Teaching English to Kids
…is the name of the series of great posts collected by Naomi Epstein in her blog. Naomi asked a great bunch of people about their Teaching During the Pandemic Experience and I had the pleasure of being one of these teachers. You can find my post here.
Don’t forget to check out her other posts, too! Highly recommended!
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!
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
It is quite likely that the next few posts to come will be (heavily) influenced by the very intense experience of tutoring on the IH CYLT course. I train up teachers throughout the whole academic year, in one way or another, but that particular course is as engaging and absorbing as it is demanding. And, naturally, inspiring. Hence this post.
First of all, we love our coursebooks. We love our authors. We love our publishers. We would never give up and teach completely without the coursebook because we appreciate the curriculum, the ready-made activities, the photographs, the audio and the ideas. And we are beyond happy to be able to have a coursebook from a recognised publisher who has been in the business for decades and who is putting a lot of effort into putting together a coursebook. We have worked without coursebooks (not fun), we have worked with horrendous coursebooks from aspiring local publishers/writers (not fun) and, having been in business for decades (oh dear), we have experienced the coursebooks of the 70s and 80s (not fun) and it is obvious the coursebooks have become better. Much better, in fact.
But.
My favourite metaphor
A hammer is a very useful thing, no doubt about that, but would any carpenter let the hammer decide what the table should look like? A knife is a wonderful tool, too, but no chef would be asking the knife for advice on how to cook a steak. Scissors, another amazing creation, but no hair stylist would let the scissors take the lead and make decisions about the haircut. They are all tools and what matters here is the human that manipulates them, a human who understands when the tools contribute to the aim that he or she has and then they don’t and have to be put away (fixed, sharpened, and so on, depending on which part of the metaphor you choose).
In the same vein, with all due respect and no offence meant, the coursebook cannot make the decisions about the lesson. It is a tool, a great tool but only a tool that has to be used wisely.
‘Easy for you to say. You don’t have to teach and you won’t be assessed…’
…is actually something that one of my trainees actually said during the lesson planning session when I suggested (yet again) to put the coursebook aside. On a few other occasions not a word was said but I caught a glance or two that did express the same thought. As if I was the meanest creature in the world, asking the drowning man to let go of the swim ring they are desperately holding on to…
It is, of course, true, I am not teaching to be assessed (well, not on the course) and yes, it is easy to (carelessly) suggest putting the book aside. Why would I want to do that? Ok, here are the reasons:
The happy ending (because there is one!)
Breathe, dear teacher, it is not forever, of course. Nobody is taking the coursebooks away (we love them, remember?) but I can (almost) guarantee that one summer like that, at a teacher training course, at a summer city camp or at a regular summer camp in a far-away forest can change your approach to teaching forever, with young learners or with adults, with the priorities set right: the teacher and the students, the lesson, the coursebook and lesson planning will never be the same!
Happy teaching!
Instead of a coda, a song by the Chemical Brothers which inspired the title of the blog. I am thinking that I will have to a lot more of the Chemical Brothers’ songs
P.S. My trainees on the course were amazing and I managed to convince them to let go of the coursebook at least once while on the course, partially or fully. With great results. So there.
Today is the 8th of May and, at least in Russia, we have about three weeks left until the final lesson with our young learners before they say their good-byes and rush to enjoy the summer. I don’t know about your students but mine have already started counting down the days.
As for us, the teachers, it is the high time to start thinking about the ways of finishing the course. I know, I know, we can just write the final tests, prepare the reports and diplomas, give them out and wave ‘good-bye’, to go for the minimum because it has been a long year and we are tired but I would like to encourage you to go one step further because this is how you build a community and how you create beautiful memories.
Here are my eight favourite activities for the final lessons of the course.
Main aims? To acknowledge the hard work throughout the course, to reflect, to praise, to celebrate the end of the year and the beginning of the summer.
Good-bye letters
This is an activity that I have always done at the end of my summer camp sessions and I wrote a post about it a while ago and you can find all the details here.
