#kidscanspeak

Adults learning from kids. Or how I accidentally formulated my teacher beliefs

by

I have already been writing about ‘the shock’ of a teacher of YL going back into the adult EFL classroom in an earlier post ‘What an old dog learnt?‘.

A message to the parents

Two weeks ago, after one of the lessons, I sat down to write to the parents about the homework, the upcoming test and some feedback. It was just a lesson and a busy one because we were doing a lot of preparation for the test. ‘Nothing special’ you might say because we didn’t have any amazing activities, no ‘fireworks’ or ‘surprises’, only a lot of hard work and practice. And yet, somehow, the lesson was just beautiful, so great, in fact, that I decided to write about it to my educational parents, too. I just wanted to tell them that the kids were amazing (they are!) and that we had a speaking activity and it all went very well. ‘You know, I wish I could show our group to some of my adult students to show them what communication might and should look like‘, I typed, and it was only then that I did sigh, in awe at my own wording and the very idea.

Oh, how I wish I could do just that.

What would my adults see…

First of all, they would see children of different ages, aged 10 in this group, but also 3 or 17 in my other groups, kids studying together, in groups or individually. If they came, they would be surprised at the level of English the kids already have at this point. Or, rather, as a proud teacher of my kids, I hope they would be impressed. Just a little bit.

I would also hope that they could notice how comfortable the kids feel in their other language version. It is not an accessory that you carry around in your hand, a tool that you try to use although you are not quite sure how to. Nor is it a costume that you have to put on and become something else, a dragon, a princess, a cat, something that you are not. On the contrary, I would love them to see how, regardless of the age and the level, English can and does feel like the second skin. Something that is just you, the other version of you but also the very self that you are.

I would love my adults to be inspired by the open-mindedness and the general attitude to anything that is new and out of the box, especially the readiness to see, to try, to experiment. That does not mean that everything that I bring into the lesson and everything that I dump at them, grammar, tests, exam preparation, all the games are welcomed with the open arms and everyone, but absolutely every single person jumps at the opportunity of diving in. It is absolutely not the case. My kids are ‘normal’ kids who get tired, who have lots of homework, who sometimes, I bet you, would be doing something else entirely, not the things we are dealing with in the classroom. And, consequently, they are looking for the ways out, for the ways of cutting the corners, for taking a time out. Which, to be honest, is something that I secretly admire them for, although I will never own up to it. But, even so, overall, they are ready for a challenge.

I would love to the adults to notice the egalite as one of our rules and standards that everyone has the right to and that everyone has to learn to accept, because, indeed, sometimes this is something that we have to work on, although for kids the reasons are slightly different. The younger kids are developing their social skills for the first time, as it were. The adults hide either behind their personality or good manners or, perhaps, the corporate culture that might be developing the habits in some relation to the hierarchy in the company. Although here, I don’t know, I am just guessing.

Last but not least, it would be very interesting to have my adult students see that the teacher is not some kind of an air traffic controller, deciding who goes next but more of a head chef, the individual, who, although fully present and involved, is only keeping an eye on the process and making sure that the food is made and served or, in other words, that the aims are met. What is more, and very closely related, is that everyone gets to execute their freedom of speech, or in simple and less grandiose words: that people talk whenever they have something to say, not only because the teacher asks a question and when she does it.

I have no idea why but with every word typed up here, it started to feel more like typing up a teaching manifesto, my own teaching commandments almost. I can promise that I will leave it here as it is and I will get back to it in a few weeks to see if it still feels like that and if I still believe in it.

As a result…

The truth is that I wouldn’t really do it. The kids’ need to stay protected, in the precious coziness of our online classroom and without any ‘invasions’ from strangers. The adults, on the other hand, might not appreciate having their teacher suggest that their new role models in communication are some ten-year-olds. Everyone will stay in their own classroom and I will just continue doing my job and learning from observing and reflecting on two different environments and types of lessons.

And using them as a source of inspiration for new activities, like this new series on the blog Discourse Development. Here’s to hoping that staging, scaffolding and practising will lead to automacy and to the development of new habits and even my adults, all my adults, will be interacting with more freedom and ease.

So far, there have been four but I got a feeling that there will be more coming up

There is definitely more to come!

Happy teaching!

I am a lazy teacher and why you should be, too!

by

Two weeks ago I was invited to present at the monthly meeting of the Teacher – Mentor Learning Community which was founded by Anna Kashcheeva who, over the years, has been my fellow teacher, ADOS, trainer, my trainee and my trainer and supervisor. Oh, what a lovely list))

I prepared a session on laziness, one of my professional passions. The session went well, the audience were amazing and I got a lot of positive feedback. We were not recording but the presentation was followed up by a post on the community’s blog and you can find it here. Once you get there, don’t forget to have a look at all the other posts and materials.

Happy teaching!

Crumbs #49 Linking words and developing discourse

by

It is actually funny that this particular post makes an appearance as only the third one in the series, although it should definitely be the Number One as I do it with my youngest students and with the lowest levels. That is the Beginning of Discourse.

