#vyllessonplanning

Off the leash. Creating the curriculum for preschoolers

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How it started?

Throughout my teaching career…oh no. STOP. No energy for all these big words.

There have been many different context in which I have met my pre-school students. There has been teaching for big schools and for small schools. There have been groups and individual kids. There have been institutions and neighbour’s and friend’s kids. There have beenn the English clubs, temporary and permanent, courses based on songs, stories, craft, Art and courses based on coursebooks.

This time, however, with my private student, Sasha (it is always Sasha:-), I found myself in a completely different place. She was already quite a mature preschooler, about to turn 6 and she was not a complete beginner. The initial reaction was that I would test her to evaluate her level and then, somehow, match it with one of the courses (aka coursebooks) that I am familiar with. Because it is just easier this way and although I am not a zealous follower of a coursebook, I suppose, I wanted to have a ready-made curriculum at hand.

There is nothing wrong with that approach, essentially, but I started to think about all the implications. I needed to find the coursebook in my country. Sasha’s parents would have to find the book in her country. She is between the levels so we would not be able to use only one book and I would have to supplement anyway. Too much hassle. I decided to let go of the coursebook and to let go of the whole coursebook-related curriculum. I decided to let the teacher (myself) off the leash and to put the student in the centre of this whole adventure. And see what happens.

After all, the whole pre-A level is like an ocean – big, surprising and pretty much uncharted and you are allowed to do whatever you want. My favourite set up, you might say.

How it’s going?

In one word, it is going great and I am having a lot of fun desigining the curriculum and adapting it to my students’ particular needs. In the beginning I did consider using some handouts and coursebooks-related materials, when applicable, but it was only an initial idea. With time, these were phased out and at this point the course materials inlcude: wordwall games, miro activities, songs and videos available on youtube and all the resources we use to develop our literacy skills, such as specific phonics platforms and resources and the notebook we used for writing.

Overall, I am very happy with my student’s progress and development, in all the areas and skills. And, apart from that, I am having a lot of fun on the way. I have especially enjoyed the freedom that this approach gives the teacher and the opportunity to find out more links and new links between different topics, themes, structures and vocabulary.

All my reflections and tips, in the paragraph below.

How to go about creating a curriculum for the EFL pre-schoolers?

  • Choose a time frame for your courses in order to better manage the time and the content. With two real hours of the lesson time per week (2 x 60 minutes) available, I decided to work on the monthly basis, choosing a different theme for each calendar month.
  • Make a decision regarding the target vocabulary, as regards the topic and the number of words to be introduced throughout the entire unit. This list will depend on how old the students are and how many of these words overlap with the words in the students’ L1. For example, in the topic of animals or jungle animals, words such as ‘a tiger’ or ‘a zebra’ are not new for the L1 speakers of Polish, Russian or Portuguese.
  • Make a decision regarding the structures and / or the target language to be introduced and practised alongside the target vocabulary. These should be relevant to the kids’ age and life experience and, at the same time, relevant and connected to the target vocabulary.
  • Select the songs, stories, videos and craft activities that could be included in this unit. This requires some research and googling but it is also a lot of fun because new videoes are created and added, more up-to-date, more fun and more EFL-friendly. There are some topics that I taught two years ago, for example, and today I use completely different materials to those that were my favourite in the past. The same applies to stories and craft.
  • The coursebooks can be consulted for ideas or resources since there are a lot of lovely, ready-made resources in all the published materials but I wanted to avoid doing that, on purpose, in order not to be bound by everything that has been created so far.
  • The sequence of topics as well as structures chosen has been determined by one or more of the following factors: the time of the year (Christmas, spring), student’s interests (life aquatic) and the connection between the topics. We have managed to move from one to the other, at every step revising the previous units. Some of the decisions were predictable, some of them were completely unexpected,
  • This is a fully student-centred curriculum. It is a combination of what I would like us to cover and of what she is really interested in. Understandably, it is much easier to achieve with a 1-1 student and it would be slightly different with a group, although the students’ views would also be taken into consideration while shaping up the curriculum. Some of the topics appeared in a most random of way like life aquatic which we started to deal with because my student simply fell in love with orcas, dolphins and whales and I decided that not using this passion to learn English would be a waste. Apart from learning the key vocabulary and revising everything that we did in the ‘animal unit’ a few months earlier, I figured out that we could use it to learn and to practise talking about what the animals can do. We started with the basic verbs (because the ocean animals cannot really do a lot, apart from swimming, jumping and walking) but we extended later on. In the same way, my idea to introduce the topic of transport fell flat on its face and had to be directed towards the city because Sasha was not especially interested in cars, boats and helicopters.
  • The course aims are as they would have been for any pre-school EFL course but I do make an effort to formulate the aims for every single lesson I teach as has been my habit and since I started, this has had a huge impact on my teaching and lesson planning. You can read more about it here.