Storybird.com
This is the only tool that involves a website and, apart from the first stage of the pandemic and in a limited version, is a tool that has to be paid for. I would not recommend purchasing the subscription only for the purpose of the graduation party but the website periodically offers a free trial so the end of the year might be a perfect opportunity to have a look and see how it works and then, perhaps fall in love with it and decide to use it more extensively in your lesson just like I did last year.
Storybird is a website where aspiring illustrators’ works can be assembled in a book, the text added and the whole thing can be downloaded and printed or accessed in the pdf version. The stories can be published on the website or kept in a private library. Naturally, as the user, you also get access to everything that has been published and these stories can be used in class.
We have written a few stories with my primary groups already. Usually it means that before the lesson I prepare the illustrations by choosing the artist and selecting the images that might be appealing to my students (plus a few extra so that everyone has a chance to pick something they like). In class, we look at all of these and I ask the students to choose one image for themselves. Later on, the class is divided into two, the group works on a task in the book or the exercise book and students take turns to dictate what they want to say. I type up.
The end-of-the year contributions might include the following:
When everyone has finished, we delete the unnecessary pages, we save the story and read it together, with each child presenting their page. After the lesson I proofread it, save it and pdf it to send it to all the parents. They can print it or just keep it in the electronic from.
Anyway, it is a great souvenir and there is a chance that kids will read the whole book and a few times, too.
The Oscars or The Best Toilet Paper Dress Designer
This is the activity that we prepared first with my friend Stephanie at the end of the summer camp in the UK. We had an amazing group of teens that we used to teach in a team and we wanted some great ceremony at the end of the session. This is how we came up with the Oscars. It takes some work but it is definitely worth it. I used it with some of my teens’ groups later on as well as with my trainees on the IH CYLT course.
The idea was inspired by the Oscars ceremony and all the different categories in which the winners are announced, the Oscar figures (papers ones) and diplomas are awarded and a round of applause is given. There is also an option of including a thank you speech, you know the drill.
The only difference is that in the group absolutely every student (or trainee) has to end up with an award and so the teacher (or the trainer) makes up new (and amazing) categories to highlight everyone’s achievements and contributions throughout the year (or the course). They can include some real achievements like the best test results, the funniest story, the most creative role-play or the most interesting project but they can also draw on the students’ personalities and their roles in the group.
During the final lesson can announce the category and have the group guess the potential winner before they are officially announced. When we organised the ceremony the first time, at the camp, all these years ago, we also included a bag with trinkets – a set of most random items that we gave out as awards such as a pencil, a rubber, a plastic glove, etc. The kids would accept the award and then fish out their ‘amazing’ prize. It was a lot of fun.
Self-evaluation
I found the idea for this activity in Carol Read and her ‘500 Activities…‘ and, so far, I have only used it only once with my teenagers. Only once it this was a great lesson and I will definitely will be going back to it this year.
The idea is that the feedback and the evaluation of progress is put in the hands of the students, the teacher is only the faciliator here.
The end-of-course self-evaluation could be staged in the following way
All these should be done in the last-but-one lesson so that the reports are ready to be handed out in the final lesson of the course.
When I did it with my teens a while ago, I was a little bit apprehensive, not quite sure how my students will take the task but, as it turned out, they were heart-breakingly honest and serious about it and I really did not need to add anything to their self-evaluation. It was all to the point, very much I would have wanted to write myself. But before we started, they did ask ‘Are the parents going to see it?’ so perhaps this is an issue that should be taken into consideration and, perhaps, the end-of-year evaluation should be done two-ways, the internal students’ self-evaluation and the official report for the parents and carers. A question without the answer yet.
Medals
Medals are an obvious symbol that even the youngest students understand.
The teacher can purchase chocolate medals (like the one in the photograph which my educational parents bought for the end-of-year celebrations) which will be exciting, for sure, but feeding kids chocolate is not absolutely necessary. Handmade paper medals work equally well. They can be made by the teacher and given out at the end of the final lesson but it is even better if the students are involved in creating them.
