Good news: I am working on a proper article at the moment and having lots of fun with that.
Bad news: This one article is a priority at the moment and all the creative energy needs to be going towards that. Or I will never ever finish.
Good news: I have an article that I commited for the IH Journal in spring 2019, in which I am sharing some of the ways of using dice in the EFL classroom. Two years on, dice are still one of my favourite tools, so here you are, if you are looking for ideas.
PS And as a bonus, here are the two posts from Naomi Epstein, my blogger friend.
This one here, the introduction to using different types of dice. The other one, here, about D.G., the angry dice. I really liked the story of D.G. and I am planning to use it in a revision game with my students as soon as they get back from their holidays. Something along the lines of ‘Roll. Give me 7 examples of…’ or ‘Tell me about. You have to use…(roll) 5 sentences’. Or something like that. We will definitely get back to it:-)
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.
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.
This is not going to be a post on the advantages and disadvantages of using a rewards’ chart in the EFL classroom. If you are interested in one or the other, please, scroll down to the bibliography with some pieces to read.
Instead, I am going to tell you a story about a period of six years of using a rewards chart with my kids, successfully and where it has got me. Or where it got us. Consider it a case study.
The group
There are eight of us, in the group, one of me, two boys and five girls and at this point (January 2021), we are in our sixth level together. On the one hand, it is a bit scary, that so much time has passed and so quickly, too, on the other hand – six levels together, pretty much with the same children, from the first words, literally, to Movers.
The first rewards chart
Once upon a time, when my kids were still very very young, in our first year together, the day came when I realised that I needed a rewards chart, badly, with a set of rules and a system.
To be honest, it was a bit of a heartbreak and it did feel like a total defeat. Until then, I had never (as in: NEVER) had to resort to it with children so young. Not once in my entire teaching career (of 10+ years). Rewards charts were for the primary and teens, not for the babies. Sigh.
I was thinking and pondering and wondering, approaching it with a lot of trepidation (in Polish we say: to come up to something like a dog to a hedgehog) and really, stubbornly, putting off the D-day. But, the group was a big one, with ten kids, some of whom were six, some of whom were barely three and they were just rowdy (even for my standards) and ‘my traditional methods’ (or whatever they were back then) were just not working. As in: at all.
Reluctantly and very un-enthusiastically, I took a deep breath and introduced changes: a set of rules and a rewards chart.
The class rules: How to.
Think of your group, the kids sitting in your classroom. What are they struggling with? What is the unwanted behaviour right here, right now? Choose the most important three behaviours that you would like to eliminate. There is no point in constructing a set of ten commandments as there will be too many to revise, to remember and to focus on.
Formulate the rules and try not to use negatives. ‘Sit nicely’ sounds much better and is more positive than ‘Don’t run’.
Yes, there might be situations when a clearly formulated ‘Don’t‘ is the only solution. In the group that I am describing here, we did have some issues that the kids decided to resolve with fighting so for some time, this was our rule number 1.
In general, it would be better to refrain from using imperatives altogether and go for full sentences, for example, instead of ‘Sit nicely’ we were using ‘I sit nicely’, together with ‘I don’t run’, ‘I listen to the teacher’, ‘I don’t fight’. These are great language models and, over time, they become a part of everything that the kids can say, even early on, in the first year of primary or pre-primary. Investing in the rules is also investing in the language.
Think how you will introduce the rules. I prepared A4 flashcards, with the rule written down (for me to remember and to be consistent and for the kids, to expose them to the written word, although, of course, back then they were not able to read these), with an appropriate picture (thank you, clip art) and with an accompanying gesture for each of them.
The first time I introduced them slowly, using the gestures, drawing the kids attention to the pictures and repeating the rules a few times. They did get the idea pretty quickly. After all, they learnt how to behave and how not to behave. After all, they are familiar with the concept of rules. They are rules in the kindergarten, in the art classes, at the swimming pool. Naturally, there will be some in their English class, too.
How was I sure that they did understand? Because, of course, one brave volunteer quickly translated them into Russian and all the kids started to discuss the rules. I went over the rules a few times and I encouraged the kids to repeat the gestures.