Topics we have covered so far

  • Food, fruit and vegetables and I like, I don’t like, Do you like? as well as What’s your favourite food / drink / fruit / vegetable?
  • Animals: wild animals and pets, habitats and adjectives to describe animals such as big and small, fast and slow, beautiful and ugly. The main structure was the verb to be (3rd singular), used to describe the animals and to make riddles, in the affirmative, negative and question form. We also managed to revise like / don’t like while talking about the animals’ favourite food but in order to keep it coherent we used the plural form (Lions like to eat meat).
  • School: school objects, rooms in the school and Present Continous to describe what we do at school. This unit was fully based on Pete the Cat, Rocking in my school shoes.
  • House: rooms in the house and verbs in Present Continuous to describe where we are and what we are doing. We also revised the family members and started to talk about them.
  • Weather: an opportunity to revise a few different sets of vocabulary and structures: clothes (It is sunny. I am wearing a dress), feelings (It is sunny, I am happy), objects (It is sunny. I’ve got an umbrella).
  • Christmas: Christmas characters and decorations, more adjectives to describe these (long / short, cold / hot) to make riddles about these, as well as prepositions of place (in, on, under, next to) which we need to describe where the Christmas decorations were located. We also managed to go back to the rooms and Present Continuous (‘Mum is in the kitchen. She is cooking’)
  • Life aquatic: different animals that live in the ocean, adjectives to describe these animals with a few body parts typical for animals (legs, a tail, a head, ears). We also started to talk about what the animals can and cannot do, starting with the aquatic animals and three main verbs (swim, jump, walk) and then extending the number of verbs and all the animals.
  • Transport and the city: different means of transport and places in the city. We further extended the list of adjectives (fast / slow, loud / quiet) and we talked how we travel to different places (I go to school by car). We also revised the prepositions of place while constructing our own city (The school is in Green Street. The school is next to the park.)
  • Professions: our target langauge in this unit is related to professions, although I am planning to extend it towards characters (fairy tales and people in our life). As regards grammar, this is our first step towards talking about other people. We have already covered she / he is and, only yesterday, she likes and he likes.

What’s next?

To be perfectly honest, I have no idea. This is still an ongoing project and I have not been planning it with a lot of time in advance. The professions unit is coming to an end and it seems that we are going to take it towards fairy tale characters, superheroes and ‘people’ in general as this will be a chance to revise and further reinforce the 3rd singular (to be and likes / doesn’t like). That will be our May.

As for June and July, I have not decided yet. I know that I would love to introduce some elements of the past tense and a structure to talk about the future, too, but I am not sure how it is going to go. The more immediate plans involve the extension of the current unit by revising the family and introducing a variety of fairy tales characters which will allow us to start telling stories. Then we will see. I am sure to be reflecting on it here in the future.

Happy teaching!

A lesson, in structures. Notes from the classroom

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The academic year has just finished.

We had our final lesson, we learned and we had a little online party, with snacks and dances. The final reports and the diplomas have all been sent out and it was only a few days later that, during a walk, I caught myself thinking that we have had a very good year in the classroom and I am really happy with what my kids have learned and how they have progressed.