Ingredients

  • A set of cards with some opinions or statements.
  • With my offline groups we also use a dice with a linker assigned to each number (i.e. 1 = but, 2 = because, 3 = for example, 4 = and, 5 = so, 6 = or)
  • A model sentence for presentation, i.e. It is raining.

Procedure

  • Presentation starts with the model sentence on the board or on the screen and the teacher introducing different linkers with different follow-up sentences, for instance ‘It is raining…’ ‘…because it is November’, ‘…but I am going to the park’, ‘…so I am not going to the park’, ‘…and it is cold’ and so on, for the kids to understand the meaning of the linkers and the differences between them. Depending on the age, the number of linkers can be limited to the most basic ones i.e. because, and, but. The others will be added later.
  • Controlled practice: kids try to come up with their onw follow-up ideas, still working with the same model sentence and different linkers. This is done together, as a whole class, for the teacher to be able to monitor closely.
  • A slightly freer controlled practice activity can go towards students using a selection of other simple sentences.
  • Freer practice is the first activity that is done in pairs or small groups. If this is an online class, one of the students opens the cards, reads one of the sentences. The other student chooses the linker to use and only then the first student continues the sentence. Afterwards they swap. If this is an offline class, the kids work with pairs and with a pile of cards with these sentences and they use the dice to decide which linker to use. The dice is also an opportunity to award points as the number is not only the linker they should use but also the number of points they get in this round.

Why we like it

  • It is definitely one of the activities (or topics) that, for me, personally, are the breakthrough and the first step in the transition from the baby English, pre-A and A1 level towards more linguistic freedom and fluency. Instead of ‘I like apples’, we get ‘I like apples because they are yummy’ or ‘I like apples but I don’t like pears’ or, even the simplest ‘I like apples and bananas’.
  • First of all, it leads to more production since the students are producing two sentences instead of one in the form of a complex sentence and they get more power as regards the profile and the angle of the message. It is not only ‘I like apples’ and it can develop this into ‘I like apples but only fruit. I don’t like the apple pie or the juice’, ‘I like apples so I buy them every week’, ‘I like apples but I didn’t like them when I was a child’ and ‘I like apples but my brother likes watermelon’ taking the entire conversation towards providing details, comparing the present and the past or including other subjects in it.
  • Naturally, sometimes these basic and more complex linkers are included in the coursebooks and they do include great practice activities. However, I like to introduce it early in the game, when the students are ready, regardless of the curriculum. This set of activities allows for a lot of flexibility and it is easy to use with a variety of levels, age groups and topics.
  • I have started including all the key words in the name of the activity for the sake of my online kids working in the breakout rooms, only partially supervised. When we practice in the common room, I leave the key words on the side of the screen or in the chat, for the kids to remember. It is a little bit more challenging in the breakout rooms. But, with the key words in the name, the kids can still see it even in the breakout room. The teacher only need to work a bit on developing the habit on remembering about them and on paying attention to them.
  • The student or the dice making decisions about the linking word to use makes it a bit more challenging but also a bit more fun. It is also a guarantee that a wider range of linkers will be used, rather than ‘but’ or ‘and’ in every single round.
  • The main sentence can be further extended if we ask students to produce not one but two or three sentences or if the other student is required to comment on what they have heard.

Here you can find the two other posts in the series on developing discourse through sentence adverbs and via one-minute essays. There is also one of the older posts on the many ways of developing discourse for the youngest students.

Happy teaching!

Professor Nikolov, kids’ motivation to learn English and classroom research

by
Autum in Wallonia

When I look back at the two and a half years of the MA programme at the University of Leicester, I am thinking of a marathon (a prolonged period of strict routine, extensive emotional and physical expenditure and obligatory one-track-mindedness). Actually, five marathons in a row. But when I look back, it is also the time when one could revel in reading and research, having access to the treasures to the university libraries of the world.

Apart from going through piles of studies and articles to find out data for my assignments and thesis, I also started to make up a list of pieces to share with my teachers and my trainees. Jerome Bruner’s (et al) and the study of the role of tutoring aka scaffolding is already on the blog here and, I am happy to say, for a very long time, it was one of the most popular posts. It still stays somewhere in the top 15…

Today, part 2 of the same series. Enter: professor Marianne Nikolov.

A personal role model

There is something very touching about the career of professor Nikolov (PhD, Professor Emerita at the University of Pécs, Hungary), who after years and years of regular and everyday school teaching started to work as a researcher and, who, eventually, switched into the academia. This very research which is described in the article was her first long-term research, as she says herself, it is in many ways imperfect mainly due to the fact that it was carried out by someone who was, back then, an inexperienced researcher. So much more precious because of that and so much more inspiring for all of us, teachers and trainers, to get our own classroom projects started.

The presentation on the recent research into early years that professor Nikolov gave at the 1st Hellenic Conference on Early Language Learning in Greece, in 2013 is, in my humble opinion, a must for all the VYL teachers, as a crash course into the early years EFL.

‘Why do you learn English?’ ‘Because my teacher is short’

This gem, unique and unforgettable, is the title of the study that I would like to introduce you to and encourage you to read today. And, frankly, could there be a better title to an article devoted to early years and young EFL learners? I seriously doubt it.

