#eflkids

In defense of paper, In defense of magic. Storybooks in the EFL classroom.

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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.

  • Simple vocabulary revision with a different tool: the teacher points out at pictures in the book and calls out the colours, counts them, asks if they are big or small, if the children are happy or sad, if the students already know this vocabulary. This might happen only at the level of the colour (It’s green) and not necessarily with the actual noun (It’s a green fish), although, admittedly, there is some potential here, too, to learn the new vocabulary through storybooks
  • Simple functional language practice: Hello Pete, Goodbye Pete in the first lessons with the book and then according to what the students know.
  • Storybook reading-related language: something that will be introduced gradually but that will come in handy throughout the course, for example ‘It’s story time!’, ‘Sit down’ ‘Are you ready?’ ‘Turn the page’ ‘Do you like the story?’

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

  • Dear Zoo (‘I wrote to the zoo to send me a pet’)
  • Where’s my baby? (‘Is this your baby, Mrs Monster?’)
  • We’re going on the bear hunt (‘We’re going on a bear hunt, we’re gonna catch a big one. Oh, what a beautiful day. We’re not scared’)
  • Any other story in which you might want to implement a structure that the kids might already know or that they might benefit from knowing, even if, originally, it is not in the story. For example, ‘…., Senor Croc’ is a storybook for kids in Spanish about the birthday party of the main character Mr Croc, by introducing the following ‘Let’s’ (Let’s open the presents, Let’s dance, Let’s eat the cake)

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

  • How to lose a lemur – to teach and revise transport
  • Dear Zoo – to teach and revise animals
  • Julia Donaldson’s The Smartest Giant in Town – to teach and practise clothes
  • Go Away Big Green Monster – to teach and revise body parts
  • Marvin Gets Mad – to teach and revise emotions and verbs

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.

  • ‘Bear on a bike’ is easy enough because the whole story is told through illustrations and single words or short phrases, some of which are also repeated. ‘Apple, pear, orange, bear’ follows a similar pattern
  • ‘Llama, llama, red pajama’ includes rhymes and some parts of it are easy enough for the primary beginner students to deal with
  • Graded readers and phonics stories that were specifically created for beginner readers

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

  • Rhinos Don’t Eat Pancakes is really a story about a family and about loneliness
  • Elmer is a one big question of whether one should be like the everyone else
  • Giraffes Can’t Dance is about bullying
  • Up and Down is whether we should always follow our dreams

Questions

  • How to choose a storybook? It might be a good idea to start with the classics but also to keep your eyes open while visiting bookshops and browsing, to find out more about the beautiful world of the storybooks and to learn more about how they can be used in the lesson.
  • How long can I use the same storybook? Well, definitely more than once and as long as the students are interested. It might be a good idea to put the book away for some time and then return to it, letting the students choose which book they want to read or ‘read’
  • How do I adapt the language? Like with all the lesson planning, for any kind of an activity, choose the aim first (functional language, structures, vocabulary practice, revision or introduction) and them adapt the book to help you meet that aim. The gestures, the visuals, the voice and the universal story magic will help children to understand. Translation will not be necessary.
  • Do I need to include storybooks in every lesson? It is not absolutely necessary, it is like the other tools and techniques, they are definitely beneficial for the children but there is no absolute must to have them in every lesson. More likely than not, with time, you will see the positive impact of storytelling on the students, on the classroom management and on yourself and it is for that reason that you will want to include them in every lesson or almost in every lesson.
  • How do I start? Slowly! Practice makes perfect.

Tips and techniques

  • Let the children look at the story, all or some of the pictures, before you start telling the story, unless, of course, there is some big surprise in the end which should not be revealed too soon.
  • This demonstration can be done in silence or the teacher can point at certain pictures and elicit the words from the students.
  • While telling the story, point at the crucial elements in the illustration and pause to elicit the language from the children.
  • If the kids are already familiar with the story, start telling it with mistakes and wait for the children to correct you. They are going to love it.
  • Include gestures and physical actions that will accompany your story. This will help children first to understand the story and then to retell it and to really remember the language.
  • If possible, use some prompts such as realia (toys, plastic food, clothes), flashcards or mini-flashcards.
  • If possible, try to recreate the atmosphere of the story by preparing a soundtrack i.e. the jungle sounds for story set in the jungle, the beach sounds for the stories set by the sea etc.
  • Don’t forget to use your voice, this is the teacher’s most important and powerful tool.
  • Get ready and rehearse, think how you are going to position yourself, how you are going to hold the book, where the children are going to say.
  • If you are not using the original story, try to remember what changes you have introduced in order to be able to retell the story in more or less the same way every time you are using it
  • The storybook is never used in one lesson only. It is only in lesson two or three, when the students are already familiar with the story and with the language, that they can really enjoy it and participate in it fully.

Happy teaching!

We want more. We ALWAYS want more! Maximising language production

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Here is my favourite character who would be a perfect amabassador for ‘We want more‘, my professional obsession (you might have noticed:-) and some of my favourite solutions for the classroom.

Trick number 1: The language

Regardless of what coursebook is used or what curriculum is followed, there are certain language items that can be included even in the pre-primary programme that will enable children to communicate and produce more language.

Some of these language items include:

  • descriptive adjectives, such as big – small, long – short, happy – sad, beautiful – ugly, serious – funny, old – new, etc. Introducing them in opposites will make it easier for the students to understand and to remember
  • simple linkers, introduced gradually, starting with ‘and’ (‘blue and green’, ‘cats and dogs’, ‘I like bananas and apples’), then moving on to ‘because’ ( starting with ‘I am happy because it is sunny’) and perhaps even ‘but’ (‘I like dancing but I don’t like dancing with a bear’, like in the song from Super Simple Songs).
  • introduce Present Continuous, because it will be easy to play with it in all the miming games and it will come in very handy while describing pictures and telling stories.
  • talking about other people. Personalisation is very important while learning language, not only with the little ones, but it is also a good idea to start introducing other people and the language we need to talk about them such as ‘she/he is / has got / can / likes’

Trick number 2: The freedom of speech

This freedom of speech has got very little with the civil rights. It is all about the degree of freedom that the students are given or, in other words, about the scaffolding and the support that are slowly removed in order not to limit the students and to enable them to choose what they want to talk about.

