#VYLteacher

Beware of the trainer. YL clichés.

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

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

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

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

courtesy of Юлец

Bad behaviour

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

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

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

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

Egocentric

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

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

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

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

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

A typical five-year-old child…

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

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

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

Short attention span

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

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

Well, I wish it had been that straightforward.

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

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

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

‘They don’t like singing’

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

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

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

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

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

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

Coda

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happy teaching!

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

References

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

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

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

Teacher roles, teacher personalities.

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This is not a serious post.

There is no need for anything else serious now, not with the amount of work related to the end-of-year procedures, the amount of work related to the summer programmes kick-off or the very important teacher training course that has just taken off. If there are any posts to come in the next few weeks, they will be all of the following kind: light-hearted, frolicky, with a giggle.

A teacher = a chameleon, a teacher = a jack of all trades, a monitor, a manager, a mediator, a diagnostician and a teacher, experienced or not, talented or not, on a good day or on a bad, this very person juggles all these roles and a teacher multi-tasks, playing a few roles at the same time.

But there are the other roles that a teacher plays in the classroom. Here are mine.

I’m a coach.

I work hard with my players. Whenever they are there, I am there, at every single training session, those technical ones, those devoted to developing speed and agility, those before the important game. I have been a player myself, I know what it all feels like, I have learnt how to share this knowledge. I am sometimes light-hearted, sometimes very serious but I know what our aim is and I am going to do everything to get us there.

But, at the same time, I am not the one who is going to play this important game. I am preparing my sportsmen but they are the ones who will be performing themselves. I will not be able to be there and always hold their hand, not on the pitch. They will be on their own and they need to get ready for that. Our time in the training session has to focus on that, on giving them skills, developing their independence and confidence. And then they go.

I’m a gardener.

I have my patch, my garden, my orchard. I plant my seeds and my saplings. I hope for the sun and good weather. I water, every day or even twice a way. I protect from the insects and birds. I check out for the weeds. I look and check up on them regularly. I wait. I wait. I wait. I wait. I wait. I wait. I worry about the wind, storm, temperature drops.

After a very long time and a lot of waiting, the day comes when a leaf appears, a flower, a raspberry here and a carrot there. And when it does happen, it is the best day every and I rejoice. And sometimes, I need to water more or move the pot into the sunnier place, or back into the house. Sometimes, I have plant the seeds again.

I’m a (kind) witch.

I am sweet (or so I would like to believe, at least when I am in the classroom:-) I smile a lot and I laugh a lot. I can turn a lot of difficult situations into a joke, to disperse the clouds. I wear funky socks and funky masks. Funky earrings, too. I am kind. I laugh a lot.

But I am also a witch and there can be no doubt (never ever) who is in charge, who is the boss and who has got all the superpowers. Which she will not hesitate to use. When necessary, the smile will be put away, on the shelf and the witch will do the witch’s things. If the world really needs it.

I know that these might be also referred to ‘teaching personas’ or ‘teaching personalities’ but I am going to stick to the concept of ‘a role’ here. Because ‘personality’ suggests something more serious (and that’s not the word for today, remember) and something more permanent and these described above are not traits, only characters that one assumes while entering the classroom. They can be different on different days, more or less prominent or obvious, they might appear every day or be held in the cupboards, kept for the special day…Perhaps we change as people because of the fact that we teach and that we teach English and that we teach English to kids and because of how we do it. Perhaps we choose our teaching roles based on what we are. Perhaps both. That is a conversation to be had on another day. Maybe.

In the meantine, if you want to share how you see yourself in the classroom, there is the comment box below. I am really looking forward to reading these.

Happy teaching!

Things kids bring to class. Life, early years and classroom management.

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This entry was initially a post on Facebook a year or so ago but the list has got longer and more interesting since. What’s more, what started as ‘a page in the photo album’, almost, with time turned into a reflection on professional life, early years development and its impact on the EFL methodology.

Based on one million true stories. Enjoy?

These are the things that my students brought to their offline or online classes:

  • a dead ladybird, handed to me already in the R.I.P state, as the most precious treasure AND a present
  • ten plastic jungle animals (all of which participated actively in learning and practising of the new vocabulary)
  • a bunch of toy dragons (which were not ‘angry dragons’, as I was assured)
  • a toy lion (also very active, answering questions and all that)
  • a toy parrot, Pepsi (Pepsi always asked for her own homework handout and always did her homework)
  • baby brothers and sisters who wandered in and stayed
  • Pasha, the invisible student
  • a few cats (purring loudly, only online, though, sadly)
  • a puppy (running in and out)
  • a hamster
  • a plastic shotgun (very realistic, online, yay)
  • a toy hen (came to visit and befriend our puppet Angelina, also a hen)
  • a broom, Harry Potter-style, wood, twigs and all
  • a cape, Harry Potter-style
  • a set of cars from the collection
  • flowers growing around (online, of course) and, inevitably, …
  • a cow, grazing around (online, of course)
  • the entire vegetable garden, toured via laptop
  • a snail in a jar (online, thank God)
  • a sling
  • flowers, real, plastic and paper
  • slime
  • a turn-on/turn-off blinking tiara
  • a half-eaten bread roll
  • a birthday cake with no prior warning
  • a bag of candy to celebrate birthdays, with no prior warning
  • a huge alarm clock
  • a piggy bank
  • and, to finish on the high note, the Black Sea with ships included (in the background of an online lesson)

Why does it matter?