Here you can find some of the websites with the ideas and templates from notimeforflashcards.com, artfulparent.com, redtedart.com. You can also get inpired by the one I put together while experimenting with the format for this year’s end-of-course with my youngest group.
Our Solar System 7
This is an activity that, initially, came to be as a part of our pre-primary space and Yuri Gagarin-themed lessons but there is a lot more potential here. Thanks, Rory, for pointing it out! Here you can find the post on how to do it.
A tea-party
Well, there is never any tea, the name comes from one of my students чайпите which translates as ‘tea-drinking’ and which, in real life, involves having a cup of tea and eating something with it, sweet or savoury. In our classroom life, it is the term for when we sit down and eat together, essentially.
The first question to always ask is to find out what the parents think about it and to present what food items you have in mind. In the last few years, even pre-pandemic, I have limited the food to separately packed juice, biscuits, mandarins and the occasional child-friendly chocolates. It is not about the exquisite food or drink but an opportunity to share food together.
The parents can be asked to buy the food and split the costs or it can be funded by the school.
Such a lesson is a wonderful opportunity to build a community and to practise the language that we do not normally have a chance to use related to lining up, going to the bathroom to wash hands, sitting down, serving food, asking for food, etc. After we have eaten, there can be a small dancing party, with a song or two and dancing. With my older students, juniors and teens, we always have a pizza in the last class. Now, it is almost a tradition.
Now, there are a few disclaimers and points on the obligatory check-list. First of all, the full list of items that will be served has to be run by and agreed with the parents. The children might be suffering from allergies, the parents might have the food items that are a no-go in their families and, in the times of covid or in any other year, some parents might not be happy with ‘strangers’ feeding their children anything. This has to be respected.
Open lessons for parents
This is something that I have been doing with my younger students since I started to work at BKC IH Moscow because this is the tradition of the school.
It is something that can be quite stressful for the teacher (yes, even for an experienced teacher who has well-behaved groups) but the benefits definitely outweigh the challenges and the potential difficulties. The parents have a chance to see the kids in action, in their ‘natural English environment’, with the teacher and, at the end of the year, they can see how much the kids have learnt and how they interact in a foreign language.
There are different approaches to organising open lesson but I have to admit that, personally, I am not a fan of any kind of performances. One reason for that is definitely the fact that, as a child, I was forced to sing, dance and recite at school and I hated it, from the bottom of my heart. The other reason, the more important one, though, is that I believe that an opportunity to participate and to observe a typical lesson, ‘just a lesson’, as some might say, is a lot more beneficial and representative of what we do, how we play, how we interact. Not to mention that this is the routine that the children are most familiar with.
Before the lesson, we prepare the invitation for the parents which can be themed according to the final units of the coursebook, for example jungle animals in Playway 1, holidays in Superminds 1 and 2. This way the craft activity can be also a revision lesson.
In real life…
…we never just do one of these things and in case of my classes, we mix and match, depending on the day, on the group and on the mood on the day.
Happy teaching!
This is not going to be a post on the advantages and disadvantages of using a rewards’ chart in the EFL classroom. If you are interested in one or the other, please, scroll down to the bibliography with some pieces to read.
Instead, I am going to tell you a story about a period of six years of using a rewards chart with my kids, successfully and where it has got me. Or where it got us. Consider it a case study.
The group
There are eight of us, in the group, one of me, two boys and five girls and at this point (January 2021), we are in our sixth level together. On the one hand, it is a bit scary, that so much time has passed and so quickly, too, on the other hand – six levels together, pretty much with the same children, from the first words, literally, to Movers.
The first rewards chart
Once upon a time, when my kids were still very very young, in our first year together, the day came when I realised that I needed a rewards chart, badly, with a set of rules and a system.
To be honest, it was a bit of a heartbreak and it did feel like a total defeat. Until then, I had never (as in: NEVER) had to resort to it with children so young. Not once in my entire teaching career (of 10+ years). Rewards charts were for the primary and teens, not for the babies. Sigh.