I am here basically taking notes of where we got by the end of the year, not to forget how many structures and how much language can be squeezed in a lesson. Obviously, that is not everything and there is always room for improvement. Obviously, adaptations have to be considered for the younger, the older, the smaller or the bigger groups, the longer or the shorter classes…

Here is my group: 6 kids, (mostly) in their second year of learning English, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6 and 6 years old, for 60 minutes once a week (or 45 minutes when online), amazing parents included.

Here is my lesson, in structures…

Getting in

  • Hello, how are you? (I’m ok)
  • Where are you sitting? (A blue table and a pink stool (while putting the books down and while sitting down)
  • What have you got today? (I’ve got a spider (in the online classroom, showing us what they have brought or what is lying around)
  • Are you eating or drinking? (I’m eating. I’m drinking (online)
  • What are you eating / drinking? (I am eating cherries. I am drinking water (online, they bring snacks to the lesson)
  • Do you like bananas? (Yes, I do (an activity we played while walking into the classroom, they used to do it in pairs, the one entering and the one right behind them in line, with the flashcards they picked from the pile)
  • How many students have we got today? (Six. One boy and five girls. One teacher (before the hello song. Sometimes we also add: Who is not here?)
  • Where is Sasha? (Sasha is not here. She is ill) Here, it was the students who started to ask about the missing kids and for that reason we introduced the question. The kids were asking, the teacher was answering).
  • Who is it? (It is Sasha. It is Misha) This was something that we did only in the classroom and it was our reaction to kids coming late. Even in the classroom we could hear the main door bell (or answer phone) ring and we started to play the game trying to guess who might be coming through the door next. It was especially fun when a few kids were being late and, of course, we could play it only on some days:-)
  • Did you do your homework? (Yes. (online: we check the homework together, taking turns, classroom: there is more 1-1 interaction as we check the homework as the kids are walking in)

Hello circle

  • How do you feel today? (I am very happy, a little angry and very, very sleepy (online: we use the presentation, I am arranging the icons for each child, classroom: we use our faces flashcards, at this point we have about 12 in active use. Btw, at this point the kids are asking these questions to each other)
  • What’s the weather like today? (It is sunny (online: the presentation, classroom: we look outside of the window)
  • Who is wearing a t-shirt? (Not me / I am. I am wearing a blue t-shirt (online: presentation, classroom: flashcards)

Revision

  • What’s your favourite colour / pet / fruit? (I like green / cats / bananas (online: presentation, classroom: flashcards)
  • How is your mum? (My mum is happy (online: wordwall spinner, classroom: flashcards or dice, we usually do three family members)
  • What’s my secret? Look at me (It’s a car! It’s a train (used for the revision of pretty much any vocabulary, with the teacher and then the students miming their chosen word and the other kids guessing)
  • What’s my secret? It is big, it is loud, it is fast, it is red (It’s a rocket (used for description riddles, online: we use symbols on the chart to remember what to talk about or the discourse clock, offline: we use flascards. The aim here is to encourage the kids to make riddles, too, but with this particular group we haven’t got to the stage of the SS-led game)
  • Cat, how do you get to school? (I go to school by train (online: we use miro, the kids are producing the language, I am moving the images, the cat is actually getting on thet train, classroom: we use flascards, the kids put the animals on the transport)
  • I can see two cats. Yes or not? (No, I can see three cats (we use one picture, the teacher is producing, the kids are listening and correcting)
  • I can see a black cat. (I can see an orange cat (here we use two different pictures and we are looking for differences, the teacher describes picture A, the kids, in turns, describe picture B)