Put the posters up, in a place where everyone can see them. In my case, the best place for that was the door, on the classroom side:-)
Revise the rules in the beginning of every lesson. I would go over the rules, ‘reading’ them out loud, while pointing at the sentences and later, once more, I would ICQ everyone, this time with gestures. ‘Do we sit nicely?‘ ‘Do we fight?‘ and so on.
Keep an eye on your students and when a rule becomes redundant (because, hey, it worked and your students’ behaviour has improved), change it or replace it with something that is necessary and relevant at the moment.
In our case, in the first year, after a while we could replace ‘I don’t fight‘ with a very general but also very broad ‘I am a good friend‘ which we used to signal that we basically behave well because a good friend will not fight, will not take someone else’s pencils or books, will not say unkind things about other children and will not always try to go first and so on.
It is also good to have a rule that models and acknowledges the behaviour that is even better than good, something exceptional that we all should strive for. In our case, it was the rule number 4 ‘I am fantastic‘ which I chose because it sounds similar to its Russian equivalent and it is a positive word.
Make sure that you refer to the rules throughout the lesson, to remind the students about them when you notice some examples of the unwanted behaviour. I do it using a question form, while using the gesture or pointing at the posters, for example ‘Are you a good friend?‘, ‘Are you fantastic?‘, ‘Are you sitting nicely?‘
The rewards’ chart. How to. A case study.
I decided not to use the board as it was too far away from our little circle and I did not want to get up and walk away from the kids a few times during the lesson as it would be too disruptive. Instead, I got a clipboard and prepared a table with their names, written in different colours and accompanied by little icons, ten different ones, so that the kids, who were pre-literate at the time, could recognise their names easily. I put the table into a plastic sleeve, sealed it and pronto. Laminating it would do the job, too. I used a whiteboard marker and so I could easily clean it and re-use it in the following lesson. I was also able to carry it around the classroom.
A few times during the lesson, I would take out the chart and check out, with all the kids, asking everyone the same question ‘Are you fantastic?’ (or any other question relevant to our rules, but this one was the most common one) and, if they answered ‘yes’, I would add one more star to the chart, next to their names.
Naturally, if the student did seriously ‘misbehave’ (inverted commas here because it really does happen rarely), first would come a warning and then, possibly, if that didn’t work – a tiny little bit of a star might get erased. Which happened on a few occasions and usually the warning itself was enough.
In the beginning, I did do it after every single stage and almost after every single activity. It did take time but it was worth it. With time, I was able to cut down on the frequency and the number of stars, extending the length of the stage that could earn them a star.
Eventually, we got to the point when each child would get only one star at the beginning of the lesson. It was their job to make sure that it stays whole until the end of the lesson.
There was also a point, in year two, when we started to invest more time into our stars because at the same time, we started to talk about other people, and the stars gave us a perfect opportunity to do just that, ‘My star is…’, ‘My star has got…’ and, of course, it was then even more important to keep all the stars intact.
It is also very important to remember that the kids should be given an opportunity to get better and to be acknowledged when their behaviour improves. It should not be a problem since the teacher is in charge of when the new stars are awarded.
Also, whenever we ask the question ‘Are you fantastic?’, I always start from the well-behaved students, mainly in order to give the ‘not-so-fantasic’ ones a chance to calm down and to think about life so that, when it is their turn, they could be ready to be fantastic, too.
‘Are you fantastic?’ is a very powerful question in itself, too. On the one hand, it serves as a reminder of our aim and our rule (‘We are fantastic’), on the other hand, it is another chance for the students to confirm that they are fantastic AND to make a conscious decision and to make a promise that yes, they will be, from now on, even if there have been a few issues with it.
Eventually, by the time we got to our level 3, the rewards chart became almost completely unnecessary. We had the rules on the wall (a new classroom) and I still kept the rewards chart grid at the ready but I would only take it out and use it, when someone needed a reminder that we are, in fact, fantastic. Which, in year 3, happened perhaps once a month.
A slightly different rewards chart or What the kids care about
Todayaka the Outcomes
Today, in our 6th year together, we have long forgotten about the rewards’ chart and the rules. My students are now seven, eight and nine and, after all this time, it is no longer necessary to keep such a strict routine and such an elaborate system. The last time we did come close to anything resembling a rewards chart was a collage (an example of which you can see in the photo above), which we made on our Miro board, at the end of each lesson. Everyone could choose an image, google or icons, that they wanted to add. This, in a way, was some kind of a reward for everyone.
