#eflkids

Much Ado About Nothing: realistic flashcards vs illustrations and the EFL world.

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Realistic vs non-realistic? Am I am really inside of a huge glass piano?

Preface

A while ago I got into a discussion on why the realistic flashcards aka photographs are much better for YL than the cartoon flashcards.

Oh wait, not quite this way. First (and foremost), as I am typing up this post, I am glancing left and right, for support. To the right, towards the shelf with my storybooks and all the ‘unrealistic’ illustrations and all the imaginary characters and to the left, where the materials for the next Lesson at the Museum are lying (this week: Natalia Goncharova, more of that – soon!). At this point, I still cannot formulate it very well but my guts (and a few years in the classroom and around kids) are telling me that realistic and photographic IS NOT the only way. I object.

Second of all, this discussion, it just was not a discussion at all. I must admit, I am a bit naive when it comes to the social media and I would like to believe that teacher meet there to exchange ideas, to learn from each other, not to preach, making it look like theirs is the only way to do things and recommending that I should do my homework and read first before I voice an opinion (as if the empirical evidence did not matter at all).

Enough of this bitterness, though. Here I am after all, doing my own reading and research, with mixed feelings, if I am to be perfectly honest. A little bit anxious (because what if the research proves that I was wrong, eh? What then? (I am laughing here) and a little bit excited (because what if the research proves that I was right? (still laughing).

This introduction was planned and written before the actual reading did happen but you, dear reader, looking at the title (courtesy of Mr W. Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon), you can guess now where it is all going (based on the research that I have managed to do so far) so if you have very little time on your hands, I will make it easier for you, here is a summary of the whole post:

When it comes to choosing between the visuals with a high degree of iconicity (aka the resemblance between the picture and the object) such as photographs and the visuals with a low degree of iconicity such as cartoons, storybooks illustrations, there isn’t only one answer, one way out, one approach. It is not a case of black and white, good and bad, left or right. It is a beautiful case of ‘well, it all depends’. Done.

Now, if you have more time, follow me. There is more to come.

Realistic vs imaginary: My teacher is a cat.

Act I: Why choose the real photos

The first (and the most important question) to ask here is: How old is the child? A picture is a symbol, a representation of the real object and children will require a certain level of cognitive skills development (such as symbolic development, analogical reasoning, reasoning about fantasy and reality) in order to be able to process that image and to relate it to something that they know from real life.

For example, newborns, who have not become symbols users, when presented with a photographic image and a real object, would always choose the real object over the visuals but, at the same time, if the real object was not present, they would interact with its image in exactly the same way as they would with the real object. These examples come for a truly fascinating article by Gabrielle A. Strouse, Angela Nyhout and Patricia A. Ganea which you can find here.

As shown in other studies they mention, too, it seems that although these young children can transfer the concepts both from cartoons and photographs or realistic drawings to the real world, the more realistic the image the easier the transfer. And for that reason, we find plenty of recommendations for such books to be used with the younger pre-schoolers. This attitude seems to be especially popular according to the Montessori method (although to be honest, I am not very familiar with it, I know it only from reading, not from the classroom, so forgive me for any inaccuracies or faux-pas that I might commit here).

Another interesting argument, and this time applying to not only the youngest children, is how the information presented in the picturebooks might have an impact on children learning about the world. As Strouse (et al) claim, it seems that ‘Fantastical context used in stories may cue children that information presented in books is not transferable to real-world contexts’, especially when the children do not really have any opportunities to connect the book world with the real world because, for example they live in the city and have never been on a farm, or are not supported by adults in their journey through books. The authors claim that it might impact the learning of physics and biology or moral learning. All these arguments would support the use of photographs and realistic cartoons.

Apart from that, there is the obvious argument, applicable both to children, teenagers and adults, alike – we like photographs. According to the professionals such as graphic designers (because this is where this reasearch has taken me, too), photography is used when we strive for accuracy, professionalism and when promoting the object is the real aim. The latter two might not really be relevant to the world of EFL and ESL but the first of them, accuracy is going to be our key word. When presenting vocabulary to children we want them to understand clearly what we mean and a photograph of an elephant will illustrate it better than a drawing of an elephant. We might not only see the tiny little details such as the shade and the texture of the skin but, quite likely, the elephant will be photographed in a natural environment so we will be also able to notice how big it is and what kind of a habitat it lives in. The elephant will most likely be doing something, walking, running, eating or sleeping and this will help us understand a bit more about it. Not to mention that it will also help us produce more language (the secret aim for anything that the English teachers do).

It seems to be especially important in the English lessons while teaching the concepts that students are not familiar with and which they do not encounter in their real life such as the jungle animals (while teaching in Russia), snow (while teaching in Brazil) or Polish pierogi (while teaching outside of Poland). The photographs will help the children understand these concepts better than drawing, although, it has be said that no photographs of snowy landscapes will help you get the real idea of what winter is like unless you have rolled in snow yourself and unless you have actually tried to catch the snowflakes on your tongue. As regards preschoolers, there arises one more question, too – Should we even introduce the concepts, ideas and vocabulary that they are not familiar with in their L1 and in their lives? My personal (and very subjective) answer would be: ‘no’, not in the EFL context, with a limited language exposure and the limited lesson time available. With a very few exceptions, of some cool animals. Perhaps.

Realistic vs illustrations: Two Cookie Monsters

Act II: Why choose illustrations

First and foremost, as children are growing, they develop their cognitive skills and they become better at recognising symbols, using symbols and, last but definitely not least, at creating symbols (here you will find my earlier post devoted to symbolic representation and the EFL with your starter kit). Using illustrations, cartoons and drawing is necessary!

Children are progressively better able not only to distinguish between these and label them as more realistic and a less realistic representations of an animal…

…they might also appreciate the cat on the far right as it is most likely to resemble the cats that they draw in their pictures. And as they are learning to hold a pencil and to produce marks, scribbles, lines and circles, it will be quite a long time before their drawings look like the cat in the middle or anywhere near the cat on the far left. As Bernadette Duffy (see bibliography) says ‘If we intervene with a view that the purpose of art (or, in this case anything that children create (own comments) is to produce an image that is as realistic as possible and therefore think of children as failed artists we may do great harm by imposing inappropriate expectations that do not match children’s developmental stage‘.

Then there are the visual arts and these are full of ‘hurdles’ for a rational mind. Picasso’s faces are far (far far) from realistic. Chagal makes his characters float in the air, as if they were kites (sometimes accompanied by goats). Warhol stubbornly chooses the ‘wrong’ colours and Malevich replaces the whole world with one (amazing) square. And then there is Miro, Bosch, Rothko and many, many, many more. It is, of course, possible to give up on teaching art to such young children, but, before you do, please read why it is a good idea and how it benefits them. For that very reason, all the major galleries and museums include programmes for kids.

As for the graphic designers, among the advantages of the illustrations is the fact that they can be used whenever it is necessary to show the unique features and to stand out, since all the photos of the cat might look the same and the drawings will differ as they will depend more on the artist style, abilities and techniques, when a simple design is needed (for example an icon) and to depict the imaginary.