I was thinking and pondering and wondering, approaching it with a lot of trepidation (in Polish we say: to come up to something like a dog to a hedgehog) and really, stubbornly, putting off the D-day. But, the group was a big one, with ten kids, some of whom were six, some of whom were barely three and they were just rowdy (even for my standards) and ‘my traditional methods’ (or whatever they were back then) were just not working. As in: at all.
Reluctantly and very un-enthusiastically, I took a deep breath and introduced changes: a set of rules and a rewards chart.
The class rules: How to.
The rewards’ chart. How to. A case study.
Today aka the Outcomes
Today, in our 6th year together, we have long forgotten about the rewards’ chart and the rules. My students are now seven, eight and nine and, after all this time, it is no longer necessary to keep such a strict routine and such an elaborate system. The last time we did come close to anything resembling a rewards chart was a collage (an example of which you can see in the photo above), which we made on our Miro board, at the end of each lesson. Everyone could choose an image, google or icons, that they wanted to add. This, in a way, was some kind of a reward for everyone.
Looking back, I think it was a good decision, to introduce the chart and the rules all these years ago and even a better decision to ‘waste’ time on drawing all these stars and asking all these questions. And, dear teacher, if you worry that it takes six years to reap what you sow, don’t. The effort made and the time spent did start to pay off already after a few weeks.
I cannot guarantee that we are going to stay in that bliss forever (fingers crossed that I don’t jinx it with this post) but so far, so good.
My kids have never been very quiet (apparently it’s because I am loud, I am told) but they do behave. Today, after all these years, we all know what is OK and what is not. Most of the time, that is.
They have become more talkative and for that reason a new ‘poster’ appeared on the noticeboard. ‘When I speak, people listen. When people speak, I listen’. It works. Especially that we did specify that by ‘people’ I mean both, teachers and students present in the classroom.
On some days, I have to bring Pasha, our invisible student, one some days I call them using their first name, in full, and their patronymic, sometimes I have to use my serious face but that’s it. I want to believe that it all started with a simple rewards chart a long, long time ago…
Happy teaching!
Something else to read
Let me introduce you, dear readers. This is my Bête-Noire, a tiny little bundle of unhappiness.
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.
As soon as I said it out loud, it turned out that in my classroom is a crowded place. Apart from the teacher (that would be me), my students (older and younger), there is a whole bunch of characters who simply are there.
There is Pasha (the invisible student), there is Angelina (our class puppet), there is Mr Milk (the little-known-superhero), there is the Flying Cow…And there is also general Kutuzov. To whom this game is dedicated.
The thing is, general Kutuzov is a personal hero of mine. Every time I find myself in the middle of a big project, with one million areas to oversee and to manage, while on the verge of going crazy (because I multi-task well only in the classroom and in the kitchen), I think of general Mikhail Illarionovich Kutuzov, one man managing troops, camps, provisions, civilians, and all that in the face of the approaching enemy (aka Napoleon). This thought calms me down.
But not only that.
We sometimes play games with my kids (duh!) and sometimes they get very competitive (duh!) and sometimes, instead of ‘just playing’, some of them take time to think, to ponder, to come up with some very clever strategies in order to win…Which, on one occasion, resulted in me saying ‘Oh, look, here is general Kutuzov, planning something’ and ‘General, Kutuzov, please, can you make a decision? Today?’
They giggled. They are eight but they got the reference. And general Kutuzov stayed with us. So now, when they want to comment on someone taking their time to think or someone coming up with a strategy, they call him or her ‘general Kutuzov’ which, to be honest, I am rather proud of.
And that’s what I called that game:-)
How to play?
Why we love it
Happy teaching!
P.S. The inspiration for the game might have been a listening activity in one of the old coursebooks by OUP called ‘I Spy’ which had a listening activity in each unit called ‘the maze’. Maybe or maybe not))
Welcome to my favourite art project: The United Buddy Bears. I first met the bears face-to-face (almost because they are 2 meters tall so face-to-face, eye-to-eye is not so easy to do) in Sofia because we all happened to be visiting the city in spring 2011. They were an art project back then already (since 2002 actually) but after our encounter they also became an EFL Art Project.