Looking back, I think it was a good decision, to introduce the chart and the rules all these years ago and even a better decision to ‘waste’ time on drawing all these stars and asking all these questions. And, dear teacher, if you worry that it takes six years to reap what you sow, don’t. The effort made and the time spent did start to pay off already after a few weeks.
I cannot guarantee that we are going to stay in that bliss forever (fingers crossed that I don’t jinx it with this post) but so far, so good.
My kids have never been very quiet (apparently it’s because I am loud, I am told) but they do behave. Today, after all these years, we all know what is OK and what is not. Most of the time, that is.
They have become more talkative and for that reason a new ‘poster’ appeared on the noticeboard. ‘When I speak, people listen. When people speak, I listen’. It works. Especially that we did specify that by ‘people’ I mean both, teachers and students present in the classroom.
On some days, I have to bring Pasha, our invisible student, one some days I call them using their first name, in full, and their patronymic, sometimes I have to use my serious face but that’s it. I want to believe that it all started with a simple rewards chart a long, long time ago…
Most of the time, it is fast asleep, lying peacefully somewhere in the attics of my heart, covered in dust bunnies. Until, all of a sudden, it is rudely awaken because I find myself in the middle of one of the following conversations…
And that’s not everything. There’s more, lots more. Sometimes there are no (silly) questions but what happens is a rather intensive listening / lip watching event, in order to evaluate my presumably low level of proficiency in English or to detect some serious issues with pronunciation which, potentially at least, could justify the VYL-ness or YL-ness of me.
Why? Who knows.
The funniest thing is that, usually, it is not the parents, the students themselves, the HR or the admin of the schools but our own EFL nation, the fellow teachers, the colleagues who initiate these threads in the conversation. And it is not even the trolling on the social media or remarks whispered behind one’s back, no! More often than not, these are the things that people just throw right into your face…They have just met you, you have just been introduced, they don’t know a single thing about you, apart from ‘Anka, I teach VYL and YL‘ and yet, here we go…
Although, really, it would be very easy to turn the tables and start asking questions such as those ‘What?! You are NOT teaching YL?’ or ‘So you only teach (insert any non-YL area of ELF)? Doesn’t it get extremely boring and repetitive?‘
Only of course, I would not do any such thing. Because it is rude and/or unnecessary…And, no, I do not want everyone to be passionate about teaching children. We all have our own preferences and areas of expertise, things that we like and things that we hate, things that we are amazing at and things we’d rather not do.
Guess what? People choose to teach kids.
It is 2021. Out there, in the big, wide world, there are fully-educated, native speakers or non-native speakers teachers of English, male and female, mums and non-mums, private language school teachers and state school teachers who choose to focus on and to specialise in teaching English to children.
Because it is… more interesting, exciting, creative, inspiring, rewarding, fun…Despite the fact that ‘you can’t really have a conversation with them‘ or despite the fact that ‘you can’t ever teach Present Perfect Continuous Passive‘.
Even as I type these words, I can see a long list of names, my friends, colleagues, mentors, trainees who I have had a chance to meet and to work with, people who are amazing professionals, able to work with any level and any age group but who have found their true calling in working with the youngest of the EFL learners.
Many of them have already build their professional portfolio and, on the way, have grown a thicker skin. Comments and questions, as those quoted above, annoying as they are, will not really cause much damage to the system. ‘Sticks and stones can break my bones...’and all that. These teachers will be able to come unscathed by casually mentioning the years in the classroom, the feedback from their students or parents or maybe also a DELTA, an MA degree, Cambridge exams passed, IELTS bands received, publications, conference presentations and what not. Thus signalling that there are some alternative conversations to be had. With some alternative interlocutors, perhaps.
These experienced teachers I am not concerned about. They are and they will be fine. More than fine, in fact.
What worries me is that somewhere out there, there are novice YL teachers or newly-qualified teachers or, indeed, some would-be teachers, having been exposed to this kind of narrow-mindedness, will get into thinking that an English teacher first of all has to choose only one area of specialism and that a choice between ‘a teacher of English to adults/exams/IELTS/Business’ and ‘a teacher of English to YL’ is also a choice between qualifications, professionalism, respect and the lack of them. Which it is not.