The last argument seems especially fitting in the world of the early years. Or in the classroom. Children love stories and these feature real children, talking animals and a whole array of imaginary characters such as mermaids, fairies, dragons, dwarves, fish with fingers and children who are going on a bear hunt (something that you should not really be doing in real life, not when you are five and, actually, although this is yet a very personal opinion, never ever ever). This imaginary world is a part of being a child and children do grow out of it, eventually and naturally. Although, still, some of us, even at 40, we like to revisit this world, accompanying Harry Potter to Hogwarts, Frodo to Mordor and Zima Blue in his search of the meaning of life.

Another thing is that, as a material designer for preschoolers (and I am that, too, as all teachers are), I sometimes tend to choose illustrations over photographs specifically because they are simple and easier to colour for my 3- and 4-year-olds and because I want to convey the general meaning of the word ‘bird’, rather than anything specific, for instance ‘a sparrow’

Another reason for choosing the illustrations over more realistic drawings or photographs is that some animals look too realistic and scary. I am one who does not really like touching the spider flashcard (cartoon, but too real and disgustic) and some of my students feel the same way. So, in case of a crocodile, for instance, I might opt for the one on the far right.

Realistic vs imaginary: a class portrait and a teacher of seven fingers (but with amazing eyelashes:-)

Act III: Why do we have to choose? Variety is the answer!

That’s it. A ridiculously short Act III. Nothing more to add. We can and we should use both. Also because the realistic is not always true, either. Have a look at the photo that introduces this post once more: Am I or am I NOT sitting inside of a huge glass piano?

I hope you have enjoyed reading this article as much as I have enjoyed researching for it and that this is definitely not the end.

And a request to you, dear read. All of the sources that I have used directly have been referenced throughout the post. Below you will see some other treasures that you might find interesting. If you have anything else to add to this list – please, let me know in the comments sections.

Two requests, actually – if you have any stories related to children’s reactions to the photographs and visuals used in class, more or less realistic, please share these, too!

Happy teaching!

Bonus: One of my favourite film adaptations
Много шума из ничего (1993) – IMDb

Bibliography and further reading

All the sources that I have quoted have been referenced throughout the post.

Here are some more things that you might want to read

Why children need real images – how we montessori

Drawings – stages, meaning, Definition, Description, Common problems (healthofchildren.com)

An introduction to the visual arts in early childhood education – THE EDUCATION HUB

Teaching Preschool Art Lessons — KinderArt

Around the world: Art allows all children the freedom to explore (pearsoninternationalschools.com)

Why Real Photos? What about Cartoons? (stageslearning.com)

Picture This! Why Books with Real Photos Help Kids Discover the Big, Wide World (kindercare.com)
Pictures and Images in Flashcards – Are They Even Useful? (universeofmemory.com)

The Truth about Flashcards for Toddlers Who Don’t Yet Talk – teachmetotalk.com

The Pictorial World of the Child (nih.gov) (a review of a wonderful book that I am getting as soon as I can come up with a reason to treat myself)

How to Introduce Toddlers and Babies to Books • ZERO TO THREE

Which Works Better: Illustrations or Photographs? – Ecommerce Platforms (ecommerce-platforms.com)

5 Reasons To Choose An Illustration | Holywell Press

Bernadette Duffy, Supporting Creativity and Imagination in the Early Years, Open University Press, Maidenhead

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.

The Storytelling Campaign: Activities

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If you are here, dear read, you have probably already read the first part of this post. If not – here it is.

In this part, I would like to share some practical activities to be used in the VYL and YL lessons to practise adjectives, verbs and Present Continous and to get closer to storytelling, even with the very young or the beginner students.

First steps

Tell me about this picture has quickly become one of our favourite games. We use wordwall Boxes for that. Players take turns to open the box and to describe the picture hidden there. If they complete the task successfully, they get the number of points also hidden in the box. The game can be used to practise both adjectives and Present Continous (or any other language) and the students can be asked to produce one, two or three sentences, depending on their skills and the teacher can keep count of the sentences produced using fingers. The best thing about the game is that the children choose themselves what they want to talk about, much as in the YLE Starters, Flyers and Movers.

Here are some of the sets we have used

  • Animals: I can see a lion. It is big. It is brown. It is beautiful.
  • Present Continous: It is a girl. She is drinking coffee. She is happy.
  • Bedrooms: It is a bedroom. It is big. It is beautiful. I like it.

So far, I have only played it with my 1-1 students (player 1: the student, player 2: the teacher) but I am about to start using it with my groups, too (player 1: the class, player 2: the teacher).

Oups is a game in which students look at the picture (any picture) and listen to the sentences produced by the teacher. When they hear a sentence with a mistake, they should say ‘oups!’ and correct the sentence. In the beginning, they normally react only by producing a single word, replacing the incorrect one but later on, when they get used to it, they can produce full sentences. Even later, it is also possible for the students to lead the game and to produce correct or incorrect sentences for everyone else to listen and to react to.

With the youngest students it is better to limit the range of structures used to something super simple, for example ‘I can see…’, with the older (and more advanced ones), the structures can vary.

This activity can be used in class but it is also a great homework task, as long as you share the picture and record a few sentences and share it with parents.

An example can be found below. The picture was generated using makebeliefscomix.com and the recording can be found here.

makebeliefscomix.com

In my picture…: This is a natural follow-up activity, a little bit more complex and a little bit more challenging. It is based on two pictures that are to be compared. They are not quite the actual YLE Movers or Flyers speaking tasks because these are too detailed and they contain the vocabulary that might be beyond the pre-A student’s level.

What you need is basically two pictures that are connected by the theme i.e. farm, kids in the park, in my bedroom etc and a very simple starter phrase, a proper all-rounder such as ‘I can see’. With 1-1 students, it is very straightforward – one picture for the teacher, the other for the student. With groups, the kids will be working as a group, comparing their picture with the teacher’s. At least in the beginning, before they are ready to work in pairs.

Some examples of pictures that can be used:

These are the pictures I ‘created’ using the tools on the Miro board
www.clipart-library.com and www.clipartpanda.com

The next step will be telling stories using a set of pictures…(Please continue reading:-)

One story, many ideas.

Here is one of the YLE Flyers stories (Flyers TESTS REFERECE), called ‘Charlie and the elephant‘ and some of the ways in which it can be used with pre-school and primary students.

‘Advanced’ preschool students

Step 1: look at the pictures and say what you can see. The kids can use very simple structures, for example ‘I can see…’ or some more complex structures, for example ‘It is a…’, ‘She’s got…’, ‘He’s got…’, ‘She is…’, ‘He is…’.

With 1-1 students, the teacher and the child take turns to describe pictures, with groups we all talk each picture, one by one. It might be a good idea to cover up all the pictures and uncover them progressively, to help the children focus only on one of them at a time.