It was published in 1999 and it is an account of a long-term study of a group of Hungarian children, aged 6 – 14 and analysing their motivation to learn English at school. Professor Nikolov gave out the questionnaire to her students, which the kids filled in (in their L1) and which was followed by a feedback session with the kids.

Without risking that I would deprive anyone of the pleasures of reading the article, I would like to share here my own main take-outs:

  • all the reasons to learn English have been divided into four groups: the classroom experience (aka the activities), the teacher (‘my teacher is short’), the external reasons (aka the parents and the grades) and the utilitarian reasons (aka the future) (p. 42)
  • all these were present in the answers given by different ages but it was possible to distinguish three sub-groups: grades 1 – 2, grades 3 – 5 and grades 6 – 8
  • the attitude to English (one of everyone’s favourite subjects) was compared with the attitude to the other subjects
  • a whole range of favourite classroom activities was revealed and a range of nobody’s favourite activities such as tests, acting out and (this one made me laugh) boring stories
  • in response to the final question (‘If you were a teacher, what would you do differently?), some kids suggested abandoning tests, some felt that the teacher should be stricter while dealing with different classroom management issues but many didn’t want to change anything at all.
  • the connection between the school grades and the motivation. On the one hand they are the extrinsic motives, on the other hand, as professor Nikolov says, ‘achievements represented by good grades, rewards and language knowledge all serve as motivating forces: children feel successful and this feeling generates the need for further success‘ (p. 46).

A source of inspiration, no metaphors

When I first found the article, I wanted to read it precisely because of the title. It made me smile because this quote is perfect and it reveals a lot of how the kids see the world. Plus it is a fantastic way of drawing the attention of the readers-researchers whose passion are YL. Then, I started to read, curious what I would find them. Finally, it struck me that I did not know what my students would say and that is because I had never asked them.

I was mortified that, in a way, I had taken my kids for granted. Yes, we had been studying together for years, their parents had been bringing them, year after year and there had been no issues, we had fun and we had made progress. But I had never actually asked them.

Naturally, I decided to change it and professor Nikolov’s research was my inspiration and my guidance.

My research took two directions:

a) I prepared a questionnaire for kids and I used exactly the same questions that professor Nikolov used with her students. I wrote them in English and in Russian and the kids were told that they were able to use whichever language they wanted. The funny and the most amazing thing is that some of my A1+ kids tried to express some of their thoughts in the target language.

b) I prepared a questionnaire for the parents, too, partially because some of my students were 4 y.o. and beginners and, partially, because I wanted to find out what kind of an impact the home environment has on the kids’ motivation. The parents were asked to answer the following questions: Do you do anything in English at home? Does anyone else speak English? Before starting to learn English, did you have a conversation with your child about it? What did you talk about? Do you know what your child likes and doesn’t like about our classes and about their English classes at school.

‘How come I never asked before?‘

…is something that I still keep asking myself. Apart from an opportunity to exercise my almost non-existant researcher skills, this questionnaire and this adventure gave me a fascinating opportunity to see the bigger picture and to become more aware of everything that might have an impact on how my students see the language learning process.

Here are are few insights:

  • most of my educational parents admitted to chatting to their kids about the reason to learn English, although sometimes the kids, due to their age, were not quite interested.
  • some of the preparation was done in a rather informal way as English as a means of communication entered their lives anyway since they had an opportunity to travel abroad, they were visited by parents’ friends from abroad. They could also see their relatives use English at work or at school.
  • some of my younger kids already expressed some of the utalitarian reasons (‘he wants to work for Lego or Hot Wheels’), this was a lot more common among the older students
  • the most interesting fact was that for many of my students English was not only a subject, something that belongs strictly in the school. Rather than that, it was a family thing, something you do with mum or dad or with the siblings, younger or older, although, none of the kids came from bilingual families.
  • as for the kids, their reasons could be divided into the four groups highlighted by professor Nikolov: the external (‘My mum told me to’), the utilitarian (‘I will travel to different countries and cities’), the teacher (‘Because of Anka’) (insert a million hearts here) and the classroom (‘Because I like it’)

The follow-up?

Raising the awareness and finding out is only the first step and it highlights the importance of a few processes. Naturally, the teacher has no influence on the background of the students or on the family social status and their ability to travel abroad for example. However, the teacher can make sure that the parents are involved in the classroom activities and classroom life, to the extent in which it is possible and, at least, those parents that wish to be involved. This can be done through helping to take English out of the classroom and extending the exposure by sharing songs, games, activities and keeping the parents informed.

There are also some opportunities to bring the world into the classroom, especially nowadays, in the post-covid, zoom world by using the real life materials, traditional stories, guests, virtual guests, pen pals etc. This way, even without travelling, kids will see the connection between the coursebooks on their desks and the world out there.

There is a lot that the teacher can do as regards including the age-appropriate activities, finding out what the favourite activities are and working on building the community even if only by learning the kids’ names, celebrating birthdays and creating the new, group-specific traditions and ‘traditions’.

The first step can be reading about professor Nikolov’s study and running your own research and finding out why your students like to learn English…

Happy teaching!

P.S.