Dear colleagues, dear amazing VYL and YL teachers! Thank you for being in the world! Thank you for your enthusiasm, dedication, ideas, creativity and energy. Thank you for caring.
And don’t forget – you rock!
Happy teaching!
P.S. What a rant, hey?:-) If you want to read some more positive notes on being a VYL teacher, check out this post on the hidden perks of working with the little people.
A post inspired by a reader. Thank you @kids.in.english.
Where the inspiration came from
It was ten years ago. I was standing at the board, looking at my students working on a task,all of them, working hard, involved, a teacher’s dream, and yet…To my right – the bunch that had been in my group for the past two or three years, to my left – the three new students who had just joined us and in the middle – a beautiful wall, invisible but sturdy and getting thicker by the minute. They were not aggressive verbally or otherwise, they did not do anything mean, there was no bullying. They simply decided that they do not like each other. The ‘old’ kids – because they did not want any invaders, they ‘new’ kids – because they did not feel welcome.
I did not like it at all. I was looking at them (yes, a little bit annoyed because we had everything figured out) thinking ‘Not on my shift, people. Na-ah’. Today I would like to share some of the tricks that I applied and have been applying since then in the new-teen-in-the-group scenario.
Ideas for building and re-building a group
Change the seating arrangements during the first month or the first six – eight lessons with the new students. The main aim here is to enable everyone in the group to work with everyone else. It has to be initiated (or ‘forced’ if you prefer) by the teacher because the students will be acting as a group and might not have enough courage to break ranks in order to befriend the new students or to venture out and try to join the cool kids. It is a good idea to explain to students why this is done (‘we need to get to know each other’) and give them a specific time limit so that they know when they will be able to go back to sitting with whom they want. Even if, initially, the students do not like the hassle and the uncertainty that it introduces, they have a deadline and they know when things go ‘back to normal’. The burden is easier to bear.
Frequently group and regroup the students for activities and use a tool that will be completely arbitrary. These can be for example re-usable cards with the students’ names that are kept in a box or in a bag. Before the activity, the teacher (or even better – one of the students) simply picks out cards randomly and this is how pairs and teams are formed. This way, it is simply fair, impersonal and, every single time, there is a high probability that student A might end up working with their best friend. If they are lucky. Again, the burden is easier to bear. Both of these tactics will also help the teacher establish how the students work in different set-ups. It will be more important in case of the new students
It is a good always but especially during those ‘first’ days or weeks to include activities which promote team-work and cooperation, such as smaller or larger scale projects, ideally in every lesson. The students will be already mixed, the new with the old and it is quite likely that they will want to share the responsibility for the task and they will want to complete it. This will be their excuse, the teacher asked them and they are just completing the task, without losing the face since working with the new partner is not their own choice.
While cooperation works well, competitive games are even more effective. If the students have their favourite games, they obviously like to play and win. Since they will be put in mixed groups, the ‘old’ and the ‘new’ students together, they will be put in a situation in which they might have to cooperate with ‘a new friend’ to compete against ‘an old friend’. Of course, these two elements, the competitive and the cooperative, should complement each other and balance each other. Some of my favourite games include ‘the game of five’ and ‘stop!’
When we start working with a new group, some getting to know each other activities are in order. Here, however, the situation is a bit tricky. If there are three or four new students in the group, then we can easily use some of those. When only one student joins the existing group, it might not work that well. The majority of the group already know each other very well so they will not be motivated in taking part in it. What’s more, it will be rather obvious why it is added to the lesson and the new student might be accidentally put in the spotlight. Not to mention that if a few students join the group, separately, it would mean including these activities in a few lessons in a row and the students might be even less motivated to take part in them.
Instead, an activity in which the students can express themselves and share personal information is a much better solution. It can be, for example, ‘Who is X?‘, a task in which students would have to match the names of all the students in the group to a set of sentences (in any structure that is the topic of the lesson). If it is the Present Simple then the sentences describe daily routines ( X never does homework, X always wakes up early on Saturday), if it is the future then the sentences describe future predictions (X will live abroad, X will become famous, X will travel to Spain) etc. During the feedback, students will be mingling and confirming and justifying the sentences about themselves. The task that I really like to use for that is the United Buddy Bears art project but this one is a bit more difficult to add to any lesson in any level at any point when the new student joins the group. But not impossible))
If you have been in a similar situation and you have some great tips and tricks up your sleeve, please share them with the rest of us in the comments box! Thank you!