One way of doing it is shifting from closed yes/no questions towards more open-ended questions. ‘What do you like to eat?’ is more likely to generate more language that only ‘Do you like bananas?’ which will lead to one-word answers or maybe even only gestures. ‘Tell me about‘ will be a lot more generative.

Using this approach while working with illustrations, pictures or any kind of visuals will give students the opportunity to choose for themselves what to talk about. And it is quite likely that they will pick the topics (elements or aspects of the picture) that they are either more interested in, have more knowledge of or are better prepared to discuss. In any case, more language is likely to be generated.

Examples or real activities? Here you are:

Pairs is a speaking activity that uses a simple material of a set of pictures. The students put them in pairs, in any way they want. They also have to justify their choice. In case of the younger learners, this principle can be the colour (‘Panda and zebra. They are black and white’) but kids can also choose any other reason for that, like ‘Zebra and horse, they have 4 legs’ or ‘Bear and deer. They live in the forest’.

This activity can be also used with the older students who are given a list of words and have to put them in pairs, according the knowledge and the language they have.

Below you can see the end of the game with my pre-primary student. It started off slowly, with simple sentences about the colours that the animals have in common but as the activity progressed, the categories changed, too and we have here an example of animals that have a long tail (a lizard and a monkey), animals that live in the forest (a bear, a fox and a deer) or animals that like meat (a tiger and a lion).

This is the final product of our Pairs activity, using the visuals on Miro

Tell me about is another activity that uses a visual, for example a set of pictures with animals or a picture scene. Students choose an element for their peers to describe, for example Tell me about this boy’ and it is easy to imagine the variety of responses that these can generate. Students can choose to talk they boy’s clothes, feelings or actions.

Trick number 3: The appropriate activities and materials

Our students do what we want them to do. It is assumed so, precisely because we are teachers and they are students. The roles have been assigned once and for all. The question to ask yourself, though, is Would they really want to do it, if they had a choice? Is there anything in the task itself that would encourage them to? Or not.

Certainly, it does not meant that all those less-exciting-but-crucial activities will be renounced forever, because even though they are not always fun from the point of view of our students, they might still be necessary and useful, but it is an interesting aspect to start taking into consideration while lesson planning.

Here a few activities that use that principle

Yes or no? This is an activity that also uses visuals as the basis. In the first stages of the activity, the teacher describes the picture using very simple structure ‘I can see’ when some of the sentences are true and some are false. Students listen to the sentences and correct the sentences. In case of the pre-primary students, this is likely to be one-word production but with time, they are learning to respond in full sentences. Later on, when the students are familiar with the format of the activity, they are invited to take a leading role in the activity, also producing true or false sentences about the picture for the teacher and their peers to correct.

Kids love the game because they can correct the teacher’s mistake and they are allowed to create their own un-true sentences about the pictures and to try to trick the teacher. I have used it both with primary and pre-primary students. The younger kids, naturally, needed more time to adjust and to start producing full sentences, in the beginning they would only provide the key information, for example the colour or the number of objects but, eventually, they were comfortable enough with producing full sentences. At approximately the same time, they were ready to lead the game, too. The older, primary students could make this transition within a lesson.

This is how we were telling our own version of ‘Pete the Cat. I’m rocking in my school shoes’ using the visuals on Miro

Storytelling for pre-primary is based on picture description. Here, the easily available materials might involve the stories from the coursebooks for pre-primary, retelling together any other story used in class or even any of the materials in the YLE Starters materials. In this case storytelling is scaled down to simple picture description, in the appropriate sequence.

Storytelling for primary can also use the visuals but it can be more challenging with the use of storydice or a storytelling treasure hunt (see here)

The lion and the kitten is a simple boardgame that has been very helpful in encouraging the students to produce the language. It was created and used with the online 1-1 pre-primary students. The game does not use a dice. Instead the students can choose the box where they want to go next and in each round, they have to talk about one of the pictures hidden under the yellow, orange and blue diamonds. In the beginning the sentences are very simple and focus on simple vocabulary (‘It’s mommy‘), later on these can be exchanged for a more detailed description (‘Mommy is happy‘ or ‘Mommy is dancing‘) and even further extended with the use of ‘because’ (‘Mommy is dancing because she is happy’) or in any other way that is within the children’s linguistic ability.

This game gives children a lot of freedom and almost a guaranteed victory. The cards can be changed easily, especially in the online format, and even if not, new sentences can be made every time the game is played. With a group of children, a dice would probably have to be used.

This is the board for our boardgame, also created using the visuals available on Miro.

Are you in the park? is a simple guessing game turned into a role-play. Each student has a city plan (since this was the language that we were working at the time) and three stickers which they glue somewhere ‘in the city’. They keep their picture secret and they try to guess where their partner is at the time.

Student A: Are you at the bank / park / market?

Student B: Yes, I am / No, I am not.

After a while, they can ask for help.

Student A: Please help me.

Student B: I can see…I can hear…I can smell….

Student A: You are…

Initially, the stickers were introduce only to prevent the kids from ‘cheating’ but they absolutely loved having random leftover stickers all over the place. In the first lesson we play, it was pirates, in the second one, it was farm. They laughed a lot about having little pigs and chicks all over their cities. The other incentive was the opportunity to imagine and to describe the places from the angle of what they saw, heard and smelled in different places in the city. The kids had the full control over the game and they were making the decision themselves when to move to the second stage.

For some more tricks, please see my other posts: the discourse clock, pairwork for preschoolers or using ambiguity to get the students to talk.

Happy teaching!

ALL the reasons to use a song

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This post started with a line, one of those things that one says, casually, in a conversation with a teacher or at a conference. ‘There are many reasons to use a song…’ , I said and my brain, always ready for this kind of a challenge, took over. ‘How many? Can you count?’

I accepted the challenge. I have found sixty. For now:-). Not all of them are mine, of course but since this post is meant for teachers, not researchers and since I am on some kind of an academic holiday, no proper referencing. This time. All the inspiration sources and the follow-up reading below.