Ingredients
Why we like it
Happy teaching!
What a wonderful book this is, The Worst Alphabet Book Ever, by Raj Haldar and Chris Carpenter. In a way, it has inspired this post here, on all things related to homework for pre-primary EFL students.
Mine is a very messy alphabet, with some letters in, some letters missing, all of them in a very un-alphabetical order…
S is for ‘Should we even think of setting homework for preschoolers?’
Some of the arguments against:
Some of the arguments for:
So the short answer to the question in the heading would be ‘Yes, we definitely should’.
E is for the extended exposure and R is for results
This is one more argument in favour of the VYL homework, so important in fact that it is going to have its own paragraph here.
Usually, pre-primary students who learn English as a foreign language have a very limited exposure to the language as they come to class twice a week for 45 minutes or, in some cases, for only 45 minutes once a week. That is not a lot but it is enough to get good results if the time in class is spent well. Or, if there is an opportunity to extend this English exposure time by homework tasks.
In practice, in might mean only the additional five or ten minutes or fifteen minutes per week but it will be the important link that will provide some additional practice between the lessons, which will be very beneficial for the children and it will help to recycle and keep up the language from Tuesday to Thursday and, even more importantly, from Thursday to Tuesday.
As it happens, a few years ago, me and my colleague-teacher, Anya (hello Anya!), we had a chance to be a part of a very informal and very small scale classroom research or an accidental experiment. We both worked with the same levels onsite (at one of our IH schools in Moscow) and, at the same time, offsite (at one of the kindergartens). All the kids were amazing, very bright and a pleasure to teach. They had the same teachers and they were following the same programme and yet, we realised that the onsite students were making more progress. We tried to analyse the situation and the only difference between the groups that we could put a finger on was the fact that our offsite groups were not getting any homework, according to the arrangements with the client.
Then, there were my other groups, a few years ago, that all of a sudden started to make lots of progress and, surprisingly enough, we did not have to devote so much time to drilling and practising the new vocabulary, right after it was introduced.
Normally, the first two lessons with the new material were filled with a lot basic games whose aim was to provide the exposure and the controlled practice before we would move onto more complex vocabulary games and introducing structures. Until, that is, I noticed that all this drilling was not necessary and, in most cases, already in the second lesson the children were using the new vocabulary with a lot of confidence. What it did look like in class, of course, were my students’ faces quickly losing interest in ‘just’ repeating the words with voices and emotions and, even, random comments (or, shall we say, feedback) muttered, here and there, ‘Да, мы уже все это знаем...’ (‘We already know all that...’)
I would never complain about that, we could move on and do the more interesting and challenging things but it took me a while that it was connected to the additional practice opportunities that the parents were providing at home. Just because they wanted to.
P is for the parents
It is not a secret that in case of all the young learners or non-adult groups, the parents are the third party involved in the process and, one way or another, they will have to be included because, really, they are our clients, not the students themsevels. This is particularly true in case of the pre-school groups, mainly because children are very young and if we want to make the learning process effective, with homework or without it, we will be dealing with parents, too. Even more so, we need parents to make it all work.
Parents always want the best for their children but many of them are also taking their first steps in the EFL world, this time through their children. They might have had different previous learning experience (their own or of their kids’), they might have different expectations and aims that might not always coincide with ours, with our previous teaching experience or with our school’s policy. That means that we cannot take things for granted and that we should always talk to the parents, to explain what we do and why we do it. That applies to the homework tasks, too.
Some parents might really not be able to spend time with their children, some might choose to spend the time they have in other ways, not working on the English homework and we should accept and respect that. However, there are also parents for whom the English homework will not be so much of a burden but rather an opportunity to do something together in English. We can help them by showing them what can be done at home and the actual homework task is the first step here.