Even only looking at the blog here, it is easy to figure out that I am passionate (or, well, let’s be honest: ‘obsessed’) about maximising production in young and very young children and I am constantly on the look-out for new techqniues, resources and activities that can help the youngest of my students produce more and more language.
This is how a few months ago I found Saffira Mattfield, who is a speech therapist from Australia (@onlinespeechie) and who uses colourful semanticswith her students to encourage them to produce more language, in full sentences. I have started using it and promoting it here on the blog, too.
Then, a few days ago, while searching for silly pictures that I could include in my lessons, I have found Allison Fors and her blog. Allison (@speech.allisonfos) is a speech therapist from California who creates resources for speech therapy (some are free, some can be purchased at a small fee) and who writes a lot about different techqniues used by therapists, parents and teachers that lead to enabling the little children to speak more and speak better.
If you think about it, EFL teachers and speech therapists have a lot in common. The context is different but the age group is the same: preschoolers and the aim is the same: get them to talk.
For example, when it comes to picture scenes, Allison suggests using them:
to have a conversation about the picture
to work on vocabulary sets as all the picture scenes have a theme ie the beach, in the kitchen, etc.
to work on verbs and Present Continuous as all the picture scenes usually involve a group of characters involved in different activities
to practise asking and answering Wh-questions
to practise prepositions, nouns and pronouns, directions and inferences.
Among some other ideas that I have found on her blog are using blank comics in speech therapy, using short videos or sensory play. Of course, the very young beginner learners of English as a foreign language, will not be able to produce as much language as the L1 speakers but lots of ideas that could be adapted to our needs.
Another source of inspiration can be Carmen Perez and her blog, although it is in Spanish so a little bit more difficult to access.
Perhaps this ia a new area to research and to be inspired by for us, too? What do you think? Let me know in the comments!
What a wonderful book this is, The Worst Alphabet Book Ever, by Raj Haldar and Chris Carpenter. In a way, it has inspired this post here, on all things related to homework for pre-primary EFL students.
Mine is a very messy alphabet, with some letters in, some letters missing, all of them in a very un-alphabetical order…
The Worst Alphabet Book Ever
S is for ‘Should we even think of setting homework for preschoolers?’
Some of the arguments against:
Kids are too young
It is too much pressure, too early. They will grow up, start school and then they will have to really learn what it means to be a student.
Kids forget to do the homework.
Parents forget to do the homework.
Parents may not speak English well enough to help with the homework task.
Parents work and are essentially too busy to deal with the homework tasks.
Some of the arguments for:
We are teaching the kids English but we are also teaching them how to be a student. Doing the homework and taking responsibility is a part of that process.
It has to be the homework task that is appropriate for the students’ age (2 – 6 years old) and level of English (pre-A1) so also something that non-English speaking parents will be able to do and something that will not take a lot of time
Certain procedures for setting the homework and checking the homework should apply to ensure that the tasks are not a hassle for the parents or the children
Homework is a wonderful way of creating a link between different lessons
So the short answer to the question in the heading would be ‘Yes, we definitely should’.
The Worst Alphabet Book Ever
E is for the extended exposureand R is for results
This is one more argument in favour of the VYL homework, so important in fact that it is going to have its own paragraph here.
Usually, pre-primary students who learn English as a foreign language have a very limited exposure to the language as they come to class twice a week for 45 minutes or, in some cases, for only 45 minutes once a week. That is not a lot but it is enough to get good results if the time in class is spent well. Or, if there is an opportunity to extend this English exposure time by homework tasks.
In practice, in might mean only the additional five or ten minutes or fifteen minutes per week but it will be the important link that will provide some additional practice between the lessons, which will be very beneficial for the children and it will help to recycle and keep up the language from Tuesday to Thursday and, even more importantly, from Thursday to Tuesday.
As it happens, a few years ago, me and my colleague-teacher, Anya (hello Anya!), we had a chance to be a part of a very informal and very small scale classroom research or an accidental experiment. We both worked with the same levels onsite (at one of our IH schools in Moscow) and, at the same time, offsite (at one of the kindergartens). All the kids were amazing, very bright and a pleasure to teach. They had the same teachers and they were following the same programme and yet, we realised that the onsite students were making more progress. We tried to analyse the situation and the only difference between the groups that we could put a finger on was the fact that our offsite groups were not getting any homework, according to the arrangements with the client.