Now, fasten your seatbelts and let’s go! 3…2…1…

We are using songs with the primary and pre-primary EFL learners because:

  • Kids like them
  • They are a part of the kids’ world, regardless of the language.
  • They help to reduce stress.
  • Songs create a positive atmosphere.
  • They can help set the context of the lesson.
  • The kids don’t care if the teacher does not have a really beautiful voice but they care about a teacher who does not really sing.
  • Singing and music are present in many areas of our everyday life.
  • They can be used differently, depending on the day and how the children feel – to calm them down, to cheer them up, to wake them up.
  • They can be used to develop motor skills, gross motor skills (jumping, dancing, skipping) and fine motor skills (finger play).
  • They lead to personalisation for example by choosing favourite songs and expressing opinion on songs.

  • Using different types of music develops children’s musical taste.
  • They provide the exposure to the target language.
  • They help to remember the vocabulary and structures
  • They help with pronunciation, rhythm and intonation.
  • And with the early literacy development, by developing the ear, rhymes recognition.
  • They use a natural language
  • The traditional rhymes, chants and songs carry the culture of the country.
  • Songs are an opportunity for expression.
  • They help memory development.
  • Singing games usually involve a group or a team and so they help to develop social skills.

  • They can be used to develop turn-taking and other social skills.
  • They can help the kids to settle in the lesson and in the L2 environment.
  • It is something that we do together, it helps to unite the kids after they have taken part in pair-work, team work or individual activities.
  • They are a nice change of pace in the lesson, a punctuation mark.
  • They are an easy-to-use stirrer.
  • They are an easy-to-use settler.
  • They give the lesson a frame (Hello song, How are you chant, Did you do your homework chant, storytime song, table time).
  • They help the kids to move from one stage of the lesson to the other.
  • They help to create a community.
  • They help to take the language out of the classroom. The kids can sing the songs at home, in the car, on holiday.

  • They are one of the few tools that help to involve a variety of learning channels: auditory (because we listen and we say), visual (because we can use flashcards to help kids remember the lyrics) and kinesthetic (because every song can be and should be accompanied by gestures)
  • Thanks to music they remember the language better
  • They are the first step language production; a song is basically a lot of discourse with some music.
  • They are great for beginners, children can participate in a song, even if only through the gestures.
  • They are great for shy students; singing is not scary if you do it in a crowd.
  • They help to create routine and balance the ration of the new (material, songs, activities) and the familiar (all the favourite songs).
  • Kids learn how to make decisions – choosing which song to sing next.
  • They can be used as an activity timer (you have one song to finish colouring)
  • Songs often tell a story this way creating the context for the language.
  • They can be used to introduce new vocabulary and structures.

  • They are great for recycling vocabulary.
  • They can be used as background music during craft activities, to encourage the kids to sing rather than just chat in L1.
  • Songs and chants can be used to give instructions.
  • They can be used during any stage of the lesson.
  • They can be used to get the students’ attention.
  • They are easy to use and do not require a lot of preparation.
  • There are plenty of songs to choose from.
  • It is easy to make up your song or chant that can be used for one specific reason.
  • They contribute to the variety of resources used in the lesson.
  • They can contribute to the development of the cognitive skills, such as attention and focus.

  • Children learn to take responsibility for the lesson and to lead by choosing the songs to sing.
  • Songs can lead to creativity in the language. Once the song become familiar, they can be the stepping stone to creating own versions of them.
  • They can ‘just be sung’ or they can become the theme of the lesson, if accompanied by the vocabulary introduction, craft, story.
  • Singing a song can be a reward for good behaviour or special achievement.
  • Some songs can contribute to learning other subjects such as art, maths, science etc.
  • Parents like when their children sing so songs might be used during parents’ days, end-of-year performances.
  • They help to motivate the kids to learn the language.
  • They give the kids the sense of achievement, as even after a few lessons, they can feel like the speak the language, because they can sing the songs or recite a rhyme.
  • Learning through songs is fun and memorable.
  • Because, finally, adults, also get an excuse to sing!

It looks like, for now at least, all the reasons to use a song = 60 reasons to use a song. If you have any more ideas to add to this list, please let me know in the comments!

And may the VYL and YL classrooms be alive with the sound of music, like this or like this!

If you want to learn how to move from singing a song to a discourse, have a look at the earlier article on How to un-sing a song.

If you are new to teaching and you are not sure where to start

Happy teaching!

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References

Jo Budden, 2009, British Council Blog, Using music and songs

Alex Case (2019) Why and how to use songs with young children,

Alex Case (2008) 15 Criteria for a good kindergarten English song

Children and music: Benefits of Music in Child Development, Bright Horizons,

Sue Clarke, Kids and songs,

Yvette Coyle and Remei Gomez Garcia (2014), Using songs to enhance L2 vocabulary acquisition in preschool children, ELT Journal, 68/3

Nihada Delibelovic Dzanic, Alisa Peijic, The effect of using songs on young learners and their motivation for learning English, 2016, NETSOL, An Interdisciplinary Journal, 1 (2),

Dovlatova, M. 2015, the role of songs in learning English, Young Scientist, 10 (90),

ESL songs for kids and teens (2019),

Opal Dunn (2012), Introducing English to Young Children: Spoken Language, Harper Collins Publications

Larry M Lynch, 9 reasons why you should use songs to teach EFL

Lin Marsh, Why song and dance are essential for children’s development, 2015

Carmen Fonseca Mora (2000), Foreign Language Acquisition and memory singing, ELT Journal, 54/2, p. 146 – 152

Sandie Mourao, Gail Ellis, Teaching English To pre-primary children, Delta Publishing

Carol Read (2007), 500 Activities for the primary classroom, Macmillan books for teachers.

Devon Thagard, 2011, Why the songs should be used more in the Young Learners classroom

Elaine Winter, Why Music Matters in the early childhood classroom, 2017

Crumbs #7: Line up, everybody!

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Today about a little and very un-revolutionary change in the routine that has, nonetheless, made a huge difference to my VYL and YL classes.

Instructions

  • Make sure the door to your classroom is closed and that the children wait for the lesson outside.
  • When it is the time to start, come out and line them up, perhaps with the parents’ help in the beginning, until they get used to the new routine
  • Wait for them to be ready, say hello to everyone and count together how many students are present
  • Say hello to the first student, ask how they are, let them into the classroom, wait until they book the books and bags away, choose their seat and sit down.
  • Let the second student in.
  • If setting homework is a part of your routine and programme, this is when you can check the homework, asking each student a few questions about it.
  • If there is no homework, this time can be devoted to a short individual conversation with each student. It can be a short revision of the vocabulary, talking about a picture or, if the students are already in one of the primary levels – some reading practice with flashcards or a few questions about any material covered in class. We often use it for practice with ‘Tell me about…’ with the use of a picture.
  • When the students get used to the first part (entering the room), you can add the second element and make sure that the students already sitting in the classroom are occupied, too. They can either play a simple guessing game if this game has been practised in class and if they have been given a set of flashcards. They can also play some games on the phone or the tablet, for example to practise reading with phonics. Again, they have to first to try it under your close supervision, to get used to taking turns etc.