Step 2: look at the pictures, listen and help me. This is basically an advanced version of Oups, the game I described above, only here a series of pictures is used. Here you can find a recording I created for my students.

Step 3: look at the pictures and help me tell the story, Similar but Different. The teacher first models, telling a story that has a similar framework (a woman, a boy, an animal, some fruit, going away, a show at the end) but which uses different details. Later on, the students tell their own version of the story, with the necessary amount of support from the teacher. The teacher can only start the senteces (‘A woman….’) or create almost an entire sentence with the students filling in only the essential details (‘A boy is eating a….’).

These steps were introduced in three consecutive lessons.

Primary beginner Flyers students

Step 1: Two words: students work in pairs. Each pair gets a copy of the story. Kids look at pictures and together write two things they can see in each of them. The teacher also participates in order to be able to model at each stage of the activity. Students exchange the handouts, in a circle. Each pair gets a new handout and the procedure is repeated: each pair writes two words next to each picture but these have to be two new words. The procedure is repeated until each pair writes their words on every handout.

By that point, each picture is accompanied by a set of words (2 words x the number of pairs). Kids look at the pictures and tell the story using the words they can see. They can be encouraged to cross out the words they have used to make sure that all the words have been used.

Step 2: Two crazy words: we start with retelling the story from the previous lesson, as a class. Then, the teacher shows the students the new handout – the familiar pictures but with two strange words next to each of them. The teacher tells them that these are the words you cannot see in any of the pictures and that now the students will tell the story again but including these words.

It is absolutely necessary to generate some ideas, for the first two pictures, for example. I have added ‘a teacher’ and ‘a monster’ for picture 1 and it went more or less like this: ‘Mmmm, a teacher. Maybe mum is a teacher. Maybe the book is about a teacher. Maybe the book is about a monster. Maybe…’ and I let the kids give some more ideas about these two words.

Afterwards, the students work in pairs, taking turns to retell the story with the new words.

If you are interested and if you would like to see the handouts that we used, you can find them here.

Step 3: Our own story: again, we start with retelling a story, together, as a group. Afterwards the teacher goes through the framework of the story, using a powerpoint presentation, highlightling the main ‘events’ of the story, at the same time eliciting ideas from the class. Then the students are given some silent ‘Thinking Time’ (something that we tried for the very first time and that worked like a dream) during which they prepare their story. Afterwards, they are telling their stories to their partners.

Action stories

One of the tools that will come in handy in and that can be used to accompany the activities mentioned above is the action story or the TPR stories promoted by Herbert Puchta (and Gunther Gerngross) in pretty much all of his coursebooks. They have been included in Playway to English, both editions and in Superminds 1 and 2. I have some vague recollections about the old Join Us series, too. There is a separate publication, Do and Understand: 50 Action Stories for Young Learners which they wrote together and which was published in 1996 (wow!) but which still can be found in libraries and on amazon.co.uk.

The idea behind those is that children, even the youngest ones, can be encouraged to listen to a story and to tell a story, using a multi-channel approach: there is a set of pictures to illustrate the main events and each of these comes with a sentence and a gesture.

Students listen to the story, retell the story using the gestures and, later on, also the sentences and they work with the visuals in the coursebook completing such exercises as listen and order the pictures and, in case of the primary students, read and number the sentences.

More ideas to work with pictures and stories on this blog

Happy teaching!

The Storytelling Campaign

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makebeliefscomix.com

Forgive the grand name, I must have been in the mood for something like that, now I feel like the general Kutuzov himself.

Initially, I was planning to write a post on all the reasons of using stories in class and perhaps I am going to get down to it, eventually but I want to reasearch it properly so bear with me. It will take some time.

If you have not worked with stories much you can have a look at this post here, to look at the basics of using storybooks in the EFL classroom and here at one of the ways of building a lesson around a coursebook story.

Today, however, I would like to tell you about the behind the scenes work – everything that takes place in my VYL and YL classes to ensure that my kids are ready to tell stories.

makebeliefscomix.com

Why bother?

  • To take my students from the receptive skills of storytelling towards the productive storytelling skills and in a more extensive way than just listening to the stories we read and which they help to retell
  • To give them the appropriate tools to enable production (We Want More! (remember?)
  • To unleash their imagination and creativity, step by step, even in pre-school.
makebeliefscomix.com

Step 1: Teaching adjectives

I wouldn’t want to say that the curriculum and the coursebooks we use with VYL or YL do not contain any adjectives at all. Yes, some of them are included but, in my opinion, there is a lot more potential than just the basic ‘happy, sad, angry’ and ‘big and small’. If you think about it, many coursebooks introduce adjectives only when they deal with comparatives and superlatives and, in my humble opionion, even the very young kids understand at least some of the opposites and they can use them to describe things.

For that very reason, the curriculum can be upgraded by adding:

  • more emotions: happy, sad, angry, hungry, thirsty, tired, sleepy, not so good, great, good, OK.
  • more adjectives to describe characters: brave, strong, clever, beautiful, ugly, scared and not scared, fast, slow.
  • adjectives to describe objects and animals: funny, scary, long, short, old, new, clean and dirty.

It is true that it might not always be easy to depict these accurately but we can easily use the children’s growing ability to deal with symbols and all these concepts can be associated and explained with carefully chosen images.

Here you can find some of the vocabulary sets that I use with my pre-school and primary strudents. A very important note: children are not necessarily expected to memorise all of these and to be able to remember both the word and its written form. We stick to the curriculum as regards the tests and assessment but in our classes we use a lot wider vocabulary range than the coursebook suggests.

makebeliefscomix.com

Step 2: Teaching verbs and teaching Present Continous

That is another topic or area which, in my opinion, can significantly contribute to the development of our little students’ storytelling skills but, at the same time, the area that has not really been reflected in the coursebooks. Fair enough, the Present Simple might not be the most essential structure to know. It not introduced explicitly in the pre-school coursebooks (to the best of my knowledge) and in primary it is a structure on the YLE Starters list but in the classroom, this one is introduced in year 2 of primary.

At the same time, this is the structure that can be easily introduced and clarified with gestures, a structure that can be used in the classroom, to clarify instructions or to manage the group and a structure that is very (very, very) useful while describing pictures and, later on, describing pictures which form a story, like in the YLE Movers and Flyers.

As for the content, these are some of the verbs that can be added to the curriculum

  • everyday verbs: get up, eat, drink, brush your teeth, wash your face, get dressed, go to school, go to sleep, play, cook, watch TV, sleep.
  • hobbies and free-time activities: dance, sing, draw, read, write, ride a bike, listen to music, jump, run, swim.
makebeliefscomix.com

Step 3: Teaching the basic linking words

This is probably the most challenging step as it is the most abstract one and cannot be easily represented with flashcards. At the same time, the three basic linking words: and, but and because can be taught in the context.