Fun fact? This blog was created as my reward for completing the MA programme. I submitted the final version of my dissertation around midnight on the night of the 1st and 2nd of March 2020 and, on the 2nd of March, during the day, when I did catch my breath a bit, I got my funky socks and my dragons in line…

Bibliography

Marianne Nikolov, ‘Why do you learn English?’ ‘Because my teacher is short’. A study of Hungarian children’s foreign language learning motivation. Language Teaching Research, 1999:3:33, p. 33 – 56

Crumbs #41 Let’s look for pairs! A vocabulary game for kids

by
All the pairs. Somehow the penguin, the gorilla and the mouse got left out.

Ingredients

  • A set of pictures of animals, flashcards or on Miro. That’s it.

Procedures

  • Revise the vocabulary and ensure that all the cards are displayed at the same time for the kids to be aware of all the options
  • Model by choosing a pair of animals and putting these cards aside and justifying your choice. With my pre-primary kids, I like to use the first person statements (I’ve got 4 legs etc) as this is what we do with the younger kids (to enable the kids to talk about themselves and the animals without having to introduce the additional structures and to keep it coherent with the songs that we use ie Little bird or As quiet as a mouse). I also tend to vocalise the language ie I’ve got 4 legs (for the cat), I’ve got 4 legs (for the elephant).
  • Invite the kids to take turns to make their own pairs and to describe the rationale behind it.
This is what our Miro board looked like before we started

Why we like it

  • An opportunity for the kids to use and to develop the higher order thinking skills in the EFL context
  • The students are in charge of what they want to talk about and what they can talk about. It is appropriate for mixed-ability groups.
  • Little or no preparation as the flashcards are already there, the physical cards in the offline classroom or the set of pictures on Miro which, once prepared, can be doubled easily and used only for that activity.
  • A great variety of structures that can be revised and some opportunity to learn the new ones as the kids might have the ideas that they cannot express in English yet and this game can be the springboard which will help to introduce these. If the teacher speaks the kids’ L1.
  • Lots of opportunities for adaptation and using them with different sets of words such as toys, fruit, food, transport and, naturally, the relevant structures. I like to start this game with animals because of the range of easy structures that even the very young beginner students can use in order to complete task and because of the variety of topics that can be included (the colours, the number of legs, what animals can do, what they eat, where they live etc)
  • The level of challege can also be easily adapted, for example, the set of cards can include only 8 items or the teacher can focus on putting the animals into pairs basen only on the colours or the size which are probably the two most achievable categories, both cognitively and linguistically.
  • This is a neverending activity because the cards and the animals can be grouped and re-grouped over and over again to let the students create new and less obvious links between the items. Conversly, it can be shortend as needs be.
  • As regards the interaction patterns, this activity can be used with groups, with kids working together, at least in the beginning, or in pairs if we have the appropriate number of sets of cards as well as with 1-1 students, both online and offline.
  • There is also some potential for adaptation in the area of materials. The most obvious choice are the flashcards, the mini-flashcards or the Miro board. The teacher can also create a handout with the animals pictures and/or names which the students can colour-code as they are putting them in pairs. This might be a good solution for the kids to work in pairs in the offline classroom.
  • Last but not least, this activity is an opportunity for the kids to develop the listening skills (as they want to find out the justification for their peers’ choices) and the speaking skills (as they want to present their own reasoning, too). I simply love to observe how my students start with the simplest and most obvious connections and how they venture out into more and more creative ones.

Happy teaching!

When the magic happens…

by
The magic of Louisiana

Let me tell you first what this post is NOT about:

It is not a post about any specific activity, resource or solution for the classroom.

It is not a report of a classroom research task or an experiment.

It is not a compendium of useful links. Or stories from a trainer’s life.

Not today. Today I want to write about the classroom magic and, in all honesty, I doubt anyone can find it of any use. Really. This is solely for my writer’s and teacher’s well-being.

The magic of Lousiana

When the magic happens OR When kids become communicators in L2

Maximising production is definitely a professional obsession.

Although a) it is probably better to call it ‘my professional interest’ and b) you have probably noticed, if you have been reading my posts (It not, you can find the chapter here). This is what I have on my mind while planning my lessons. This is what I think about while looking at the coursebooks, illustrations, stories and games. ‘How do I get my kids to speak?’

The magic of Louisiana

If you are a teacher of young children, you are a bit like a gardener.

There is a lot of digging, a lot of watering, some weeding, and, above all, lots and lots (and lots) of waiting before you get a chance to even hope about any real fruit or flowers. Or any real communication, in our case. Which does not mean that it is boring or uneventful! Quite the contrary!

It is a wonderful journey, filled with treasured moments, from the very first steps into the classroom and any signals that we have exchanged ideas and understood each other. Cautiously walking in, on day 1, a bit uncertain but also very curious what this new auntie (that’s what I have been referred to, in Russian, in Spanish and in Portugues) has to offer. Pointing at the right flashcards, nodding in lieu of a yes, lining up because the teacher asked for it, picking out for the red crayon in a colouring dication or replying ‘Hello’ to your ‘Hello’ Drilling and reciting all the colours and so is confidently shouting out ‘Cat!’ to correct the teacher when she shows you a picture of a cat but, somehow, she says ‘It’s a dog!’ (though with this special elfin smile and a spark in her eye)… All of this is priceless, amazing, magical. And necessary.