Why we love it

  • It helps to introduce the order from the very start of the lesson since the kids are not waiting in the classroom and the teacher’s arrival is not an interruption of something that they are doing.
  • It is obvious who is responsible for the students during that time, the teacher’s take-over is clearly marked. It might not be as obvious if the kids enter the room during the break or before the teacher, especially if the teacher wants or has to spend the break time outside of the classroom, for whatever the reason.
  • The parents are of a great help in the beginning of the course, they can help explain what the kids are supposed to do, they can help with the name etc.
  • This part of the lesson is a fantastic opportunity for the 1-1 conversation with each child. Regardless of whether the teacher uses this time to check the homework or to ask and answer questions or to read, they are giving each child all their attention (almost all, the eyes at the back of the teacher’s head are watching the kids already in the room, of course:-) and they can check the progress and language use.
  • For the parents, this is a wonderful opportunity to find out how their children are interacting in English, without the parents’ supervision and this is how they can, indirectly find out about their child’s progress, before every single lesson if they wish to do so.
  • For the parents, this is also a chance to find out how the homework handouts or materials are used, what questions the teacher asks and how much language can be generated out of a page that, to the untrained eye, looks like a simple colouring page. If they want to and they have have the time, they can later use this knowledge to practise English at home.
  • In the beginning, when the children are just getting used to the new routine or if they are really young, this part of the lesson can be kept short, later it can be made longer. Similarly, in the begining, the T leads the activity but, later on, the kids can ask each other at least some of the questions, too.
  • I have been using this technique for about six years now. My first ever group for which this has been created (because there were ten of them and we hardly ever got to talk 1-1 in class), now in the third year of primary, still line up to chat with me on entering the room. I have been using it with my pre-primary students, too, groups and individuals, too. The parents always wait in the hallway, at the back of the line and they always wait to hear how their children talk to me. If they leave the school, it is only after their kids have walked into the classroom. They always wait and not because they don’t trust us/me but because they are curious and want to know how it goes.

Happy teaching!

L1 in the primary and pre-primary classroom part 2: We must follow the leaders. In every good thing.*

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Meet Ela, a newly qualified, inexperienced VYL/YL teacher, from Poland, who has just completed her CELTA course and who is about to start a new chapter of her life, as a teacher of English.

Ela is lucky. She is starting not only one but two new jobs next week and both will involve working with very little people. One is in her hometown and it will be face-to-face, the other one online, in China. Ela is a bit nervous, because it is a new job and because she has never really worked with kids before. There will be some induction or orientation at both places but it is only to take place next week.

She is also lucky because there is still some time left AND she has got access to more than just google. Her teacher training centre is in her hometown so she can just walk in and do a bit of research and reading in the library there. She hasn’t even started to teach and she already has lots and lots (and lots) of questions.

What about the L1 for example, the students’ mother tongue? Should the teacher use the L1 in class? Or outside of class? Should the kids been allowed to use L1 in class? Should they only use English? Should the teacher know the students’ first language?

Ela is a newly qualified teacher and so her way of compiling a reading list is not a perfect one but here some of the ideas that she has come across…

Herbert Puchta and Karen Elliott, Activities For Very Young Learners

This publication is a compendium of activities and ideas for the classroom but it includes a brief introduction with some of the principles that should be taken into account while working with the pre-school children. Puchta claims there that the knowledge of the L1 on the C2 level is absolutely necessary in order to help clarify any problems with comprehension as well as to assist the children in case a problem occurs.

What does Ela think now? Well, she is grateful for all the practical advice on how to avoid using the L1 in class but, at the same time, feels like she is doing something wrong or even illicit. After all, she was offered this job in China and not one person ever asked any questions about her level of Chinese. Then, she is thinking of her best friend, Kasia, who left for Japan and taught kids there, and Anya who landed in South Korea…her CELTA tutor who used to teach in Mexico and one of her CELTA peers, Jessie, who worked in Poland and that none of them spoke the langauge of the country where they worked and definitely not on a C2 level. Not even on an A2 level, to be honest. Ela is confused.

Opal Dunn, Introducing English to Young Children: Spoken Language

No, scratch that. Ela only thought she was confused earlier. Now she really is, after having gone through a few pages of the Opal Dunn’s publication.

First of all, it is because she has found out that children cannot bond with a monolingual teacher (that is a teacher who does not speak the children’s L1) and that they might get disappointed and frustrated. It does not bode well for that online job in China or for any other future positions abroad but at least that’s some good news for the groups she is going to teach in her hometown.

The rest, however, is a bit more difficult to digest because translation, at the same time, must be and mustn’t be used in the classroom. ‘Only English’ should be one of the rules but the teacher should explain it both in English and in L1. The same can be done whenever a new concept is introduced but should be done quickly and in a different voice.

There is also the issue of the kids translating from one langauge to the other. It should at the same time be encouraged (‘as being able to translate is a skill that needs to be encouraged’ p. 134) and discouraged as kids might not tune into the English version waiting for translation (‘the habit to translate should be broken’ p. 136).  

Ela is beyond confused. She wishes she had stopped reading on page 134. Or that she had only limited her reading to page 136. Too late!

Vanessa Reilly and Sheila M. Ward, Very Young Learners

Reilly and Ward’s publication is the oldest resource available on the market devoted solely to teaching VYL and for some time it was the only published resource for the teachers who work with the pre-primary children.

Probably the most important line that Ela finds there is the following quote: ‘if we tell the children that they can only speak in English, it is as good as telling them to be quiet’ (p.5), followed by the list of reasons to accept the L1 in the classroom and some practical ideas on how to avoid using it and how to gradually replace it with English.

