephant. Press. It might be a good idea to show the kids how to press it here – with the fingers inside the tube and the fingers outside of it.
  • Repeat with the other one.
  • Prepare the strip of paper that will be used as the trunk. It will be glued under the eyes and it might be a good idea to check its length and perhaps cut off a bit.
  • Roll one of the ends of the strip around a marker or a pencil. It will twist it a little bit and it will make it look a little bit more like a trunk. Apply the glue under the eyes of the elephant, attach the top of the trunk and press.

Why we like it

  • This is a relatively easy craft that can be completed by children online, although I would not choose this particular activity as the first craft of the year. However, it is appropriate for five-year-old children, half-way through the academic year or the children who have taken part in some craft activities before.
  • It is a simplified version of the original craft and it requires less preparation on the part of the teacher. It was ‘designed’ and tested with regular A4 photocopying or drawing paper, without any real templates or special resources such as the cardboard tubes and goggly eyes.
  • If the students are younger, the teacher might choose to cut up the paper before the lesson (one big rectangle for the body, one small rectangle for the trunk and a circle for the ears).
  • It is an online-friendly activity.
  • The finished product can be easily used as a puppet (if it is put on the two or three fingers of a hand). One of my students also turned it into a bracelet, only because she chose to use a bigger square and, in the end, it was big enough to be worn on the wrist. As such, it can be used in simple role-plays.
  • It definitely has the WOW element and kids get very excited to be able to make a real toy out of a piece of paper.
  • It can be used to accompany a story, for example ‘Elmer’ or ‘Dear Zoo’ as one of the animals.
  • Our elephants were very simple and white but they can be made colourful, very much in the theme of the elephant party we know from Elmer in which all the grey elephants ‘get dressed’ for the occasion. The teacher can use the colourful paper or the kids can decorate their squares before glueing them together into a tube. If there are some leftover stickers available, these can be used to decorate the elephants in the end.
  • We used the elephant as a part of our unit Animals in Art and English classes and apart from making the elephant we also looked and talked about different elephants created by Salvador Dali, Pablo Picasso and Henri Rousseau, among others.
  • We also had a lot of fun playing with the semi-circles. We used them as our mouse’s ears, cat’s ears, sunglasses, monkey’s ears and wings. ‘I am a butterfly’ as a lot of fun!

Happy teaching!

Craft #58 Baby shark craft

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Ingredients

  • One A4 piece of cardboard paper, ideally in colour but if that is not available, the while cardboard will do, too.
  • Markers, scissors, glue
  • Something to use as a template for a circle i.e. a small plate for the bigger circle and a small glass for the smaller circles
  • A link to inspire you. Mine came from supersimple.com, after some adaptations for our online classes.
  • A link to the song which this craft usually accompanies. This is my favourite rendition of the song.

Procedures

  • The teacher starts by demonstrating the finished product to facilitate the whole process. I do not use this kind of an approach but it might come in really handy with this particular craft activity.
  • The teacher and the class go over the all the resources necessary for the lesson. The teacher calls them out and shows them to the camera. The kids do the same.
  • The teacher demonstrates how to draw a big circle on the piece of cardboard. If the kids are ready, they can draw a circle themselves. If not, the teacher shows them how to draw around a plate. It is a good idea to use the paper economically, in order to ensure that there will be enough paper left for the small circles. The kids do the same and show their circles to the camera.
  • The teacher cuts out the circle. The kids follow suit.
  • We fold the circle into half and we draw the eyes and a smile at the front.
  • The teacher demonstrates how to draw two small circles (or how to circle the smaller object twice). Afterwards, these are cut out, too. They are folded into halves and cut into halves, too.
  • Two of these half-circles are used as fins. They are glued to the side of the shark. The teacher demonstrates that, step by step.
  • The third half-circle is to become the frontal dorsal fin. It is glued to the top of the shark, at the back.
  • The remining half a circle is cut into two pieces (in any way) and these are are the tail (or the caudal fin, what a pretty name!). Their ends are glued together to form something resembling the letter V and they are glued inside the folded circle.

Why we like it

  • It is a perfect craft to accompany the song or to be included as a part of the life aquatic-themed unit.
  • It is easy enough to make, even online. It works well in the offline classroom, too and the teacher can adapt it to the younger students by preparing the circles before the lesson or even by folding them beforehand.
  • Even if the circles are drawn by the kids themselves and they do not turn out perfect, the sharks will look good.
  • The sharks are 3D and are a lot of fun.
  • They can be used as a puppet and they can be used in role-plays.
  • The kids can decide if they make a baby shark or a mummy or daddy shark and they can decorate the sharks accordingly.

Happy teaching!