The magic of Louisiana

Then comes the plateu.

Yes, a language learning plateu. In case of the primary or the pre-primary language learners it has got nothing to do with reaching the intermediate level (quite often the level associated with the concept of plateau), quite the contrary, but, it does happen with the little kids, too (and yes, this is just the idea that I got right now and decided to use it in this post).

So, taking the level aside, what do I (very subjectively) see as the language learning plateu in early L2 learning?

  • kids feel confident in the classroom, with its routines and traditions, the teacher, the coursebook, the lesson and the course framework
  • kids feel comfortable with their peers and the bunch of kids starts resembling a group and a team
  • kids are curious and easily learn new words (aka single words) and they can reproduce them on teacher’s request, the action – reaction, teacher – student or teacher – students goes very smoothly
  • kids produce some simple sentences, depending on the curriculum and the programme
  • kids know and produce some phrases related to the repeated activities during the lesson

The first two points here are not directly related to the actual language production but due to the age of children, they are of the utmost importance and for that reason they have found their place here. This is the point in the course when the age-related characteristics stop being an issue and teacher and children can focus more on the language learning itself.

Finally, the learning happens, we move from unit to unit to unit. We go from unit 1 (colours), to unit 2 (school), to unit 3 (fruit), from level 1 to level 2, the kids are growing, the kids know more, they are under control. The kids are happy and the teacher is happy. The only thing missing is ‘They lived happily ever after’…

Don’t get me wrong. I am not UN-happy with the classes going beautifully well. I am not picking at the seams here. This is the state that we, as teachers, dream about. However, this is also the dangrous plateau because we may want to stay there forever. And we should not. Not moving forward equals staying in the same place equals regression. Things going well is a signal that the time has come to do something new, look for new challenges or think of ways of extending the Zone of Proximal Development.

In the very specific context of maximising language production in the VYL world it might mean helping the kids move from ‘the action – reaction’, ‘teacher – student’ and ‘teacher – students’, one word or one sentence production to the next level: a discourse (or a mini-discourse), student – student, student – teacher and spontaneous production aka I say things when I have things to say (and ‘Not because my teacher, the adult asked me’).

The magic of Louisiana

The most beautiful day is when the magic happens

There is no way of getting ready for this day, marking it in your calendar and making it your aim. It is when, all of a sudden, it happens – kids say things outside of the framework that you have prepared for the day, outside of the pattern they ‘should‘ be using according to the book. Or when they try to say things that are, clearly, out of their range (yet) but which they need to say. Sometimes it is fully expressed in L1, sometimes partially.

Examples? Yes, sure! Let’s go.

Case study #1

One of my 6 y.o. students, still in pre-school, about to go to school in a few week but have have been using the primary level books since January. She has always been a very active child and an eager students but recently, over the past few weeks, she has just skyrocketed. The magic happened!

We are studying online, she is in her natural habitat, at home where she communicates in Russian. However, during the lesson time, she started to use more English while talking to her brothers. Sometimes, it is fully in English, for example calling him from another room, to join us in a game (‘We are playing! Come!’), sometimes it is a mix of Russian and English (‘Sasha, go, do your thing!’). Sometimes, the baby brother wanders in, during our lesson and he also gets his portion of English, because I welcome him in English and his sisters babbles to him in English, too. Sometimes. We are in our little English bubble while in class and she is really making an effort to communicate in the target language then. Although, not only then, actually! I know it from her mum, that she sometimes plays with her teddies and that some English happens, then, too! Some of them must be English-speaking teddies.

I also noticed that when we play together with the older brother, she really listens to what he is saying and she picks out the useful words and then tries to use them, like, in the same lessons the phrase ‘everyday’ or ‘every day’ and, almost immediately, enjoying the variations such as ‘every minute’ and ‘every second’…

This ‘magic’ goes beyond the immersion in the context and the language creativity and experimentation. My student also started to attempt to maximise the amount of language produced.

Last week we started to practice Present Simple (Do you go swimming?) as a follow-up on the simple ‘Do you like?’ which we have known for quite some time and we were interviewing each other, not as ourselves but as the chosen characters. The main aim was to practise ‘Do you do something?’ and I did not even plan to insist on using ‘at the weekend’ or any other day of the week, leaving it for later. However, in class, my student just started to speak and it was a wonderful experience for me to see how far she would go. First, she’d say ‘do you’, then pause, choose the verb, pause again, choose the object, pause again, choose the preposition of place, pause again and, finally, add the day of the week…

Do you draw on your homework every day? Do you dance in your classes on Fridays? Do you sleep in the school?

I could not keep up with her in my note-taking, because there was so much language and, yes, because I was laughing out loud. Not only because her sentences were great but also because I realised that, this time round, I managed to notice, to seize the moment, in a way.

The magic of Louisiana

How to make sure that the magic does happen?