Songs and movement

  • Which song do you want to sing, Baby Shark or Old McDonald’s? (Let’s sing Baby Shark (while choosing the song, when we could choose)
  • Are you sitting or are you standing? (I am sitting. I am standing (while choosing what we want to do during the song)
  • Do you like the song? (I like it, I don’t like it (to ask after a new song is introduced. It is another activity in which the structure can be used but it is also good to find out if they like the song or not)
  • What’s your favourite shark / farm animal? (I like mummy shark (a short personalisation activity after a song)
  • Mummy shark is green. Yes or no? (No, mummy shark is pink (and more follow-up task, that can be used with pretty much any song)
  • Is it easy or difficult? (It’s easy. It’s difficult (another idea for a follow-up after a song, it works best with the more active songs such as Move, I am normally the one that struggles with some of the actions and the kids adore them)
  • Abracadabra, 123, you are a cat (Kids don’t really respond here, their only task is to mime a cat. However, the main aim here is to let the kids lead the game as soon as it is possible and once they do, they start producing a lot of language. The other variations include: You are a happy cat. You are a big happy cat. You are dancing. You are a cat and you are dancing)
  • Anka in the circle. Katya in the circle. Who’s next? (Sasha in the circle (classroom: we are getting up and making a circle before starting the first song. There is a follow-up: Let’s make a small circle. Let’s make a big circle.

Focused task

  • Are you ready? (Yes, I am) or I’m ready (I’m ready) (as we are sitting down in the classroom or as we are settling down in the online classroom)
  • I’ve got my book (I’ve got my book) (again, in the online or the offline classroom as we are getting ready for the task. We use it for the handouts in the online lessons, too. In the classroom, I would ask one of the kids to help hand these out. They would be saying: ‘One of Katya. One for Sasha’ and so on while giving them out. Only afterwards we would go ‘I’ve got my paper’)
  • You need one colour / three colours. What colour do you want? (Blue, please) while we were getting ready for the task, applicable in the offline classroom)
  • I’m taking blue (or, when appropriate: My car is blue) (I’m taking green. My car is green) We use these in the online lessons or in those lessons when the kids are given their whole set of markers or crayons to use. Sometimes we use ‘I’m taking’ when we only connect the dots, draw lines etc. When it is used for colouring, I prefer the describe the final product as it seems to be more natural in that case)
  • I’ve finished (I’ve finished) when the task or a part of the task is completed)
  • Close your books. Put the markers in the box.
  • There are also many specific task or specific craft-related verbs and instructions but it is impossible to add them all here.

Storytelling

  • Which story are we going to read, this one or this one? (This one) This is applicable only when we have two stories to choose from
  • Who is it? What is he doing? Is he big or small? Is he happy? Is he at home? (It’s a boy. He is sitting. He is big. He is sad. He is in the park) We talk about the character of the book, usually looking at the cover page. However, sometimes (like in case of Barry and the Scary Monster) it is much better to use one of the inside illustrations as the cover page reveals too much, you can see the monster and I like to keep him a surprise until a bit later in the game)
  • Do you like the story? (I like it / I don’t like it) This is the question we always ask at the end of the story)
  • Are you happy? How do you feel now? (I am happy) This one is also a follow-up question and it gives the kids a chance to express their emotions at the end of the story. Sometimes I use it during the story. It might be a good idea to pause and to gauge the audience to check and to ensure that the kids are not getting scared (re: Barry and the monster) or too sad (re: the little mouse in Playway 1. This is a topic that would perhaps deserve its own post, dealing with emotions in storytelling lessons, but when the character is getting too upset, I comfort him (It’s ok, mouse, don’t cry) or I suggest that the kids can close their eyes or look away)
  • What’s your favourite fish? (I like this one. I like the blue fish) one of the simpler follow-up activities)

Goodbye

  • Let’s sit down: we have homework, goodbye song and stickers (while we are getting ready for finishing the lesson. By the end of the year I am only counting on my fingers and the kids are enlisting what is left to do. I only need to correct the order, sometimes.)
  • I’ve got my homework (I’ve got my homework) only applicable in the offlince classroom when the homework is not in the book).
  • How many stickers are we getting today? Are you taking a sticker? We have got farm, sea animals and space. Which one do you want? (Three stickers. Yes, please. No, thank you. Farm, please) This is only applicable in the classroom. With my online pre-school groups we haven’t started giving out the online stickers and, although we shifted online half-way through the year when the kids were already used to stickers, they did not mind, they did not ask for stickers. I did not want to introduce the online stickers because we had too many new things at this point due to switching online. I did not want to add up to that.