English on the carpet: The 5 milestones

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Writing one of the previous posts, on creating the curriculum for pre-schoolers, and I compared the pre-school EFL on the pre-A level to an ocean. It is huge, it is surprising and it is uncharted. It is!

At the same time, while travelling across it, to the first beacons of the A1 level, you can and you will come across those buoys that help you understand that yes, you are making progress and moving forward.

Today, I would like to look at these five important posts that we arrive at in our journey across the curriculum of the VYL English learning. Disclaimer: it is a very personal list and it might be getting extended, changed or removed with time.

One: We start producing sentences

All the learning in pre-school starts with single words, our first hello (although this is a proper sentence), our first blue, green, yellow and pink and our one, two, three, four, five. When that happens, it is Christmas, Easter and birthday put together. I love the start of the course and I spend these first few weeks in awe, observing how my little students venture out into a new territory and how they learn how to navigate it and how to enjoy it. Some of them run into it and embrace it from the word go, some of them are a bit apprehensive and they slowly warm up to it. I take a lot of pleasure in helping them do it and in supporting them on the way.

However, that is just the first step, something that needs to happen and something that the course needs to move on from, to the real first aim and that is: phrases and sentences! These can be very simple and their range might remain narrow for a long time, limited to ‘it is’, ‘I like’, ‘I can’, ‘I’ve got’ but they can be introduced, developed, practised and used from early on. Among all the contributing factors there are: the teacher creating the appropriate exposure by using full sentences while introducing and drilling new vocabulary (‘It’s a dog’, instead of ‘a dog’), introducing structures, supporting the use of the structures with gestures or visuals, encouraging the kids to use full sentences, introducing and using the functional language chunks.

Sooner or later, the kids will develop the habit of using full sentences and they will be doing it more frequently, although, of course, that does not mean that they will only use full sentences because, in their real, L1 life, kids also respond in single words sometimes!

Two: We start producing langauge spontaneously

Let’s imagine this moment: you have covered a few units or modules, your little students already have some vocabulary, they feel comfortable in the classroom and they have even started to use some simple structures. It is going well. The next step might be to focus on creating conditions that would favour some spontaneous language production in order to ensure that children communicate not only with the teacher and not only when prompted by the teacher but when they have something to say and something to share.

The activities that foster this freer communication include: letting children lead activities, setting up pairwork and allowing students communicate to other students, not only the teacher, showing children that the language can be played with and creating opportunities for that with, for example changing and creating own versions of stories or songs and, in general, being creative in English, for example our own version of ‘Do you like broccoli ice-cream?’, deciding what five questions thay may want to ask starting with ‘What’s your favourite…?’ or even by giving commands to the class during the Abracadabra game (‘Abracadabra, 1, 2, 3. You are…’). One of the most powerful questions that can be used in class is ‘Who’s got an idea?’ this way inviting students to take part in shaping up the games and, effectively, the lesson.

Three: We start using a variety of communication strategies

This is the one that I was unaware of for a very very long time and only during the first term of my MA programme, while going through piles of articles and publications in search of something that I might get interested in, I found the idea of communication strategies. This is a fascinating topic anyway, for me as a teacher and for me as a speaker of foreign languages but it turned out to be even more amazing because I decided to check whether my little students use any of those or, more specifically, any more than initially claimed, namely – do the little kids do something else than just refering to their first langauage. And yes, they do!

I still need to publish the outcomes of this research in any way but here I would like to highlight only all these instances of the pre-school students trying to deal with the communication breakdowns and in the way they do it because, in my opinion, it does show that kids become language learners and langauge users, taking control and trying to deal with the situation. The most common go-to solution is falling back on their L1 but there are many many more such as approximation (using a word that is similar enough and may do the job effectively), repeating, self-correction, using gestures to clarify. According to the findings of my small scale research done as part of the MA programme mentioned above (small scale as it was), even those very young beginner students are capable of using some of those strategies, showing that they are becoming aware of the learning process and their place in it.

Among the activities that can help foster and promote the use of communication strategies, there are the use of gesture as part of instructions and new language presentation and practice (to include some alternative, easier communication channels), using riddles in class (to get the kids used to describing objects) as well as modelling repetition or self-correction, to name a few.

Four: We start reading

A large part of the story in the EFL pre-school happens without any written word, unless you count the random words of instructions in the coursebook or the words at the back of some of the flashcards or the letters in the storybooks that we do not really pay any attention to in any active way. Many of the preschool EFL students are too young to start learning to read and write in English as the instruction can start as early as 3. What is more, the curriculum in some of the countries is organised in such a way that the literacy component is purposefully excluded from pre-school and the early years of primary in order to interfere with the literacy skills development in the kids’ L1 and not to overburden the students.

However, since the EFL world encompasses many countries and many teaching contexts and formats, there are out there the pre-primary that include some literacy skills development and there are some pre-school kids who start reading and writing in English.