  • Let the kids lead the activities (‘Who’s the teacher?’)
  • Start introducing pair-work as soon as the kids might be ready
  • If possible, include free play slot in your lessons
  • Show curiosity, ask questions, even if they seem to be above the kids’ current langauge level
  • Model
  • Work with the emergent vocabulary but for that it is necessary to be able to speak or at least to understand the kids’ L1 and to provide the word they want to use, even though it is not a part of the wordlist for the level and to keep bringing it back
  • Be clever and welcoming when it comes to kids’ way of using L1 in class. Apart from the teacher showing respect for it (please, please, please avoid saying ‘DON’T speak L1’ or ‘NO L1’), there is a way of working it. Not all L1 appears because kids don’t want to speak English. Using L1 is one of the communication strategies and it can be a signal for the teacher as to what the kids want to talk about and what they need the vocabulary and structures for.
  • Be clever and welcoming when it comes to kids’ way of dealing with code-switching (aka ‘mixing’ L1 and L2). This is one of the communication strategies and it is the a step towards and an attempt at L2-only communication
  • Create the English language environment and provide the exposure with songs, books, games and stories.
  • Think of extending this exposure and taking English out of the classroom (aka get the parents, the grandparents, sisters and brothers on board!)
  • Continue reading this blog for more ideas:)

And wait. Stretch out and wait. Like in a song by The Smiths…The magic is bound to happen, eventually.

Happy teaching!

The magic of Louisiana

The one phrase to teach your students. From the series: We Want More!

by

Since we are going through the quieter period of the year, there is more time for looking back and for reflection and this is how the idea for this mini-series of post came from. Just because we started to use those and each of these phrases or words was like a key that opened many, many doors in our communication and not only.

The one thing to teach your kids is ‘because‘…

…and the whole thing can* start in primary, and maybe even in pre-school. It is a powerful world that invites the kids to build a simple discourse and to go beyond one sentence or simple sentence production, even in the most everyday situations.

We start with extentending the answer to ‘How do you feel today?‘ which is a part of our class routine and the question which I ask and which the kids ask in every single lesson. As soon as they have a good number of adjectives to use in response (you can read about it here), I try to encourage them to elaborate on their answers, both modeling (I’m happy because it is sunny) and by inviting them to continue. ‘I’m happy.‘ ‘Because...’

Of course, the sentences the kids produce are quite simple, very simple, in fact, and sometimes partially in their L1 but with time, they are becoming more familiar with it and they are improving and, as a result, are able to say more and more and more. In English. Not to mention that as we go through the course, there are more and more situations in which we need because, for example to explain why we like Friday and not Monday, why we didn’t do the homework, why the kids in the pictures look happy or sad or why they did something in the story.

The same can be done with pre-schoolers, with certain adjustments to their age and the number of years that they have been studying. Thinking about my groups in the previous academic year, with the level 1 and the level 2 groups I was more focused on the full sentence production and it was too early to introduce any linkers. The level 3 children, however, were ready the unit ‘I’m scared’ (Playway to English, CUP) was a perfect opportunity to talk about the things we are scared of and to explain why. Or, more frequently, the things we are not scared of. ‘I am not scared of spiders. I like spiders because they are beautiful.’ and so on.

I often tell my students (especially those new ones, and yes, also the adult ones recently) that I will always want to know ‘Why?’ and that even if I forget to ask, they should always imagine this word written all across my forehead and answer it anyway. To help the kids in the everyday lesson and to make it easier on myself, I used the idea I got from Herbert Puchta, only mine was not any error correction technique and it stayed displayed proudly on the wall for a good few years. In the beginning, I really had to do a lot of pointing and waving at the word, later, the habit was developed and the kids (yes, as early as in year 1 of primary!) started to use the word without any reminders whatsoever. They were producing the language and lots of it!

My two favourite because-related moments from the classroom have been those:

  • when we talk about things, someone is telling us how they are and I, somehow, forget to ask ‘Why?‘ or I am just too slow with it, there is always a voice (or two or three) taking over and kindly suggesting ‘Because…‘, with this perfect rise in the intonation, the voice trailing off in an invitation to continue. I wonder where they got that from!
  • when we talk about pictures or we retell the story or we describe something that happened at school on the day and, by accident, I want to take over and move on and, in response, I get my own because back, in an interjection, and again, with the intonation perfectly matching the purpose (‘I have NOT finished yet‘) and I am thinking to myself: ‘Oh dear, I cannot shut them up!’ which is, by far, my favourite teacher’s complaint.

*) ‘Can’ or ‘must’?:-))

The one thing to teach your kids is…’I think’.

Initially, I wanted to have a pretty post, ‘one phrase per age group’ but I realised that I simply cannot NOT mention ‘I think’ and the impact it had on my primary school students.

Unlike the previous item, here I cannot even remember how it came about and how I first introduced it. It has always been in the air. I know that I use it a lot to slow the kids down and to signal to them not to rush through tasks (i.e. ‘Think and write’) or to encourage them when they are struggling (i.e. ‘Think about it’ when I know that they do know it and it is only necessary to rack through their brains). We had used it a lot in different stories (‘Elmer was thinking and thinking and then he had an idea!’) and a while ago we also introduced ‘Thinking time’ as an official preparation stage for projects and role-plays. Thinking has been with us, only it is not quite clear for how long.