Then, there were my other groups, a few years ago, that all of a sudden started to make lots of progress and, surprisingly enough, we did not have to devote so much time to drilling and practising the new vocabulary, right after it was introduced.
Normally, the first two lessons with the new material were filled with a lot basic games whose aim was to provide the exposure and the controlled practice before we would move onto more complex vocabulary games and introducing structures. Until, that is, I noticed that all this drilling was not necessary and, in most cases, already in the second lesson the children were using the new vocabulary with a lot of confidence. What it did look like in class, of course, were my students’ faces quickly losing interest in ‘just’ repeating the words with voices and emotions and, even, random comments (or, shall we say, feedback) muttered, here and there, ‘Да, мы уже все это знаем...’ (‘We already know all that...’)
I would never complain about that, we could move on and do the more interesting and challenging things but it took me a while that it was connected to the additional practice opportunities that the parents were providing at home. Just because they wanted to.
The Worst Alphabet Book Ever
P is for the parents
It is not a secret that in case of all the young learners or non-adult groups, the parents are the third party involved in the process and, one way or another, they will have to be included because, really, they are our clients, not the students themsevels. This is particularly true in case of the pre-school groups, mainly because children are very young and if we want to make the learning process effective, with homework or without it, we will be dealing with parents, too. Even more so, we need parents to make it all work.
Parents always want the best for their children but many of them are also taking their first steps in the EFL world, this time through their children. They might have had different previous learning experience (their own or of their kids’), they might have different expectations and aims that might not always coincide with ours, with our previous teaching experience or with our school’s policy. That means that we cannot take things for granted and that we should always talk to the parents, to explain what we do and why we do it. That applies to the homework tasks, too.
Some parents might really not be able to spend time with their children, some might choose to spend the time they have in other ways, not working on the English homework and we should accept and respect that. However, there are also parents for whom the English homework will not be so much of a burden but rather an opportunity to do something together in English. We can help them by showing them what can be done at home and the actual homework task is the first step here.
The Worst Alphabet Book Ever
N is for nuts and bolts
Here are some things to take into consideration
The homework should be short. Our students are still two or three or five and will not be able to remain seated for a long period of time, in class or at home.
It should be easy to complete, too. The students are still two or three or five and tasks that are very complex cognitively will not be appropriate for them.
However, the fact that the task looks like a simple colouring page (see below) does not mean that it is just colouring because the actual physical task will be connected with the language produced that is presented and practised in class with the teacher, practised at home with the parents and then practised again, with the teacher, during the homework check in the following lesson.
Ideally, the homework task should be consistent, in form and in content, with the focused task completed in class. This way, we do not only provide additional practice of the vocabulary and structures that we currently work on but we also ensure that the students will know how to complete the task because the instructions are the same, for the focused task and for the homework task. Of course, that is not always possible but it is a good aim to set for yourself while lesson planning.
For that reason, the longer I work, the more convinced I become that in an ideal set-up, I would rather work with a coursebook only, without any activity book whatsoever, in order to give myself the flexibility to match and to better combine the programme, the focused task and the homework task. This is, of course, only my very subjective view and I am aware of the fact that it would not be everyone’s choice.
The task should be set in class, with the students. After all, these are the ones who are learning to be responsible for the task. For the teacher and the students this is, yet another opportunity for practice. The teacher can bring another copy of the handout or the book and do the task together with the students.
The homework task should be explained to the parents, too, because, they will have to remember to take the task out and to complete it before the following lesson. There are different ways of doing it. The teacher can explain the task after the lesson, alone or with the help of the students, the administration of the school can be asked for help, too. Some teachers like to leave the notes about the homework on the door of the classroom and, nowadays, we all have the whatsapp groups which we can use to communicate with the parents, too.
The homework checking is a part of the routine and another opportunity to practise the language and to talk to students, one on one, as they walk into the classroom (more about the line-up routines here). In the past, I used to reward my students with stickers for the homework but I stopped doing that when I realised that not everyone does or brings their homework and that is precisely because mum or dad or granny forgot…Now, I only acknowledge the hard work with smileys, suns, flowers, ‘Fantastic!’ and ‘Excellent’ and I keep a spare handout, my homework or any visual in order to be able to have a little chat also with those students who are without a homework task on the day.