In the context in which I am working at the moment (pre-primary EFL, 2 academic hours per week or 2 real hours a week), we start introducing some elements of literacy in the second year of the EFL instruction and / or when the kids are older than 5. The first steps involve: introduction of the alphabet, revising the vocabulary according to the alphabet / phonics, simple blending and the CVC words as well as some elements of the sight words and creating the written English exposure in the classroom.

Five: We start learning grammar

The pre-primary EFL world is a fascinating place to be and the element of grammar (or structure) in it is one more piece of evidence.

Traditionally, the pre-primary coursebooks focus on the introduction and practice of vocabulary and not structure. On the one hand, such an approach seems to be justified – the students are very young and the explicit grammar presentations are the last thing that they need or are able to deal with. On the other hand, however, learning a language is not about reproducing lists of words, organised thematically into colours, pets and fruit and ‘structure’ must be introduced in order to enable the kids to communicate in a natural way, even if only as the beginner learners.

It does not require any serious change of materials or any extensive supplementing because even if the coursebook itself does not include any structures, these can easily be added, practised and used. Naturally, the way in this is done needs to be different from the traditional explicit grammar presentation. Other methods have to be found and I have already written about my favourite in an article for the Modern English Teacher in May 2022. The article is only available if you have a subscription but MET recorded two related videos which have been made public and can be found on youtube. Make sure you check out one of the earlier posts here.

Coda

These are my five milestones in the pre-primary EFL world and, at the same time, my top 5 favourite moments to be a part of. There are no certain times or days schedules for them, they happen when the kids are ready

So far, there are five. If you have anything to add to that list, please do so in the comments section below!

Happy teaching!

Crumbs #57 Early reading: Secret words

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Ingredients

  • The most important thing is a set of words to represent each letter / sound of the alphabet. Some teachers like to use the set from a song to make it possible to use and reuse the same set of words and to help the students memorise and practise them in an easy way, in class and outside of class. One of these more popular songs is this one from Kids TV 123, Phonics Song 2. I use the song, too, although I created a different set of words for myself and for our teachers with b is boy, g is for girl etc. What is more, in our exercises we use a wider range, too, as an opportunity to revise all the words that the kids already know. Sometimes b is for boy and sometimes b is for banana, ball, blue or black.
  • The other thing that is necessary is a place to display the words. It can be a whiteboard, a noticeboard, a powerpoint or, as in the case of my online classes, a miro board. All the photos presented here are the screenshots from my miro board from the past two weeks.
  • Depending on the type of display, a different set of resources will be necessary. In the classroom, I simply draw and write on the whiteboard. As regards miro, I duplicate pictures and post-it notes. It would be possible to do the same using a set of specific flashcards and letter cards. In this case, the words could even be displayed on the carpet or on the table.

Procedures

  • The teacher chooses the word(s) for the lesson and prepares the visuals to represent them.
  • The pictures are drawn on the board or arranged on the miro board.
  • In class, the students, aided by the teacher, sound out all the pictures (‘What’s this?’ ‘Apple’ ‘Ok. Apple starts with …aaa or ooo’ ‘A’).
  • The teacher writes the letters as the kids call them out.
  • When all the letters of the words are on the board, the students try to read them as one word, supported by the teacher.

Why we like it

  • This game is introduced as a part of every lesson, as a starter or as a final game and normally two or three words are used.
  • We start playing the game only when the kids are familiar with all the letters / sounds of the alphabet and alongside the traditional phonics and sight words work, not instead of it. It is a way of encouraging kids to read the familiar words that might not and do not fall into all the patterns of the phonics system and which are not going to be as frequently used as the sight words.
  • In a way, it is a decoding activity that is made fun and achievable with the use of the familiar visuals and it has worked well as a transition from sounds to letters through an intermediary of the carefully chosen images, before we are ready to decode words using only letters.
  • Kids enjoy this activity and they quickly improve their skills. In our lesson yesterday, my student Sasha started to call out the sounds in the sequence of the pictures so fast that I could not catch up with typing the letters. Recently, we made even more progress. She just looked at a series of pictures and called out the hidden word out loud, not even bothering to wait for me. I guess that means that we are ready for the next step.
  • The next step and the development of the activity will be decoding secret words with a mix of letters and visuals before we finally move to reading only letters.
  • The choice of words used is up to the teacher. It makes sense to start with the easy, short words, the students’ names, the familiar cvc words or the frequently used words such as sight words or the functional words (‘Hello’, ‘Bye’, ‘Thank you’ etc). The decisions made here are in no connection with the phonics or the sight words that we currently work on. Most frequently, these represent some of the target vocabulary or the words that are interesting for the student (hence all the Frozen characters here).

Happy teaching!