For the reason, when we got to practise expressing the opinion in winter last year (around the middle of A1 / Movers), I did not even bother to check the meaning of it and the question ‘What do you think about it?’ and the answer ‘I think it is interesting / boring / exciting etc’, the adjectives were the main aim and the focus. For me, at least.

What my students took out of this lesson for the rest of the course (and life!) was the little ‘I think’, which is essentially only an introduction and which is slightly unnecessary even. An opinion can surely be expressed without it. ‘Maths is easy‘ expresses the same view as ‘I think Maths is easy.’ Or so one would think.

I noticed, in the lesson in which we used it consciously for the first time and in the lessons afterwards, last year and this year, that my students began to start adding ‘I think‘ everywhere. ‘I think it is beautiful’, ‘I think it is easy‘, ‘I think he is sad‘, ‘I think it is a cat’ ‘And I think it is a dog‘ and so on. ‘I think’ gave them an opportunity to personalise the message, to signal the autonomy of that message (since by making it subjective you kind of accept that other people will have or may have a different view) and, I suppose, by doing so, it made the message more adult and more serious. And they simply and visibly adored it. Maybe because they were only 7 or 8 or 9 at the time.

As I said, I don’t quite remember the start of that adventure and I am not quite sure when the good time to introduce really is. What I know, though, is that the next time I am starting the group, ‘I think’ will be on the list of things to think about.

The one thing to teach your teens is…’What do you think about it?’

There are many phrases that were shortlisted for this paragraph because of the difference they made to the way my teens interacted with the world in the English lesson, ‘I agree‘ and ‘I don’t agree‘ or ‘On the one hand…on the other hand‘ among them but the real deal-breaker was ‘What do you think about?‘

This phrase, especially with a special stress on ‘you’ (‘What do you think about it?’) has become the wonderful phrase that helped my teens really get engaged and communicate in a really interactive way, not only expressing their opinion, agreeing and disagreeing but also to boomerang the conversation properly by involving the other participant or participants. I mean, truth be told, I know that they did it mostly to avoid making too much effort and producing extensively and this line has become a fantastic and polite tool which they used to dodge the ball. Of course, they produced, too but I just had a lot of fun observing how by trying to be super clever they were involved in a conversation that would give them some high marks during the speaking part of the FCE exam.

The one thing to teach your adults is…’it depends‘.

Especially if your adults are shy, not naturally very talkative and a messy A2 level. Especially if they have already experienced some failures and disappoinment while learning Engllish and when they current progress is closely related to the promotion at work. Or the lack of. Especially if, due to all the factors mentioned above, they reply with single words (the teacher sighs) or when they just say, in their L1: ‘I don’t know what to say’ (the teacher sighs again).

‘It depends’ came to us by accident. It was not a part of any text, a listening task or a functional language phrases lesson. It was a part of the emergent lesson but because I take notes of that and send these back to the students, it stayed with us. And what joy!

I can say with all the confidence that my students, in this one (1) group have wholeheartedly adopted the phrase and made it theirs. First of all, it is this gold key that opens the discourse. You cannot just answer with ‘It depends’ and stop there. You have to continue and explain at least the two different ways at looking at the issue. Especially if your teacher is raising her eyebrows and nodding encouragingly. What’s more, I have noticed that they like using it consciously as a natural time-bying tool that gives them the benefit of a few precious seconds to come up with an idea and a way of formulating it in English. Oh, what a find, this phrase!

The one thing to teach your teachers to use and to remember about is…’but’

This one is here as a joke only. I don’t need to teach my teachers any English, of course, but, as a trainer, this is the one word that I would like them to remember to use whenever they consider the theory of child development and the methodology of working with young learners. Or even while going through the teacher’s book and adapting the activities. This little but powerful word is everything you need to be equipped with to ensure that they always keep thinking of all the exceptions to all the rules and that the most important point of reference are the people in the classroom, not some non-existent ideal students or typical five-year-olds and all the other YL cliches.

Happy teaching!

Teaching grammar in pre-school?

by

This article was (and is) a double joy.

First of all, it got published in the Modern English Teacher in May 2022.

Apart from that, there are also these two videos that I would like to share with you

  • My MET Contributor Interview which you can find here
  • And the Pavillon ELT Vlog with Damien aka his take on my ideas which you can find here

Enjoy!

Happy teaching!

Crumbs # 32 Online stickers with a twist

by

Ingredients

  • Miro board or a word document
  • Kids and their ideas

Procedures

  • We prepare the document, write the date
  • One of the students chooses the theme of the day i.e. The Chameloeon Day (not a real holiday, although it could be. There are plenty of ideas to find here.
  • The kids take turns to choose their favourite variation, as featured in the picture above: the cake chamelon, the black chameleon, the artistic chameleon, the Christmas chameleon, the cute chameleon, the police chameleon, the robot chameleon and the lamp chameleon.
  • The teacher opens the google search and keys in the requested phrase. The student who suggested the specific variation chooses their favourite picture (i.e. line one, number 2).
  • The teacher copies and pastes the chosen picture, then pdfs the whole collage as soon as it is ready. The collage is then sent out to parents via Whatsapp.
  • (!!!!!) For the purpose of protecting the kids from the inappropriate images that google might display, especially when the unusual combinations are made, I key in the requested phrase first and only then share the screen with the kids as some of the images might be too scary, explicit or simply not always appropriate for all ages.