N is for nuts and bolts
Here are some things to take into consideration
B is for the basic homework tasks
Here are some of the staple food tasks that work well as homework tasks. All of these were created using the miro board. These are not actual handouts but only sample tasks in each type.
a) colouring: task: students colour the objects and produce simple sentences ie ‘The apple is green’ or ‘It’s a green apple). This kind of a task is especially appropriate after the new vocabulary has been introduced and colours can and should be revised throughout the course.
*****
b) drill: task: students look at the the sequence of words, name them, using a single word or a sentence and make a decision what should be the final word. This is also a task appropriate in the beginning of the unit. Here, some students might choose to colour the picture but that is not obligatory.
*****
c) odd one out: task: students name all the objects in the sequence and decide which one does not match the others. We usually use very simple langauge here for example: Goodbye, cat.
*****
d) matching: task: students look for the same objects in both columns and connect them with a line. This is also a task more appropriate for the beginning of the unit and for younger students, too. The older students can complete it, too, but in their case it would be a good idea to encourage the kids to produce a full sentence.
*****
e) finish the sentece: task: students try to build simple sentences by naming the elements of it represented by visuals or symbols and by choosing one of the elements.
*****
f) categorise: task: depending on the language, students can categorise the objects into those that they like or don’t like, big or small, animals that can fly or swim or even words beginning with the same sound if you have started working on developing literacy skills. They can either colour or circle different categories with different colours, at the same time producing the target language.
*****
g) count: task: students look at the picture and count all the apples, bananas, kiwis and nuts, they write the number.
*****
h) maze: task: students trace different lines in order to produce the required sentence, for example ‘I’ve got a doll’ and similar. Again, thanks to the fact that all elements of the sentence are represented visually, an activity like that is going to support maximising production, here full sentences.
*****
i) collage: task: in class, students make sentences about mum, dad, grandma (my mummy likes apples) glueing simple pictures in the appropriate part of the handout. All the leftover pictures are given out as homework. Students glue them onto the handout and produce similar sentences but now about brother / sister, grandpa or friends.
A is for the alternatives
Normally, the homework task is set as a handout (or in the activity book) but the pandemic and the lockdown of 2020 has changed everyone’s way of looking at homework and, fortunately or unfortunately, it has closed some doors but it has opened some others. During the lockdown, not all the studnets had access to a printer so sending out homework for the parents to print and complete was not always possible. What is more, not all the students even had coursebooks and so these could not always be used as the basis for homework tasks.
W is for Wordwall
This website has been a real revelation and a milestone in tasks for age groups of students but especially for my pre-primary studnets. Wordwall is available for everyone and free in its basic version. Anyone can register and gain access to all the tasks and games that have been created by the community and made public. These games can be used in class and shared with the parents to play on any device available at home. Another advantage is that each of the tasks or games is available in a few different formats (or ‘templates) which means that the parents (or the teachers) can still practise the same set of vocabulary or structures but in a slightly different game.
If you are willing to invest a small sum of money, you can choose your own plan and start creating your own activities to match the programme or the curriculum of your group or school, too.
Here are some examples of the games that I have created for my pre-primary students
a) Let’s count, created for the students who were in the beginning of level 1
b) Categorising, created for level 2 students (farm animals which can fly, swim, run, jump)
c) Tell me about this picture, created for my level 3 students to practise opposite adjectives.
All of these we played in class, first and then the same or a similar task was shared with the parents.
L is for homemade listening tasks
These are lightly more complex but a real lockdown revelation for my primary and pre-primary classes. You can read more about them here.
Happy teaching!
P.S. All the samples of activities were created using the images on Miro and all the in-text photos come from the same wonderful book, P is for Pterodactyl, The Worst Alphabet Book Ever by Raj Haldar and Chris Carpenter and illustrations by Maria Tina Beddia from Sourcebook Jabberwocky, which by the way can be (and will be) used with my teens. More on that later:-)
*** This post was based on the talk I gave at the 2020 IH YL Conference.
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.