These are the ideas that I tend to use with my students

  • and: introduced as a follow-up of ‘I like / I don’t like’ to talk about our preferences ie ‘I like apples and bananas and cookies’ and it can be used with quite a few sets of vocabulary such as colours, toys, food, animals, pets, etc.
  • but: introduced through the song ‘What do you like to do‘ by Super Simple Songs
  • because: introduced when we talk about how we feel. We start with a simple ‘I’m good’, ‘I’m happy’ and then we slowly introduce the linking word ‘I’m happy because it is sunny’. The same applies to all the pictures and photographs we discuss.

In all three cases, the introduction starts with the children being exposed to complex sentences linked with three words and getting used to hearing them. Production comes later on, when they are ready.

makebeliefscomix.com

This is the first part of the post.

In part two I am going to share some of the activites we use in class. It’s half-ready)))

Happy teaching!

Behaviour management in the VYL classroom. When the world begins to fall apart…

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London

I would like to dedicate this post to my trainees on the IH VYL course because it was during the coversations with them, during the session and after the session, during the tutorials and the informal chats on Whatsapp that this article took shape.

The set-up

Imagine: you plan your class, you get the materials ready, you enter your little kingdom and then things happen. They are the things you do not approve of, things you don’t like, things that should not be happening, things that get in the way of learning English. Or, in other words, as Harold Macmillan said ‘Events, my boy, events’, my favourite line of this week or even this whole month (courtesy to Edward).

The number of things that can happen is somewhere around… a few hundred and, naturally, it is simply impossible to put them all into a manual for teacher, with all ‘what to do’s and what not to do’s’. There are too many of these and there are too many variables that will be playing a part and adding the local colouring. Here, it is not the case of ‘one fits all’. Oups.

One thing is certain, the problem is not just going to go away, it is not going sort itself out. Whatever ‘unwanted behaviour’ is taking your lesson apart, it needs to be dealt with.

Here are a few roads to take.

Spinetto, Italy

The worst solution ever? Doing nothing.

Simply because it not a solution at all. The problem (whatever it is) is not going to simply go away, disappear or un-happen. Pretending that it hasn’t happened and moving on, in an attempt to save the activity, the game or the entire lesson, can only lead to even more serious consequences.

The unwanted behaviour needs to be acknowledged and stopped because it can escalate and compromise the well-being and safety of all the people present. So, do something! Perhaps one of these things that you can find below.

Moscow

Signal

The simplest way of doing it will be calling the student’s name but using a voice that is appropriate to signal the unwanted behaviour. The tone of the voice on its own should convey the message that something undesirable is taking place and that it needs to stop. This, of course, does not mean raising the voice or shouting but if the teacher uses the same ‘happy’ voice for praising and for disciplining (or ‘disciplining’), the message will be much more confusing for the kids. Instead of ‘Oups, I’d better stop‘, the child will think ‘Oh, look, my teacher is saying my name in such a nice way. She must really like me‘.

In the same vein, long speeches, in L1 or L2, will be counter-productive in such a situation. It is much better to keep it short, for example ‘No!’ or ‘Stop, please!’, used together with the child’s name and a gesture. And, as soon as the unwanted behaviour finishes, also acknoledge it, perhaps with a smile and a ‘Thank you’.

Very often and with a majority of things that can happen in the VYL classroom, this approach should do, if applied consistently. After all, kids know that we don’t run, we do not push the others, we do not take their toys and so on. In most cases, such a gentle reminder, a speed limiter of sorts, will do the job.

Saint Petersburg

Pause

Sometimes, these kinds of signals are not enough, however and it might be necessary to pause the lesson and deal with the problem in the open, either because more than one student is involved and / or because everyone can learn from it. This might be a situation when more than one child has done something to upset another (ie draw on their work, take their toy, say something) or when there is more than one child involved in any unwanted activity (hiding under the table, pretending to be a very angry dinosaur, hitting the class puppet, drumming with the markers on the table). All these situations do affect everyone present, not only the two students actively involved, and they need to be dealt with in the open.

‘Stop’ is still going to be necessary but it is going to work only as the first step. If there are any resources that contribute to the mayhem, they need to be taken away, for example these markers used to drum on the table. Then, a conversation.

It is very difficult to recommend something that will work in all the situations and all the contexts. Ideally, this part would be done in the children’s L1, but not all the teachers out there speak their little students’ language and not all the schools out there approve of the teachers using the L1 in the classroom.

Now, in Russia, I have the advantage of being able to understand the L1 of my students and what normally happens is we have these conversations in two languages: I speak English and my kids react in Russian, but it was not always the case. Like many of my colleagues in the VYL classrooms around the world, I had to do my magic only in English.

To be perfectly honest, it is not easy to grade the language to the level of pre-A1 and, at the same time, to convey the message in a delicate and sensitive way, but it is not impossible. You can use simple sentences and draw the children’s attention to the fact that their behaviour may make other students unhappy (‘Look, Sasha is sad now’) or that their behaviour is not appropriate (‘Is it a good idea?’). There are some advantages here, as it is almost guaranteed that these conversations will be short and concise and this is how I have dealt with all the issues in my classroom in the past couple of years. Although, to be perfectly honest, sometimes I am sorry that I cannot just sit down and have a real conversation in my students’ L1.

Moscow

Be clever

There are many tricks that the teacher can use in order to manage the behaviour of the group and of the individual students, without interupting the lesson too much but dealing with the problem effectively. Here are some of mine

  • Almost magically remove or stop the catalyst or the distractor, for example, put the hand at the back of the stool to block it and to stop the child from rocking, put the marker on the top of the board or on the top shelf
  • Use the command ‘Freeze’ to physically pause all the class proceedings and in a game-like way stop the unwanted behaviour. Although, of course, the teacher needs to introduce the game first. Once the kids got involved in something else, the disaster has been averted and the teacher is again in charge, the lesson goes on, according to plan. It might be the best solution for all the difficult situations when the world really does begin to fall apart and a quick fix is necessary. Instead of a conversation with the kids, a thorough analysis of the situation and looking for answers and the steps that need to be taken in the future.
  • Create a diversion and draw the kids’ attention to something else – a song (the easiest one to implement), a video, a favourite puppet. Again, as soon as the kids have calmed down, proceed with the lesson. And then take a moment to reflect on what led to the difficult situation.
  • Become the class clown and joke your way out of it. A funny face will do, a silly, clumsy gesture and a well-faked horror at the crayons that spilled out of the box. Then, like in most of the situations above – proceed, reflect and change.
  • Depending on the situation, it might be a good idea to whisper some encouraging message into the student’s ear. It can be in English, it can be in the child’s L1, it might a real whisper or a 5-year-old whisper (a good attempt that everyone present hears anyway). It will help to redirect the emotions, break the spell of sadness or anger, and it will help them to focus on something else and it works really well with the situations in which a child is upset or sad or just withdrawn, for whatever the reason there might be. It might be also a good idea to play a quick round of Broken Telephone with everyone, to involve the whole group in the same activity but it will work only if the kids already know the game.
Vyborg

Praise

There are situations when the best way of dealing with the unwanted behaviour is a complete diversion when instead of addressing the offender (apart from the basic signal and calling to attention), the teacher can choose highlighting the fact that the other children behave well.