Why we like it

  • It is fun.
  • The kids love it. They ask about the stickers (we don’t always use them in every lesson) and they remind me to send them to the parents in the end.
  • It is a great way of finishing a lesson.
  • It is a great way of building a community, especially if you keep your stickers throughout the year. With my group, we still have some of the stickers we found during the first stages of the pandemic in spring 2020 and we had a lot of fun finding them, looking through them and remembering whose they were and why.
  • It gives us a chance to practise some of the computer language in contex (go / scroll down, go / scroll up, stop, I’d like …)
  • It offers some opportunity to practise describing objects in a detailed way (it is the big one, the small, the one with the green nose etc), especially the adjectives.
  • We can create, express ourselves and express opinion on what other people choose.
  • My advertising people tell me that this is something that you do while researching and brainstorming new ideas, too, in order to ensure that yours is, indeed, a fresh solution that no one has ever thought of. So, in a way, my kids are also getting ready for the market research, too!
This is one of our pandemic 2020 stickers)

Happy teaching!

Crumbs #29 How do you feel today? The alternatives

by
From the series: The Beautiful Life

Ingredients

  • None, almost. In some cases, it might be necessary to write some of the ideas on the board, to serve as an inspiration. See procedures

Procedures

  • Students work in pairs. They share their ideas. If there is time, the students can change partners and repeat the activity. To round up, students share some of the information they have found out about.
  • This stage is always present, in each lesson, and it takes about 10 minutes. We keep the same variant for about a month and then we choose a new one.

All the variants (so far)

  • Verbs: the teacher writes on the board all the basic verbs in the past tense: I went to, I saw, I ate, I drank, I talked to…about…, I watched, I played, I bought, I wrote, I didn’t…The kids choose 5 and they build simple sentences about their day, week or weekend. I like to start it with my students even before we officially cover the Past Tense (as soon as they are ready to differentiate between the present / the past form of the verbs) and it really does help the kids to practise and to remember the verb forms.
  • Did you go…: a variation of the activity described above. The teacher puts the question form and the short answers on the board. The kids work in pairs and ask each other questions. The student who provides answers uses ‘I did’ and ‘I didn’t’ but they are also requested to give a brief explanation (because…)
  • Tell me about your day: the teacher writes the name of the activity and a list of topics which can be also elicited from the students. The regular set might include: the weather, the school, the teachers, my best friend, lunch, getting around, marks, tests, pets, brothers and sisters, homework etc. The students work in pairs and they have to choose three topics to talk about. They take turns to share stories about their day and they follow-up each story with a question.
  • The B-words: this one is a slight variation of the above, only here the teacher writes a selection of words starting with a certain letter as the list for the students to choose from and to be inspired by. Some of the words might be completely random but they also encourage the kids to produce the language. Later on, the students can choose the letter of the day and then can also help make the list of the words, too.
  • This is how I felt today: in this variation the teacher puts up the words to describe emotions and feelings. The list can be a simple one (happy, sad, angry, sleepy, hungry, tired, bored) and then it can be extended to include more interesting ones, too (confused, excited, chatty, exhausted). Again, the students choose 3 or 5 of them to describe their day.
  • Superheroes: this time the list on the board is made of names of superheroes, famous people as well as characters from books and films, for example Superman, Spiderman, Wonder Woman, Chebourashka, Winnie-the-Pooh, Santa etc. The students are supposed to think of their day from the point of view of these characters and describe it talking about how they felt. ‘I felt like Superman because I got three good marks today’*)
  • The superlatives: the teacher writes on the board a list of superlatives (the best, the worst, the funniest, the tasties, the most difficult, the easiest). The students choose 3 or 5 of them and use them to describe their day, for example: The best thing was that I had only three lessons etc.

Why we like it

  • A stage of that kind is absolutely necessary as the time for the students to settle in
  • This is also when they learn how to communicate without any preparation and outside of any set-up frameworks since each day might be different and each day may involve a different set of verbs and nouns
  • At the same time, it is an opportunity to practice the past tenses or the perfect tenses as for many of the students, many events repeat themselves (going to school, writing tests, having a good day or a bad day etc)
  • It is a fantasic opportunity for the group to bond, to share the great things that happened during the day or to vent about all the disasters that they had to deal with, the tests, the teachers, the piles of homework

To be continued. Soon. We are quite likely to get very bored with what we are doing at the moment…

Happy teaching!

*) My favourite so far! It is amazing how my students come up with their own metaphors and associations, both the teenage group and the kids. Here are a few quotes: ‘I felt like Chebourashka because I was a bit confused’, ‘I feel like Robinson Cruzoe because I am locked up at home now’, ‘I feel like Masha from Masha and Medved because I am a bit crazy today’, ‘I felt like Santa because it was my friend’s birthday and I had a present for him’, ‘I feel like Superman because I did all my homework really fast’…