Ela is somewhat relieved to have found a note that the attitude to the mother tongue in the EFL/ESL classroom might depend on the country and the particular school’s policy. She thinks that perhaps that might, at least to some extent, explain the fact that she and her colleagues were hired to teach despite the lack of knowledge of the children’s L1, although, the authors here, just like everyone else she has read so far, seem to assume that all the teachers working with YL and VYL speak the children’s mother tongue.

Ela is, admittedly, more peaceful now, although she still does not quite understand she even got the job if the L1 proficiency is such an important requirement.

Sandie  Mourão and Gail Ellis, Teaching English to Pre-Primary Children

Ela might not know it yet but she is really lucky: as a newly qualified teacher, at the very beginning of her career, she had a chance to read this particular book.

The authors outline ten principles of teaching English in the early years and the principle number 2 refers to L1: ‘Children will sometimes use their home / school language when learning English, which is viewed as part of the natural process of language aquisition and evidence of learning’ (p. 214) and they provide a list of situations in which both the teacher and the students might feel the need to resort to the L1 in the EFL context. Ela takes notes as she might need this knowledge to understand what is going on in her classroom. She especially likes the questions for self-reflection, such as ‘Why and how did I use the L1?’, ‘Could I have done it differently?‘ (p.215) or, as seen from the child’s perspective ‘What steps did I take to help the child move from L1 to English‘ (p.215).

Elat is happy, she finally feels like she has learnt something. She is not as nervous as she used to be. There is only one question that has been left unaswered and that refers to al these teachers who teach preschoolers without speaking their L1. They exist and Ela is one of them. Only now, she is too excited and she only wants to go on reading. This is where we are going to leave her now… Enter the Dragon (teacher/trainer), me with only a few facts from the VYL kingdom with a few summarising comments.

At the moment, there are altogether 4 volumes devoted to teaching pre-schoolers. Reilly and Ward published their compendium in 1997 and it took twenty years (as in 20, as in two decades) for another title to appear on the market in 2017 when Puchta and Elliott came out. All that despite the fact that this area of the market has been growing in strength all this time (Garton and Copland, 2018).

The latest addition, by Sandie Mourao and Gail Ellis has just been released and it willl take some time for it to make it to all the libraries, teacher training courses reading lists, bookshops so it might be that some newly qualified teachers will be walking into their first lessons without having read it. But the good thing is – the book existis and it is available. The newly qualified VYL and YL teachers, the VYL and YL novices, the Elas of today are indeed lucky. They have a lot at their disposal and a lot more than the Elas of five or ten years ago.

Even in the areas that are and have been ‘hot’, ‘popular’ and well-researched, it takes forever for the findings to permeate into the coursebooks and the mainstream consciousness, let alone areas like ours that is considered ‘a niche’, at least by some. As Sandie Mourão writes (2018) ‘Precious little research involves pre-primary FL learners, so research in any direction would be welcome’. Yes, ‘precious little‘ and ‘any‘…Things have started to change, slowly so it will probably take another twenty years and a few more dedicated teachers and scholars before we have answers to some more of the VYL questions. Those related to the presence of the L1 in the EFL classroom but not only those, of course.

In the meantime, there is still more to come in this series here, some studies that I have come across as well as the findings of my own small scale study on what the VYL teachers think of the L1 and what they do…See you in a bit. Oh, and if you haven’t done it yet, check out the introduction, too!

PS I am really interested in the attitudes of primary and pre-primary teachers to using the kids L1 in class, by the students and by the teachers. This was one of the beliefs that I was researching in my MA dissertation (the post on that coming up in this series). The MA is done (yay) but the research continues so if you have a few minutes to spare and you don’t mind taking part in the survey, please follow the link and answer a few questions here.

Bibliography

Photos courtesy of Юлец

* )W.Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, act II, scene I

O.Dunn (2013), Introducing English to Young Children: Spoken Language, Collins

Garton, S. and F. Copland (eds), (2018), The Routledge Book of Teaching English to Young Learners, Routledge.

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

S.Mourão (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, Routledge, p. 425 – 440. 

H.Puchta and K.Elliott (2017), Activities for Very Young Learners, Cambridge University Press

V.Reilly and S.M.Ward (1997), Very Young Learners, Oxford University Press

Crumbs #6 The easiest craft in the world aka Don’t you just love a circle?

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Level 1 – 3 Pre-primary: In the garden

Instructions

Get the coloured paper ready. The basic photocopying paper will do but for a more sensory experience paper with different thickness, texture or surface.

Cut out a pile of colourful circles, about 3 cm in diameter but if the kids are really small it is better to make them a bit bigger, they will be easier to handle.

Prepare A4 sheets of paper on which you are going to stick things, glue sticks and markers that you can use to draw on your paper.

Choose a circle, glue it onto the paper, decorate it so that it resembles what you want it to resemble. Use simple instructions while demonstrating (‘Glue’ ‘Turn over’ ‘Stick’ ‘Draw). Give out the paper, the glue sticks and the first circle. Monitor.

Proceed with the following circles.

With the older students, it is fun to let the children decide what their circles are. And then learn the new words – whatever they draw.

Don’t forget to talk about your pictures, count all the blue circles and all the butterflies))

Level 1 Pre-Primary : Pets

Why we love it

  • It is super easy to prepare and to complete.
  • There is no set duration of the task. It can be kept very simple and short, limited to only three items or extended to six or seven, depending on the age of the students, level, motor skills development.
  • It can be easily made more or less challenging by grading the level of complexity of the drawings.
  • It can be adapted to many different topics. I have used it with the topic of shapes (focus: circle), spring (accompanied by the KidsTV123 song ‘In the garden’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCClYcU97PA) and in the beginning of the course with level 1 to practise the first colours.
  • It helps to develop cognitive skills (perception: noticing the shapes in the world around us, transforming the shapes into things we know etc)
  • If there is no time to cut out all the circles (or if the teacher has not done many craft activities and wants to start with something not as complicated), a template with circles can be used instead. In this case, the kids will only draw and colour.
Level 1: Pets, no-glue template
Assorted circle-related randomness
Assorted circle-related randomness part 2
Level 1 Pre-primary: Colours (lesson 3 of the course)
Christmas edition (the puppy is here because this is my student’s favourite thing:-)

Happy teaching!