Not only will it work well for the behaviour that is aimed at drawing the teacher’s attention (since the teacher is withdrawing this attention) but it will also acknowledge and applaud the behaviour of the class which is something that we often forget to do, taking those ‘angels’ for granted. Although, truth be told, they deserve our recognition.

Praising the students and reinforcing their behaviour will be also a clear message and, short-term, it will create a situation when the ‘offenders’ get a chance to reflect on their actions and to calm down and by the time everyone else has already been praised, they will also be closer to the desired behaviour and the teacher will be able to high-five them, too.

Baikal

Ignore (only not really)

Some disasters are better to be ignored entirely.

Of course, by ‘ignore’ I do not mean here the official Cambridge Dictionary definition of the verb because that is going to get us nowhere good (see above). What I have in mind is a VYL teacher’s (a pre-school teacher’s, a parent’s, a carer’s) definition of ‘ignore’ which, more or less, goes like that: acknowledge that a situation has occurred and, instead of drawing more attention to it, let it sizzle out, while, of course, keeping an eye on the child, paying even more attention than usual, only not openly this time.

Sometimes this will work better than any whole-class conversations or ‘lectures’, especially when we are dealing with a tantrum directed at getting the teacher’s attention hoping for an outcome that will be more favourable (ie we will not sing the song I don’t like, I will get the best sticker, I will be the first one to join the circle) or when two students have had a disagreement (and there are no obvious roles of the offender and the victim or when it is impossible to tell who is who) or when there is obvious resistance from the student and taking the matter further is dragging it into a dead-end street, like in the story here.

It has to be said out loud, it will not always be easy to label a classroom situation as ‘Ignore (only not really)’ because, of course, tens and tens of factors will have to be taken into consideration. Nonetheless, I believe, it is good to remember that this option also exists.

Rybinsk

Ask yourself it is a one-off or a regular feature

Or about working with the events long-term.

It is perfectly natural that all, even the most angelic and most well-behaved children, have a worse day, a crazy day, a tired day or a not-such-a-good day. This is the day when their behaviour might surprise their teacher (or, let’s be honest, completely ruin their teacher’s plans for the lesson). But these are the one-off events and it is not even necessary to analyse them in detail.

If, however, such unwanted behaviour happens regularly and repeatedly, it will be necessary to look into it. Is there a pattern? Is there anything specific that triggers that behaviour, an activity, a person, a stage of the lesson? Analysing all these details will help to choose the right solutions to the problem.

Perhaps it is the time to change the routine? Perhaps some games or activities have to be put on hold for the time being? Perhaps the group needs more settlers? Perhaps they need more stirrers? Perhaps it is time to reconsider the seating arrangement? Perhaps it is the time to talk to the parents?

Find out more

It might happen, too, that the self-reflection of the classroom adventures is not enough and that the teacher will have to reach out to the parents because this background information might help to understand what is happening in the classroom and why and, in turn, lead to finding a solution.

New York

Post-post reflections

Classroom and behaviour management is the theme and the focus of session 3 of the IH VYL course on which I have been a tutor for four years now and that is always the session that, according to our trainees, ‘could last twice as long’, because there are so many issues, so many problems, so many tricky situations that the debate could go on forever…

Unfortunately, that is simply impossible. Fortunately, as another trainee commented, to some extent, we deal with the classroom and behaviour management in every session, while discussing craft, songs, stories and literacy so at the end of the course, our trainees are better prepared to manage a group of the little people. Here is one hoping that this post will be helpful, too!

It is my deeply-held belief that by gaining understanding of all the pre-school brain and heart and by trying to see the world from their perspective, we get better prepared to teach and to bring up very young learners and to deal with the classroom and behaviour management issues that might arise.

For that reason I started a series of posts on the blog, in which I describe the real situations from the classroom and how I dealt with them. The series is called ‘Child development stories’ and you can find it here. While a manual with all the potential situations and all the right answers is never going to happen, we can definitely learn from observing our students and from analysing what happened and get better at managing the pre-primary kingdom, on the good days and on the worse ones.

Happy teaching!

I am a teacher. Reflections from the rocking chair by the fire.

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All photos dedicated to the city. Happy Birthday, Moscow!

Everyone gets to answer the question, at one point in one’s life, at least once. ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ On my personal wishlist, over the years, there were the following: a ballerina, a doctor, a woman (the first one), a plumber (that is the latest, my plan for the retirement years) and…a teacher. No idea if that means ‘no ambition whatsoever’ or ‘achievable aims’ but nevermind that. I am a teacher. Yay to these dreams that come true, tick!

I have been planning to write this post for a while but I’ve been struggling and what I ended up with was either a lot of sentimental waffle or some lofty speeches worthy of an educational Thomas Moore. No, thank you. Instead, I am going to hide behind a few stories, hoping that they will collectively illustrate why one might want to become a teacher.

There is a boy in this story, a local troublemaker, who actively spent his school time making his teachers’ life ‘interesting‘ for three years straight. There is always one of these in every class and someone has to be their teacher. The teacher and everyone else survived.

The same boy, fifteen years on (15!), meets the teacher’s brother at some kind of a social do in the hometown. ‘I was a nightmare at school‘, says the boy, already an adult, ‘Say hello to your sister and pass on my apologies‘.

There is another student, a girl this time, that the same brother meets at another do in the hometown. This student, years on, also asks the brother to pass her regards. ‘I don’t remember many teachers from the school.’, she says, ‘I do remember her. She was cool.’

There is an adult student, Olga, who gets in touch via Instagram and it turns out that she is also a teacher now and that seems to be inspired to become a teacher of English in the teacher’s classroom, about ten years earlier. And it nothing short of touching…

There is the first student ever, her own cousin, Magda, and the lessons which were based on pure enthusiasm and on intuition because the teacher was more of an ugly duckling and not yet a real professional. Now, imagine this teacher’s emotions when, a few years later, she was sitting in the hallways of the university, waiting for Magda to pass her final exams and to be awarded an MA in English and Translation.

There is a teenager, only a year ago, at the summer camp. This teenager fills in an anonymous feedback form and in her commentaries on the English lessons writes ‘I’m not scared anymore‘. To be honest, that reduces the teacher to tears because, really, although the lessons were good, she thinks ‘I have not done anything special‘, and yet, that seems to have made a difference.

There is the little girl, Sasha. After one of the lessons, this little girl comes up to her teacher, looks at her with a very serious face and says: ‘Anka, thank you very much for preparing such interesting activities for us‘.

It’s been a good few years already but the teacher still hasn’t recovered from the happy shock that this conversation was. The little people hardly ever do that. They will go for it, they will take part and leave the classroom happy. Sometimes, they might bring you a dead ladybird or donate the only balloon they have. Sometimes they may actually confess ‘Я Вас люблю‘.