Once upon a time, there was a world in which children were developing their reading skills, imagination and creativity with storybooks read by mum at bedtime.
Then, the Wicked Witch of the West came and replaced all the books with apps, tablets and games. The Wicked Witch of the West said that it is all easy, available, accessible. All the parents and all the teachers applauded. The books lay forgotten and deteriorating, and a few years later, the time came when one of the dinosaur teachers by accident said ‘open your books’ in class and a little Masha raised her hand in the first row to ask ‘What is a book, Miss?’
Luckily, we are not there yet and, hopefully, we will never be. Of course, the pandemic was / is / has been a huge challenge for us in that department but, nonetheless, I do continue to stand proud in defence of paper and in defence of magic.
May this very post to be the introduction and the directory to everything that using storybooks in the classroom can be.
One thing that it definitely is not, is just opening the storybook and reading it out loud. This is what it can be.
One. Baby steps
At the start of the level 1 of any pre-primary or primary course, the kids are real beginners, they have no language, no structures and no vocabulary. It would be rather optimistic to hope that a teacher is going to be able to use a story with all its richness. However, that is also not a reason NOT to include them in your lesson plans. After all, storybooks are something that the little kids are familiar with, they know what dealing with them involves and that they are part of life. For that reason, they can and they should be used with children.
Two. Role-play
This way of using a storybook will involve the students a little bit more as they will be retelling the story together with the teacher, as soon as they become more familiar with it. Naturally, not all the stories will lend themselves to this activity, only those that include some repetitive language, even if it is only one phrase. Stories that can be used here can involve
Three. Vocabulary practice
The storybooks are there and we can use them and the beautiful story and illustrations in any way we want. The story is not really read but told, with the language graded to the level and needs of the particular group.
Most frequently I choose the storybooks to go with the vocabulary that study in the unit. This way, the children can participate in telling the story and continue working on the vocabulary that they are learning. It will start with producing single words but it can lead to producing
Four. More vocabulary practice
Taking one more step in that direction, any storybook can be used to teach, to revise and to practise any vocabulary, even if it does not feature explicitly in the storybook.
The first storybook that I have used in that way was the traditional story ‘The Three Goats Gruff’. The story is lovely all by itself but I have been using it to practise and to revise the food vocabulary. Only in my version of the story, every time one of the goats tries to cross the bridge and the troll attempts to eat it, they always have some food on them and they try to buy themselves out by asking ‘Troll, do you like bananas?’, which, of course, the troll never accepts.
Five. Storytelling without storybooks?
Absolutely! For example, because you realise that your own precious copy of Dear Zoo has been misplaced / lost / stolen only a few minutes before the lesson in which you want to use it…You do not give up, naturally, you only wander around the school, find a few flashcards and a box. As an experience it is unpleasant and stressful but, in the end, you realise that, hey, a storybook itself is just a tool and a story can be told without it. And it is lots of fun.
Another sources of inspiration for that kind of approach to storytelling, can be a series of storytelling videos produced in the 90s by the Brazilian TV Cultura. This example here is in Portuguese is a story about a crocodile, a grasshopper and a spider, with a scotch dispenser starring as the spider, a pair of scissors as the crocodile and a table tennis ball as grasshopper.
This kind of pretend-play with the use of the everyday objects or toys is something that children do in L1 as well and it can easily be implemented in our EFL lessons, too.
Six. I can read!
This is a big moment for the teacher and the student when they can finally take an active part in the proper reading of the story. For that reason, the storybook should be carefully chosen.
Seven. Storybooks for everyone!
A few years ago, at the IH YL Conference in Rome, Beverly Whithall from IH Braga gave a fantastic seminar on using storybooks with teenagers and adults. The older students, because of their maturity and the level English, can properly appreciate the story, its language, plot and illustrations and every story can be a starting point to a discussion. Just imagine a typical literature lesson that you had in school, when you are looking not only at the story itself but also at the bigger picture. Seen from that angle
Questions
Tips and techniques
Happy teaching!