L1 in the primary and pre-primary EFL classroom part 1: The overheard conversations

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Should we? Can we? Is it a good idea? Is it going to work? Is it legal? What will the students think? What will the students’ parents think? Have we just so got used to what we have been doing all our life that we don’t even want to consider the benefits of the other approach? Have we been brainwashed enough so that now that idea sounds like a blasphemy?

To be honest, I have no idea and I have no answers. I am setting off on this particular adventure with all the questions in the world and no answers yet, rejoicing the fact that the EFL world has (slowly) started to talk about the use of L1 in the EFL class.

But, although this is a very interesting topic, I would like to seriously narrow it down and focus on, surprise surprise, the presence of L1 when the students are real beginners and about 5 or 7 years old. Or 3. Or 6. Or 8 even. Then the question shifts from ‘Shall we have L1 in class?’ to ‘What do we do about the L1 in class?’, because, whether you want it or not, L1 will be there.

Before we start, I think it is important that I shed a bit of light on my background: I am here as an experienced EFL teacher and a teacher trainer who works in a private language school and who speaks her students’ L1 but who does not use it in front of the kids. In the past I also had a chance to work with young (and younger) kids whose langauge I did not speak at all. These details are factors which, potentially, at least, might have had an impact on my attitude to L1 and its place in the classroom.

This is the opening post to a series that I have been dreaming about for a long time and in which I would like to include not only my experience but also the overview of what our YL gurus think on the subject, the studies carried out so far and what I have found out while researching for my own MA dissertation.

In lieu of an introduction, a few overheard conversations. The text in italics is the translation of the exchange that initially happened in the students’/parents’ L1.

One: overheard in the classroom aka The Kids Want To Talk

T: What happened?

S6: One of my teeth fell out all by itself and the other one, Sasha (brother) pulled out.

T: Your brother?

S6: (He is) three years old. He pulled it out!

T: Oh, no! He is a dentist, yes? The doctor from the teeth? (*)

S6: He put his hand in my mouth and then pulled and.. ((very animated))

T: Oh, so is he strong?

S6: Yes.

T: I think he is.

S1: And I did it all by myself. Because I am big. ()

S6: And I also want to tell you…()

S9: And I want to tell you that I was ill the day before yesterday.

T: I am sorry.

S1: And my brother is ill, too. He does not go to English anymore. Today.

S8: And my Masha (the doll) is ill.

So many stories to tell, about the brothers, sisters, teeth, dogs, cats, dead birds on the path in the park, a bad day at preschool, the upcoming birthdays and grandma’s visit…Kids, preschoolers or primary, love the teacher and want to share their stories. This is exactly how they build the rapport and bond. Yes, it is easy to imagine that, if there are no boundaries, kids could easily spend the entire lesson chatting in L1, without any incentive to at least try to speak English but going for the binary ‘English or nothing at all’ is not an option with the youngest students.

Two: overheard in the classroom aka Let’s Sort Out a Problem

S5: How ((pointing at trousers))?

T: Trousers.

S5: Who is wearing trousers?

S1: Me

S5: But you already said that you were wearing jeans!

S1: Jeans are also trousers.

T: Very good, Sasha. Very good question.

Now, surely, one more reason not to stick to the binary here. It is not just a random conversation (that is useful anyway, see scene one), this is intervention, clarification and sorting things out. This is, actually, useful, potential trouble-shooting. Would we want to ban that, too?

Three: Overheard in the classroom aka We Cherish L1!

S1: Red, please.

T1: English, please.

S1: Red, please.

S2: And I don’t know how to do it.

T: No Russian!

Yes, this is when the blood starts to boil. Russian, Polish, Chinese, French or German, the kids should not be told off for using their first language. This is something that they can do, something that they should be proud of being able to use it and of using it. I do believe that English should never be put in an opposition to the L1, in the same way as homework should never be set as a punishment.

Four: overheard in the hallway: Some Adults (We Don’t Like Very Much)

S1 and S2: (blab together in Russian)

Carers: No, speak English!

Good idea! But how to make it happen if the two kids in question have a range of about 25 words in English, together and I know that for a fact. I have taught them all of these 25 words that they do know at this point, that they do know, collectively. How are they supposed to communicate, in class or in the hallway, with these 25 words? High expectations are good but the task should be achievable, too!

Five: Overheard at the reception aka The Parents

P1: Does the teacher speak Russian?

Self: Yes, she does. Not in class but yes, she knows the language.

P1: But this is not good at all.

P2: Does the teacher speak Russian?

Self: No, she doesn’t. Not very well.

P2: But this is not good at all.

It is not always easy to meet parents’ expectations and to even predict what these are actually going to be. The truth is that if they are introduced to ‘an established’ teacher, and that may not necessarily mean teacher with a lot of experience, only some who has already made a name for themselves, even in the tiniest of circles, then they are more likely not even to ask these questions, at all.

If, however, the teacher is brand new, then, unfortunately, parents will be more curious and more likely to evaluate the teachers’ abilities and skills against some very subjective criteria including the teacher’s nationality, the teacher’s first language, the teacher’s knowledge of L1. Or age, or sex or appearance, too. These criteria are probably the result of the parents’ previous experience as learners or as learners’ parents, the experience which might not always have been positive. They might also result from the exposure to some EFL/ESL urban myths from the 60s in which a five-year-old child picks up an accent from their non-native teacher and is ‘scarred’ for life.

No one-fits-all solutions here. Just like every child requires an individual approach, so does each individual parents. Yes, we win some battles here and we lose some.

Six: Not quite overheard aka the State School

Student 1: Anka, I had my first lesson of English today. My teacher did not say anything in English. She did not say one word of English. In the lesson of English. Not one word. Anka!

This line came from a student who has been in my group for four years and who has just started primary school. I did not know what to say so I kept quiet trying to remain in control of my face, so that it would not reflect in any way the thoughts that were rushing through my head.

The teacher in me thinking that we have made great progress and that, already at 7, my student not only communicates in English but also knows what to expect from a lesson. The teacher trainer in me shedding tears at the methodology and the lesson time used in such a way. The fellow teacher in me sorry for my peer at one of the schools as she will be trying to adapt her lessons to include a gifted and more advanced learner. And, as an adult, suddenly very much worried about my student in a different learning environment and how her teacher is going to treat her.

But, really, a lesson of English without any English? Not even hello? Not even bye-bye?