Very often, though, as soon as they leave the group or change the school, they simply forget. Just forget. I like to think that they make room for new memories and new information. Out of sight, out of heart, without any metaphors. And no honourable mentions on the social media. But that’s ok, that’s simply how it is and it doesn’t matter. The teacher knows anyway that maybe she will not be remembered, but she did make a tiny little bit of a difference.

But there is more than just the blast from the past, more than just memories. There are the kids in the classroom, here and now. It is a good feeling to be looking at their progress test results. It feels great when they come back in September and proudly show the certificates they got from Cambridge.

It is even more beautiful when during the most regular lesson, you realise that the shiest and the quietest teenager in the world now leads the debate and presents winning arguments, with the confidence that could move the mountains. Or, that the student who entered the classroom five years ago to learn her first words, now is telling everyone about something that happened at school that morning, a hilarious story from the cafeteria, with the narration and the dialogue, with only a few grammar hiccups which are still to be expected since it is only A1 and she is only 9.

So, for a moment like one of these, the teacher is still a teacher.

And, now, as a reward, since you have lasted until the end of this post, here are all the articles that might come in handy in September.

Classroom management

Activities for the first lessons

Happy teaching!

My favourite songs aka Where to start if you have never sung before

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This post is dedicated to all the teachers who soon are going to be entering the VYL or YL classrooms for the first time ever and are now wondering how to prepare for that.

Why?

Songs are definitely the resource that a teacher should use while teaching primary or pre-primary. A while ago I have tried to collect all the reasons to sing a song in one post (the full list here) but if you have never sung before in the classroom, here are the five most important reasons

  • songs will help you create a framework for the lesson, something to begin with, something to finish with, some nice punctuation marks in the lesson
  • they will be the easiest way of changing the pace of the lesson. Even if the kids don’t participate fully from the very beginning by singing, the song itself will work as a stirrer (or a settler, if you choose a very calm and peaceful one)
  • they will create an opportunity for the children to participate, at least with movement and gestures and, depending on the song, even with a few words or structures
  • songs are something that we all do together so they will help you ‘unite’ the group after the tasks on which the kids work individually and they will help to create a community
  • you can share them with the parents, to listen at home, this way taking English out of the classroom

Some do’s and don’t’s

Staging a song lesson for pre-primary or primary should, in fact, be a separate post, because there is a great variety of techniques and activties that can be used. For now, I can recommend having a look at this post here as well as the five tips.

  • Listen to the song before the lesson and get ready. Plan how you are going to introduce it. Simply pressing the PLAY button and saying ‘Let’s sing’ is not going to do the job with songs in the EFL / ESL classroom.
  • Play the video. It will really help the kids understand what the song is about.
  • Sometimes they are already in the song and in the video, sometimes not and we have to come up with a set to use with each song. It is something worth investing your time in because the gestures will help the kids understand and remember the lyrics. What’s even more important, especially in the first lesson with a new song – gestures will give the children a real opportunity to participate.
  • Sing yourself, do all the gestures yourself. And with a smile, too! Even if you are the only one and even if the students don’t join you straight away. It is perfectly natural, they need time to get used to the music, the lyrics, the gestures, the rhythm. Plus, you are the leader! If you don’t get involved, why would your students?
  • Share the song with the parents and use it again. A song is never just for one lesson.

My favourite hello songs

Hello. Super Simple Songs – a real hit and a good start, with 6 emotions, including ‘not so good’, to show the kids that it is ok to feel not happy, sometimes.

Hello Song. Fun Kids English – another good one, with monsters, there are actually two parts of it, each with 4 emotions. It is good to have a new version when the kids get bored with the first one.

Hello Song For Kids, The Singing Walrus – I love it because it includes not only the hello questions but also some Present Simple sentences and questions about the everyday school routine (‘Everyday I go to school) and each of them is repeated twice, in the classroom it can be T and then kids. Lots of potential.

Hello Song for Kids, EFL Kids Videos – very simple but very energetic, lots of repetition but also a nice variation of verses sung loudly and quietly. We loved it.

Hello Hello! Can you clap your hands. Super Simple Songs – another simple one with a few movements, perfect if you want to get up and move a bit

My favourite goodbye songs

Goodbye to you! EFL Kids Videos – using the same melody and the same pattern as the hello song from EFL Kids Videos, helps to save the time and works both as ‘something old’ and ‘something new’

Bye Bye Goodbye Super Simple Songs – a kind of a follow-up to the Hello Hello Can you clap your hands, the music is different but the song uses some of the verbs.

Goodbye Song for Kids, The Singing Walrus – this one is a bit more complex, but again, as their hello song, it uses full sentences. Lots of potential.

See you later, aligator, Super Simple Songs – a very short one, includes gestures for alligator and butterfuly and if you want, it can go on forever.

My favourite movement songs

Head, shoulders, knees and toes, Super Simple Songs – everything you may need in your first lessons, just getting up and moving a bit, even if the topic of body parts is scheduled for some other day

Move. Dance Song For Kids. Super Simple Songs – my latest discovery, lots of movement (verbs), a great melody. It can be used partially ie the first three parts of as a whole. It can be also extended if kids have their own ideas.

Jump, Run and Shout. The Singing Walrus – another energetic, rock song with movement. Just like Move, we like to sing it in the beginning of the lesson. It helps to get rid of lots of energy.

The Jellyfish Song. Super Simple Songs – a simple but effective song, very little langauge here, you are going to be pretending that you are jellyfish. Somehow, the kids get a chance to move but also to calm down.

Shake Your Sillies Out. Brain Breaks For Kids. – this is one is for older kids, lots of great ideas here and quite tiring, when used from the beginning until the end, but my kids loved the idea of ‘shaking the sillies out’ or ‘clapping our crazies out’ (very necessary on some days) so we only used the movements, not the song.

My favourite randomness

Open Shut Them, Super Simple Songs – one of my favourite songs ever because it teaches adjectives and opposites (somehow neglected by many of the coursebooks and programmes) and you can easily include gestures. Plus there are four parts of it which means that a new one can be added as soon as necessary. Open Shut Them can almost become a part of the classroom routine for the whole year and later on, the teacher can even extend it by creating own versions.

Hickory Dickory Dock, Super Simple Songs – some counting, some animals and an unexpected ending.

What’s your favourite colour? Super Simple Songs – first of all, it can be inroduced from the beginning of the course (colours), it can be used as a game (to point at different colours in the room as the come up in the song) and, last but not least, it contains a great Q&A set (‘What’s your favourite…?’ ‘I like…’) and it can be turned into a real conversation and easily extended into other topics, as they come up i.e. toys, numbers, pets, letters.

Happy teaching!

Don’t Box Me In! Teachers Who ‘Bent’ the Zoom Square…

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Just a lesson…

…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!

Beware of the trainer. YL clichés.

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My name is Vader, Darth Vader. I am a teacher and a teacher trainer, I work with VYL and YL teachers.

Well, not really. I would like to think that, as a trainer, I smile a lot, I am supportive and open to questions and debates and I only shout at football matches. But there are those moments, on the courses that I teach or just in the everyday mentoring life, when I feel I am taking on some of Mr Vader’s traits. Although even then it is more in the style of the Darth Vader in the photo above.