Notes

  • Interaction: in most cases, kids answer in a messy choir manner (I am giggling because I have just come up with that term) and that is: they respond to the question in their own time, to produce the language, more or less at the same time. I am keeping an eye and sometimes I have to call out those that missed the moment and did not produce. We have been studying together for two years so by now this type of interaction has become a routine. There are also situations, especially with the new structures or in case of a very important message (well, you know:-) when I call them out one by one. However, since there are six of them it cannot be every single time. There are also questions and structures that the kids lead and they choose one of the other kids to answer.
  • L2 and L1: most children, most of the time reply in the way that is the preschool teacher’s dream: in a full sentence and in English. However, kids are kids and they are beginner learners so of course that would not happen in 100% of cases. Sometimes they use single words (because kids do) and sometimes they thrown in three other sentences to tell me why their mum is happy today and that is just the way it is. I am doing my best to promote English only in the classroom but my kids are 4 or 5 and it does not happen overnight. But it does happen eventually.
  • Activities: I do not use every single activity in every lesson but I do like to repeat them in order to ensure that the basic structures feature more or less regularly
  • Outcomes, before and after: This is our regular lesson in level 2 which is the middle level. As regards my level 1 students – they have been exposed to some of these structures from the very beginning and, for example, in December, after only four months of studying, they already had about ten adjectives to describe emotions at their disposal whereas all the other structures were introduced gradually and, as can be expected, the main aim for some of them was only the exposure. As regards level 3, we managed to expand the range of these structures, make them natural and get to the point when the kids would be using them spontaneously.

Happy teaching!

Story lesson ideas #1: The Little Seed

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This post is a lesson I taught with a group of 4-year-olds in their first year of studying English, based on the materials from Playway to English 1, 2nd edition by Herbert Puchta and Gunter Gerngross from Cambridge University Press.

It was taken from unit 6 (The Weather) and it is called ‘The Little Seed’.

Story cards ‘The Little Seed’ Playway to English, 2nd ed by H.Puchta and G.Gerngross, CUP

Pre-Story

  1. Vocabulary revision and practice with flashcards, the weather dice, the song, the weather sounds etc. Kids sit in a circle, on little stools.
  2. New vocabulary introduction: a bee, a butterfly, a flower, a seed. We used finger puppets because these three feature in my garden finger puppet set (together with a ladybird and a caterpillar) which I once got as a present (thank you, Cheng <3). I put them on my fingers and we practised saying ‘Hello, bee!’ ‘Hello, butterfly!’ The kids got really excited so we did spend some time, playing with them, trying them on and saying ‘Hello, bee!’ ‘Hello, butterfly!’ These activities were done on the carpet, with kids sitting in a circle. I forgot to bring real seeds so this time, we skipped this stage but I am planning to include them in the follow-up lesson (see below). Of course, the same can be done with regular flashcards or handmade toy butterfly and bee.