Seven: Overheard during a workshop aka The Teachers

Teacher 1: But they have very little language. They will not understand the rules of the game so I have to explain the rules first and then we can play.

Teacher 2: What if a child cries? Or if there is a real problem? I can only sort it out in the child’s frist language. They do not have enough English to understand…

Teacher 3: They need to know that I understand what they are saying. They need to feel safe.

Teacher 4: They still think I don’t speak Russian. I don’t want them to lose the motivation to use English in class.

Four teachers, four approaches. I do indentify with all of them, to some extent and I have a few follow-up questions about all of them, too. And you, dear teacher?

I am really interested in the attitudes of primary and pre-primary teachers to using the kids L1 in class, by the students and by the teachers. This was one of the beliefs that I was researching in my MA dissertation (the post on that coming up in this series). The MA is done (yay) but the research continues so if you have a few minutes to spare and you don’t mind taking part in the survey, please follow the link and answer a few questions here.

The next step? The overview of literature. First, the YL gurus. Coming soon!

A Brand New Class. Volume 2: Primary

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September is upon us. It is a joyful month, what with all the new books, freshly sharpened pencils, markers that have not lost 50% of the caps yet, storybooks and flashcards that are still as God intended (in order!) and all the new adventures because ‘The kids are back!!!!’. At the same time, my favourite tune of the month is …Green Day and when they sing ‘Wake me up when September ends…’ Every single year. And this year more than ever.

Until we have all survived yet another autumn rollercoaster, spiced-up by the pandemic-related uncertainty, here is a tiny little something: activities for the first lesson of the course, today something for teenagers: 5 ‘sandwich fillers’ and 5 activities in their own right.

All of them are and have been my favourite start-of-the-course activities but they can be adapted to different topics and used throughout the year.

Most of them require only the basic resources and little preparation.

Some, although admittedly not all, will also work in our online classrooms.

None of them are how-did-you-spend-your-summer-themed because I never do it in my first lessons (and definitely won’t do this year since a) we did spend the summer together studying English and b) other than that we were stuck at home or at the dacha, growing cucumbers and carrots and feeding birds…) but they can be made so, if needs be.

You can find them HERE.

And if you also teach teenagers, you might find these useful, too!

Happy New Academic Year!

Happy teaching!

All you need is…a picture!

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A post by a lazy teacher who likes to ditch the tasks and the responsibility onto her students, even those little ones.

A post by a greedy teacher who always wants more and whose main aim of every lesson is: language production. And then more language production.

A post by a teacher who first shared these ideas at the Cambridge Back to School webinars in August 2020.

A post by a teacher, about materials management or 00000 different ways to use the same picture.

A post with activities that were inspired by some of the YLE Cambridge exams but approached in an open-minded way…Ready, steady, go!

P.S. Don’t forget to check out of the second part this post.

There is only one picture…

created using an image from classroomclipart.com and Miro

Before you even look: tell the students that it is a picture of a bedroom, have them predict what they might see…Then we look at the real one and check.

Tell me about this room: the students describe the room, using the language that they are familiar with, ‘there is’, ‘I can see’, perhaps only the nouns, perhaps nouns and colours and prepositions.

Riddles: the kids make up simple riddles for their partners to guess. ‘It is black and it is on the chair’.

Stickers dictation: this one is more appropriate for the lower levels and was inspired by the sticker activity in the Superminds coursebooks by CUP. It is also a perfect opportunity to use up all the leftover stickers that no one ever asks for. Students work in pairs and they upgrade the illustrations in their coursebooks (as in: any illustrations) with the stickers. Student A is telling student B where to put the five stickers in one of the coursebooks and then they swap roles.

Teacher = Cheater: the kids open their books and look at the picture. The teacher tells them about her non-existent picture which is, surprisingly, very different from the picture in the coursebook.

Students = Cheaters: the kids describe their made-up rooms, also, very different from the bedroom that they are looking at.

In my real room: particularly appropriate for the online classes since the children will be already sitting in their rooms and can easily compare the illustration with the reality but can be done in the offline lessons, too.

Because: students describe the picture but instead of just focusing on what exactly they can see they try to find the rationale for what they can see. ‘The books are on the floor because….’

The story behind the picture: even such an uninspiring picture in which nothing is happening (really) can be a starting point to writing a story or telling a story. The only thing that you need is a set of questions to get them started, for example: Who lives in this room, a boy or a girl? How old is he/she? What is his / her name? What does he / she like? He / she is not in his/her room. Where is he/she? What is he/she doing? What did he/she do before? What is he / she going to do next?

Dice games: the teacher has to assign the structures to each of the numbers on the dice and these can be easily adapted to the level of the students. The standard set might include: 1 = I can see, 2 = There is, 3 = There are, 4 = It’s on / under / in, 5 = It’s green / red, 6 = It’s big/ small / beautiful. You can also include: I like, I don’t like, …is doing what, is happy/ sad/angry, there aren’t any and so on, depending on the picture. Kids work in pairs, roll the dice and describe the picture using the assigned structures.

Noughts and crosses: It takes three lines to turn any picture into a noughts and crosses game. Students play the game in pairs but before they put their mark in one of the boxes, they have to describe what they can see there in one, two or even three sentences. To keep the kids interests up, a marking scheme can be introduced, a twin grid, with points which is of course kept secret until the end of the round (in Miro – under the noughts and crosses grid, on paper – on the corner that is folded under). This way we always have a winner, the person who collects more points for the boxes that they have described. Sometimes we have two winners, too, the logical one and the mathematical one.

Memory games: first, the students get to look at the picture for a minute or two. The teacher asks them to remember the details, all the colours, actions, number of children and so on. Afterwards, the students are divided into teams. The teacher can use either a set of pre-prepared sentences some of which are true and some of which are false. The teams pick out one of the cards, read the sentence and check how much they remember. This version is more T-centred but it has the advantage of additional reading practice. In another version, the students get to look at the picture again and make up a sentence about it, for the other team to guess. They can also write their own set of sentences which will be later used to test the other team.