The Worst Alphabet Book Ever
B is for the basic homework tasks
Here are some of the staple food tasks that work well as homework tasks. All of these were created using the miro board. These are not actual handouts but only sample tasks in each type.
a)colouring: task: students colour the objects and produce simple sentences ie ‘The apple is green’ or ‘It’s a green apple). This kind of a task is especially appropriate after the new vocabulary has been introduced and colours can and should be revised throughout the course.
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b) drill: task: students look at the the sequence of words, name them, using a single word or a sentence and make a decision what should be the final word. This is also a task appropriate in the beginning of the unit. Here, some students might choose to colour the picture but that is not obligatory.
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c) odd one out: task: students name all the objects in the sequence and decide which one does not match the others. We usually use very simple langauge here for example: Goodbye, cat.
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d) matching: task: students look for the same objects in both columns and connect them with a line. This is also a task more appropriate for the beginning of the unit and for younger students, too. The older students can complete it, too, but in their case it would be a good idea to encourage the kids to produce a full sentence.
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e) finish the sentece: task: students try to build simple sentences by naming the elements of it represented by visuals or symbols and by choosing one of the elements.
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f) categorise: task: depending on the language, students can categorise the objects into those that they like or don’t like, big or small, animals that can fly or swim or even words beginning with the same sound if you have started working on developing literacy skills. They can either colour or circle different categories with different colours, at the same time producing the target language.
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g) count: task: students look at the picture and count all the apples, bananas, kiwis and nuts, they write the number.
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h) maze: task: students trace different lines in order to produce the required sentence, for example ‘I’ve got a doll’ and similar. Again, thanks to the fact that all elements of the sentence are represented visually, an activity like that is going to support maximising production, here full sentences.
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i) collage: task: in class, students make sentences about mum, dad, grandma (my mummy likes apples) glueing simple pictures in the appropriate part of the handout. All the leftover pictures are given out as homework. Students glue them onto the handout and produce similar sentences but now about brother / sister, grandpa or friends.
A is for the alternatives
Normally, the homework task is set as a handout (or in the activity book) but the pandemic and the lockdown of 2020 has changed everyone’s way of looking at homework and, fortunately or unfortunately, it has closed some doors but it has opened some others. During the lockdown, not all the studnets had access to a printer so sending out homework for the parents to print and complete was not always possible. What is more, not all the students even had coursebooks and so these could not always be used as the basis for homework tasks.
W is for Wordwall
This website has been a real revelation and a milestone in tasks for age groups of students but especially for my pre-primary studnets. Wordwall is available for everyone and free in its basic version. Anyone can register and gain access to all the tasks and games that have been created by the community and made public. These games can be used in class and shared with the parents to play on any device available at home. Another advantage is that each of the tasks or games is available in a few different formats (or ‘templates) which means that the parents (or the teachers) can still practise the same set of vocabulary or structures but in a slightly different game.
If you are willing to invest a small sum of money, you can choose your own plan and start creating your own activities to match the programme or the curriculum of your group or school, too.
Here are some examples of the games that I have created for my pre-primary students
a) Let’s count, created for the students who were in the beginning of level 1
b) Categorising, created for level 2 students (farm animals which can fly, swim, run, jump)
c) Tell me about this picture, created for my level 3 students to practise opposite adjectives.
All of these we played in class, first and then the same or a similar task was shared with the parents.
L is for homemade listening tasks
These are lightly more complex but a real lockdown revelation for my primary and pre-primary classes. You can read more about them here.
Happy teaching!
P.S. All the samples of activities were created using the images on Miro and all the in-text photos come from the same wonderful book, P is for Pterodactyl, The Worst Alphabet Book Ever by Raj Haldar and Chris Carpenter and illustrations by Maria Tina Beddia from Sourcebook Jabberwocky, which by the way can be (and will be) used with my teens. More on that later:-)
*** This post was based on the talk I gave at the 2020 IH YL Conference.
P.S. A request!
It is very simple.
I would like to know a tiny little bit more about my readers. There are so many of you, popping in here, again and again, and the numbers of visitors and visits are going up and make my heart sweel with joy. But I realised I don’t know anything about my readers and I would love to know, a tiny little bit more.
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.
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.