One of those Darth Vader moments is defnitely induced by some of the concepts and beliefs related to teaching English to young and very young learners. They are out there, in the world, and although they are entirely ‘wrong’ or ‘incorrect’, they have already become some EFL YL clichés that can cause more harm than good.

In the post below I will share with you my top five ‘Think Twice Concepts’ in the early years EFL. A very subjective approach, I must warn you. Are you ready? Fasten your seatbelts! Let’s go!

courtesy of Юлец

Bad behaviour

There is nothing that could be labelled as ‘bad behaviour’, not in the EFL classroom full of pre-schoolers. There is curiosity put to practice, there are emotions in action, there are boredom- induced replacement activities. There is fear that materialises itself as agreession and a general lack of goodwill. There is tiredness, hunger, possibly, or, on the contrary, the high levels of sugar from the chocolate bar eaten five minutes right before the lesson or the memory of the morning visit to the doctor and the unpleasantness of it that still lingers in the air (although the arm really did stop to hurt after a jab about three hours ago). There are, also, plenty of examples of ‘I will do what I have always done in such situations and if it has always worked so far with mum, with nanny, at home, at pre-school and at the playground, it is bound to take the required effect here, too!’

There is no bad behaviour, although sometimes we get to deal with ‘the unwanted behaviour’, that might be getting in the way of our lesson or other children’s physical or mental well-being.

Solutions: first of all, react, ideally to stop this unwanted behaviour, or, at the very least, to signal that it is not what we want to have. If one thing is certain, it is that it is not just going to happen, all by itself. Then, after the lesson, when everyone has already left and when the dust has settled – reflection. Was the first time that it happened? Does it always happen? Is there any chance that some triggers could be identified? Was it in anyway related to the activities, to what the teacher did, to what other children did? What happened later?

It is always a good idea to talk to the parents or carers, too. Not to complain or to blame the child or the adults but mostly to understand what really happened and why. And perhaps (but just unfortunately ‘perhaps’) this information will come in handy the next time it happens.

Egocentric

I don’t think I will ever be able to forgive Piaget for using this particular adjective to describe the little kids’ attitude to the world and to the people in it. It is a perfect example of a concept created by adults and used to refer to people who are not adult yet and whose attitudes and reactions are what they are simply because they have not had a chance yet to grow and to develop fully. In the EFL terms, it would be like sending a seven-year-old beginner to take an FCE exam and then scolding them for failing while they are simply not there, not yet and they should be seen nowhere near the exam room.

Of course, pre-schoolers might struggle with sharing the box of crayons, they might want to always be first and always hold the teacher’s hand. They may not like to sit next to Pasha today and they will not want the other children to touch the car they brought to class, to show off a little bit. They will not be happy about leaving their picture in the classroom for the teacher to display on the noticeboard. And they will all want the princess flashcard. But all of that happens because they are just learning how to be a person in the world full of people and a person in that particular group of children learning English.

Solutions: The most important of them comes from Mick Jagger because, indeed, ‘Time is on my side, yes, it is!’. The group of children starting to study together in September will be changing, from lesson to lesson, and even after a week or two or three, they will be a completely different bunch, only because they have had a chance to interact with each other, to do something together and to find out that a group is not Anka and five other someones but Anka and Sasha, Pasha, Kirill, Mitya and Olya, some of whom we like a little more, some of whom we like a little bit less.

Apart from that, there are also all the tricks that the teacher can use throughout the course, to help the little people bond and start noticing the other children and start to learn how to share the lesson with them.

So, no ‘egocentrism’ but ‘social skills that are still developing’.

A typical five-year-old child…

Apart from the knowledge of the language and the knowledge of the methodology, the knowledge of the child development stages is one of the three areas that an EFL teacher working with young learners needs to be familar with (Mourão, 2018: 429) and it is great to see that a summary of these characteristics have made it into the professional literature ( Mourão, 2020: 33 – 39) and are easily available online.

At the same time, there is a danger that teachers will be looking into these and applying them too religiously, without considering the differences between the individual children. As Mourão (2020: 215) says ‘Children develop holistically, show individual differences in development and progress at different rates’. That means that even if we had a group of only five-year-olds, all of them coming from similar environmenta and all of them provided with the same opportunities and, even, why not, all of them born on the same day, they could all develop their cognitive, motor, social or linguistic skills at completely different rates. As a result, despite the fact that the group would be theoretically homogenous, a teacher would still have to deal with a mix of abilities. It seems that a teacher equipped with a little knowledge and induced by this knowledge expectations of the children and of the lesson might be even more damaging that no knowledge at all. Because typical five-year-olds don’t exist.

Solution: an open-mind and an organic approach to the little people sitting in the classroom. Instead of applying strict frameworks and checklists and trying to make the kids fit in the tables (which they are more than likely not to be able to do, as a group or as individuals), reading and researching the age group in a close connection with the specific students whom we teach at the moment.

Short attention span

This is, without any doubt, one of the most important differences between an adult and a child learner and this is the one that gets highlighted most frequently. For a reason, too.

However, at the same time, any attempt at specifing what that attention span is or, even more, at quantifying is, simply, pointless. Much as it may give the (false) impression that once the concept has been assigned a number, it is not as scary and it will be easier to deal with, especially for those of the teachers who have little or no experience of working with the younger children. It is from them that I often hear that ‘an activity should not take more than five minutes’ or, even, ‘it is the child’s age plus one minute’.

Well, I wish it had been that straightforward.

In real life, the attention span will be very much dependent on a number of factors that nobody is able to predict or enlist, and, as such, it is simply impossible determine once and for all. Children’s attention span will be related to their age, to some extent (although it will materialise itself in a way unique for each child) but it will also be affected by absolutely everything that might have had an impact on the children’s mood before and in the lesson and the teacher’s mood before and in the lesson. Such as? Such as the first snow of the year, a spider in the classroom, a visit to the doctor just before the lesson, a swimming lesson just before the lesson, a birthday party attended, a grandma’s visit, candy eaten before the lesson…Or a teacher who has had an especially tiring or stressful day, any malfunctioning technology or a handout lost. Any of these and the tried and tested activity that has always worked with the same group or the same age group, that has had the kids in awe and involved for five or even ten minutes, can quickly turn into a failure or the most boring and unappealing activity in the entire world.

Solution: first and foremost, switch off your adult thinking of what happens in the classroom. The kids, young or very young, they will not be just sitting behind the table, patiently waiting for you to start what you have prepared for the day AND they will not stay involved in it for a prolonged period of time as long as you think they should. Second, while planning a lesson, think about it from your student’s perspective and ask yourself what your students might find interesting about an activity. Is there anything that would motivate them to engage in in? Anything else that just the mere fact of this being an activity done in a lesson.