There are two pictures…

I can make it different: the starting point is a picture and it can be copied and upgraded in any way the teacher sees fit, using all the beautiful tools that the Miro board has to offer (google image search and icons). It will take some time but it means that it can be adapted to the level, skills and interests of a particular group and then saved and recycled forever. Just like these two pictures here…

Predict the Differences: the children can only see one of the pictures and they try to figure out all the ways in which the two pictures can differ. It might be especially effective if they are already familiar with the task format and know that they have to be looking out for different patterns, activities, objects that the people are holding, throwing, the comparisons between two objects, the location on the right or left side of the picture and so on.

Predict the Differences Quiz: the idea is the same but we add the competitive element and another skill as the teams or pairs of students are asked to write ten potential differences between the picture they can see and the other one. The team that manages to better at predicting wins.

Find the difference: we can ask the students to work in pairs but to find all the differences without showing their picture to the partner. This is not going to be a strict Movers or Flyers preparation task but we are going to raise the level of challenge and they students will really have to listen carefully in order to establish how these two pictures are different.

One big and ten small pictures: it is not necessary to kill another tree to ensure that each child has two pictures right in front of their eye. One, enlarged copy of Picture A can be displayed on the board (or on the screen) and compared with the picture B in students’ coursebooks.

Accidental friends: illustrations that were created not as a ‘find the difference’ task but can easily serve the purpose. Examples? Any of the Movers and Starters reading and writing story tasks or any of the Movers or Flyers speaking story tasks…The theme is already there and looking for differences can be a nice warm-up to storytelling or story-writing activities…

Very, very different: the illustrations that can be used in this kind of a task do not even have to be specifically created with that purpose in mind. Any (and I mean it: any) two pictures depicting ‘a bedroom’ can be used to find the differences. The crazily pink exhibit A here and practically any page of the IKEA catalogue…And pronto!

YLE listening task recycled: these can be used as a listening task, to prepare for the format and to develop listening skills but they can be later used again as a colouring dictation activity. Students work in pairs, one is in charge of the coloured pencils and speaking (‘Colour the bird yellow’), the other one – in charge of the colouring page and listening. Half-way through the activity they swap roles.

This is already more productive but the best is yet to come. Since it is a freer practice activity and students make their own decisions regarding the choice of the colours, it is quite likely that all the pictures will be different. And then…Yes, we can compare them, in groups of four.

Actually, even a leftover listening copies can be used in the same way (Saving the planet, remember?). After all, regardless of which exam it is, the students only have to colour five elements of the picture and the rest of them can be used in a speaking task like that.

Colouring printables: can be used in exactly the same way. Not all the pages will do, for example a large drawing of a cat does not really offer too much as an object to be described and I try not to use colouring pictures which are too big as some students like to be precise and colouring those might take too much of the precious time of the lesson. Other than that, just open google and type in: a child’s bedroom colouring page…Ready! And if there are any words that the students don’t know yet, we can always learn them. Even if they are not on the YLE word list and just because ‘a dragonfly’ might be a cool word to know😊

Which one is different?

Which one is different? Why?

Vocabulary practice: we only need four pictures out of is one is different. It might be a set of four objects, three of which are blue and one of which is red and the students do not even need to know the name of all of the objects. They can still complete the task by using the structure ‘It’s blue’ or even ‘blue’. We can create such by using icons or google images on the Miro board or by arranging and re-arranging the flashcards that accompany our books.

Grammar practice: the focus here can be chosen depending on the topic of the lesson and it can be limited to only ‘it has got…legs’ with animal flashcards, ‘it’s big’ with school objects, ‘I like’ with food, prepositions, Present Continuous and what not.

Kids take over: the students can make up their own chains, either with the coursebooks flashcards or the mini-flashcards (always a good idea to have two or three sets of those for each topic, they can be reused throughout the course).

Chant it! This is the only variation here that I have not had a chance to use in the classroom but if you look at it from the right angle, all of a sudden, there is a lot of potential here: each chain has four pictures and each of them can become a separate verse. The kids can clap for the similar concepts and stomp for the odd one out…

It’s a good idea but it’s not my idea: the kids talk about the pictures and describe the odd one out but they have to go on until they guess the teacher’s original idea (probably better to write it down somewhere in order to be able to prove that we have not been cheating this time😊. If the appropriate topic has been chosen (such as, for instance, animals), this activity can go on for almost forever and the students will produce a terrifying amount of language. Once they learn to think outside of the box, this same activity can be used with all the seemingly less ‘appealing’ topics, too.

How many can you think of: a similar idea but realised slightly differently as students work with the exam materials but try to think of as many reasons to odd one of the pictures out…

Well, 27 activities…Not bad, not bad at all. I might be adding to this list in the future.

I hope you have found something useful here! And if you have used it in class, please let me know!

Happy teaching!

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.

Crumbs #5 End-of-course Goodbye-Letter

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This is one of my favourite end-of-course activities for all young learners.

Instructions

You need a piece of A4 paper per student. You can use regular white or colourful photocopying paper.

Write the names of the students on the sheets, one per student, and put them up in the hallway, ideally at a distance from each other. Have a card with your name, too but keep it in the classroom. It will be used for demonstration.

Show your card and tell the students that everyone has a card like that in the hallway. Explain that they are going to walk around and write something for everyone.

If necessary, pre-teach or revise some language, for instance ‘You are…’ and adjectives or ‘Thank you for…’.

Clarify the rules: a) we don’t come up to the card with our name, b) we write something for everyone, c) we can leave anonymous notes or we can write our names, d) we only write nice things, e) if we have nothing nice to write, we only leave a smiley

Give our markers, line up and go out. Monitor and keep an eye on the clock. This part of the task takes about 15 minutes with a group of twelve.

Ask the students to go back into the classroom and quickly collect the letters. Give them out in the final lesson.

Why we love it

  • It is a great opportunity for the students to read and to write something that they really care about and it is a great souvenir from the course, handmade and personalised.
  • The students have a lot of freedom and can write as much as they want or only leave a smiley in case they really have nothing to say.
  • This activity can be adapted to the level and age of the students. It can be done in the classroom, with the papers being passed from student to student, until they make a full circle and return to the owner and the youngest kids can only draw some simple shapes for example a smiley, a heart, a sun, a star and their name.
  • The first time I did this activity, I planned for the kids to re-write the letters before handing them out to the addressee but they stopped me (‘But Anka, this is much cooler and more beautiful!!!!”) and they were right!
  • I keep my card on the board but I don’t actively encourage the students to write something for me, too. Somehow they always do anyway))

Happy teaching!