While-Story

  1. Just look: I hold the cards and show them to the students, one by one, in silence. Kids just look. Sometimes, I draw the kids’ attention to some of the elements, by pointing at them. Sometimes, I point and say the words or encourage the kids to name things they can see but, really, that is not the priority here. I just want them to take the story in, to build it up in their heads, before we add the language layer to it.
  2. Listen: I play the audio and we listen to the story and look at the pictures. Again, I sometimes point to the key elements in each card. I also use the gestures to reinforce the ideas and concepts and to add another learning channel to the visual and the auditory. In this story we are using the following: hands together, under your cheek with the head slightly tilted (The little seed is sleeping), face up, as if enjoying the sun, with a smile and a happy sigh (It is sunny), hands moving up and down, with the fingers spread and wiggling (It is raining), hands going up and arms stretching high up for (The little seed is growing, growing, growing), pointing with one finger at the picture (Look, it’s a beautiful flower). Some of these gestures have been used so far (the weather), some are new. I don’t pre-teach them, the kids join in when they are ready.
  3. Listen and say: We retell the story together, using the cards. I lead but this time I pause frequently and elicit the words and structures that the students know or, alternatively, I produce the phrase and encourage the kids to repeat.
  4. What do you think? This is the stage for the students to personalise and to express opinion. Usually this is done through a very simple question of ‘Do you like the story?’ or ‘What’s your favourite…?’ In this particular story, we asked ‘Do you like the story?’ ‘Is it a happy story or a sad story?’ ‘Is it a beautiful flower?’
The finished product

Post-Story

  1. Look at my picture: I show the kids the final product and we try to retell the story once again, in its simplified version, this time focusing on the structures that the kids can reproduce: The little seed is sleeping. It is raining. It is sunny. The little seed is growing and growing. Look, it’s a beautiful flower.
  2. Craft: I give out the cards and we create the pictures with kids, while retelling the story. I create another picture, step by step, to model the activity for the kids. This stage took about 10 minutes. I was considering adding the butterfly and the bee but decided that it would take too much time and that is why they do not feature in the picture.
  • ‘The little seed is sleeping’, I give out a small blob of white plasticine, I stick it ‘underground’, ‘Stick and press’
  • ‘It is sunny’, I give out yellow markers. We draw the sun in one corner. We repeat the key phrase as we draw. The kids who have finished drawing can also use the gestures for ‘It is sunny’. I collect the markers.
  • ‘It is raining’, I give out blue markers. We draw the cloud and rain in the other corner. We repeat the key phrase as we draw. We use the gesture for ‘It is raining’. I collect the markers.
  • ‘The little seed is growing, growing and growing’. I give out a piece of green plasticine. We kneed it and roll it to create a string. ‘Let’s roll and make one piece of spaghetti’. We stick it to the picture, as the stem of the flower. ‘Stick and press’.
  • I give out two pieces of green plasticine, we make two blobs and attach them as leaves. ‘One leaf, two leaves’. ‘Stick and press’.
  • ‘Look, it’s a beautiful flower!’ I give out two big pieces of blue and red plasticine. ‘We need three red pieces’ ‘Let’s make the flower’ ‘Stick and press’. ‘We need three blue pieces’ ‘Let’s make the flower’ ‘Stick and press’

3. Let’s tell the story: We show the pictures and go through the story again. The kids are now better able to tell and show the story.

4. Homework: Kids listen to the audio at home with parents, while looking at the pictures in their books. They complete the task in the book by sticking stickers in the gaps.

5. Follow-up: In the following lesson, we are going to retell the story again. I am also planning to start our own classroom garden with some flowers and beans, water them and watch how they grow.

This lesson plan is, of course, one of the many many ways of using this material and teaching this lesson. Enjoy!

Some other materials, potentially interesting.

A little seed by Mabel Watts here

Growing Sunflower Time Lapse here

From a seed to a flower here – a lovely video that I used when I was teaching Maths and Science to pre-schoolers in one of the lessons devoted to plants but it can be used as a follow-up activity in the story lesson.

How to grow a bean plan from Learn English Kids here if you want to start your own class garden.

How plants grow – an interactive game that demonstrates how much water and warmth a plant needs to grow. On the one hand, it is kind of cool and very informative, on the other, however, I could not apply the water and warm fast enough and ended up killing the plant. It made me sad (yeah, really) so, eventually, I decided not to use it in class, either.

A post from Anastasia Bykova, which I found only after my own had been written. If you want to turn this story into a series of lessons, look no further. Lots of ideas for a classroom garden and a proper project – an animation film created with kids which is also available on youtube now. You can find it here. We are going to watch it next Friday.

Happy teaching!