Then, in the lesson, itself, keeping your eyes open and adapting to who (and in what state) you have in the classroom on the day is the best way of dealing with all the implications of the short attention span. And, although I would argue that this applies to all the age groups and levels, being ready to let go and teaching the students and not the plan, not the coursebook, not the handout and not the activity.

‘They don’t like singing’

Sorry, permission to disagree here and yes, even before I have seen you in the classroom and before I have met your little students. I don’t think it is true, simple as that. Why do the teachers say that then?

Partially, it is because, again, the adult perception of what song and singing is and should be gets in the way. On the one hand, when we listen to songs in our non-teaching life, we do just that, we listen and take pleasure in it, hopefully. There is nothing wrong with it, and, indeed, I believe that listening for pleasure should be sometimes included in our lessons, too. The only ‘problem’ with very young learners is that they might not be familiar with that kind of an exercise and after a minute or two, with no other task, they will be getting bored and distracted. And, possibly engaging in other, unwanted, activities.

On the other hand, when we use songs in the EFL lessons, we expect the students to sing these songs and in case of pre-schoolers or even primary school children, it will take them for them to master all the elements of the song, the music, the rhythm, the lyrics, before they are actually ready to sing. If the teacher expects a real performance in the lesson in which the song was introduced for the first time, they will be disappointed. Again, the children might remain focused for a minute or two and then, again, they will find something else to do and the teacher will arrive at a conclusion already mentioned in the heading to this paragraph.

It is true, that the word ‘singing‘ could be replaced with absolutely any type of a YL activity, ‘craft’, ‘miming’, literacy’, ‘animals’, ‘this game’ and the implications would be the same or almost the same. It is also true that music-related activities are more likely to feature here. Mostly because teachers often worry that they themselves cannot hold a tune or that they are not confident enough to sing in front of others.

Solution: forget about you and your pre-conceptions, your teacher previous knowledge and try. It might be that you yourself are not the world greatest fan of Baby Shark and of pretending that you are a…melting ice-cream (btw, one of the real ideas suggested for the miming game by my students) but the simple truth is, if the teacher does not make an effort and if the teacher does not get properly involved in a song or in an activity, it is almost a given, that the students will not, either. Especially, the little ones. And, really, the most amazing thing about the VYL audience is that they really do not care whether their teachers sing well or badly. The only thing that matters is whether they put their hearts in it or not.

And as for the other problems, be it music or craft, scaffolding and lesson planning is the answer and no two ways about it. If you need any more convincing to why we should use songs with children, please have a look here and if you are looking for some ideas of what can be done with a song to maximise language production, you should definitely look at this post here.

Coda

This post is not only about me having a little venting session on a Monday morning. It is not a critique on the people who use these terms and it is definitely not about my ‘What not to say’ list that I will be handing in to all my teachers and trainees from now on.

I decided to put this post together because it seems that all these clichés start in the very same place and that is when adults try to apply adult categories, labels and concepts to children and to how they see the world, how they learn and how they grow which might lead to misunderstanding, confusion and frustration in the classroom.

Perhaps there should be one more thing added to the list of skills and areas that a VYL or YL teacher should be equipped with, apart from the three mentioned by Mourão (2018)? The knowledge of the subject and of the appropriate methodolody is absolutely crucial and so is the awareness of the child development stages. They are an absolute must and a starting point. Still, they are going to be of little use in the real life if a teacher is not going to be willing to switch the perspective and to try to see the lesson and everything that happens in it from the point of view of a three-year-old or a seven-year-old.

As everything in teaching, nothing happens overnight, and it takes time to develop the ability to observe and to analyse your students and their behaviour and to learn from that. The good thing is that the very willingness to accept the fact that a different perspective is needed is already a big step towards success.

Sometimes, changing the perspective physically can make a real difference, too. In our teacher training courses, we sit at the big tables (of course, we are adults!) but there always comes the time when we transfer to the little stools in a small circle. We do it to practise different games and to reflect on them but this is also a great opportunity to experience how the furniture and the set up can influence the activities and the emotions.

This blog post can hopefully be a good first step, too!

What do you think, dear reader? Are there any other terms that you would add to this list? Please leave your commetns below!

Happy teaching!

P.S. All the amazing animals in the photos live in the streets of Yaroslavl. Mr Vader found a home in a coffee shop Free-da there. All photos – mine, apart from the rooster taken by Юлец and used here with her permission.

References

Development Matters in the Early Years Foundation Stage (2012), to be downloaded here

Mourão, S. (2018), Research into teaching of English as a Foreign Language in early childhood and care, In: S. Garton and F. Copland (eds), The Routledge Book of Teaching English to Young Learners, Milton Park and New York: Routledge, p. 425 – 440.

Mourão, S. & G. Ellis (2020), Teaching English to Pre-Primary Children, Stuttgard: Delta Publishing

Free yourself! Forget about the coursebook!

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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 coursebook authors do not know the children (or the students) who sit in your classroom and, try hard as they may, they will never be able to come up with the activities that suit those students’ needs. Only the teacher who works with them can do it.
  • The students for whom the coursebooks are written belong to some non-existant category of children: they never cause any problems, they never misbehave, they always come energetic and motivated, they are always focused, they understand and follow instructions at the first attempt, they always match the coursebook level and the ministry description of what a seven- or ten-year old should be like and they are interested in all the possible subjects in the world. Unlike our Pasha, Sasha and Fedya.
  • The coursebook authors choose the texts or vocabulary or listening or grammar practice activities based on the principles that might not go with the abilities or interests of your students.
  • The summer courses are a perfect opportunity to let the hair down and see what teaching can be like, when the student is at the heart of everything that happens in the classroom
  • The training teaching practice on the course is even a perfect-er opportunity because forgetting the coursebook is done under the supervision and with the help of a tutor who will help to make sure that this grand experiment does not get out of hand and that there is a happy ending to that story. There will be also your peers and, obviously, seven heads thinking together are much better than one.
  • Forgetting the coursebook also means that the teachers set themselves free and start thinking about the lesson (or the course) in a more organic way. What topic do you want to teach? What vocabulary would you like to include? Which grammar structures will go well with that? What can be the main productive activity? What do you need to prepare your students for it? Do you want to include a song, a story, a video? How much time do you have for all that? And when all these questions are answered (and only then!), opening the book to check how many of your personal dreams can come true with whatever is in the coursebook. Not the other way round.
  • Adapting, creating or finding all the missing element will take time but the final product – a lesson that you want to teach, is definitely worth it. Even if it is not the best lesson you ever teach. Learning from mistakes is as important as learning from the great achievements.

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.

Summertime, party time! End-of-course activities with young learners.

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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:

  • What are you going to do in the summer?
  • About you
  • Tell me about this picture

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

  • speaking: discussion in groups or pairs, monitored by the teachers, the students are encouraged to talk about their favourite and least favourite lessons during the year, favourite and least favourite activities, most difficult and easiest topics and tasks.
  • writing A: students are given the report form to fill in for themselves, writing about their achievements and potential areas to improve
  • writing B: the teacher adds his/her comments to the report, when applicable.

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!