We could look at all these from the angle of the teacher. This teacher is anxious, because, most likely, all these toys and animals will be a nuisance….As a source of excitement (for the owner and for everyone who will want to look and touch and play), a source of annoyance (for the owner, because even the well-meant attention might get unbearable after a while), a source of drama (because toys get lost or misplaced, sometimes), or, simply – a source of distraction. And, if anything can be said about a teacher of very young learners is that they do not need any additional elements that might, potentially, tilt the balance or make waves in the classroom. There is enough, as it it, by default. And that does depend on whether the teacher is experienced or not, working with a group or with individual students, online or offline.

That is why, on seeing yet another dinosaur in the doorway, the teacher sighs, trying to go over all the implications and the impact that the dinosaur’s might have event in the following forty-five minutes. However, this is a very quiet sigh, well-hidden behind a smile and another ‘Oh, wow!’ A very quiet sigh, indeed.

But there are also the kids’ angle. There’s been a birthday or a no-occasion present from gran, an item found in the park, a random and unexpected encounter. There is, finally, an opportunity to show the teacher and the rest of the group, all the treasures and ‘treasures’ that normally stay at home and that mum or gran or nanny stubbornly refuse to carry to school and back, just for the display purposes and which, finally, can be presented to the whole world (as one of the very few bonuses of studying online). Because it is important, right here, right now. Even if to the outside world it looks like a piece or unimportant junk.

For that reason, the kids entering the classroom, will be far from sighing. On the contrary, there will be a lot of joyful feet stomping, the pleasant adrenaline rush, excited whispers in the line in front of the classroom door and then, inevitably, a presentation by a proud and triumphant owner who, for the time being and for the next few minutes, is ruling the world.

The title of ‘The Most Dramatic Entry’ …

…and a proper showcase and a case study that I often present to my trainees, belongs to one big birthday cake, full of cream, sugar and chocolate that was grandiosely marched in, at the heels of a Sasha boy who was turning six on the day. Three minutes before the lesson, without any prior warning, agreement, permission.

You know how they say ‘his heart sank‘? Mine really did, no metaphors. Of course, it was a big day for Sasha. Of course, his mum wanted to include us in the celebrations. Of course, she meant well. Of course, Sasha and all the other kids were ecstatic. I am not a robot myself, I like cake! BUT.

I had three minutes to make a decision and here are the three options that I was considering:

a) Ask the mum to take the cake away. Meaning: Sasha is heartbroken (reason: the teacher is a witch who forbids him to enjoy his day), the mum is offended (reason: see above), the kids are upset (reason: see above), the lesson is in shreds (reason: nobody can focus anyway)

b) Put the cake away on the window-sill and celebrate at the end of the lesson. Meaning: Sasha is distracted (reason: the cake is on the window-sill, this is the only thing that he is capable of thinking of, also probably with time, the classroom fills with the smell of cake), the kids are distracted (reason: see above), the teacher is distracted (reason: see above), the lesson is in shreds (reason: nobody can focus anyway).

c) Eat the cake. Meaning: Sasha is happy and way too energetic (reason: sugar levels are through the roof), the kids are happy and way too energetic (reason: see above), the teacher is in trouble (reason: other parents will complain to the school about the stranger feeding their kids random foods, but at this point the teacher doesn’t know that yet, it is all to happen in the evening and on the following day), the lesson is in shreds (reason: too much sugar, too much energy and the festivities taking place in the start of the lesson. No matter what the teacher prepared for the day (Try to predict THIS in your ‘anticipated problems and solutions’), nothing is going to be able to come even close to the cake. Sigh).

Now, dear reader, please, pause for a minute. Faced with that dilemma, what would you do, I wonder?

I guess, I did know straight away what we would do, I went through the hoops of considering all the other options only to be able to say that I did try to be a reasonable and cool-headed professional. We ate the cake and we sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to Sasha.

Then I tried to save what was left of my lesson and in the following week, I kept myself busy sorting out the complaint from the parents.

Not sure what I would do today, and with my current groups and parents. Maybe it would not even be a problem because, by now, we have managed to negotiate an accepted list of potential English lesson snacks and we always celebrate with Kinder, Barnie and this one brand of juice. It is some kind of achievement, too, I suppose, that when the birthday surprise bags were brought into the classroom I did manage to pull off the ‘let’s-put-it-on-the-top-shelf-we’ll-open-the-bag-when-we-say-goodbye‘ stunt. It might be because I am more experienced and because a more effective set of rules and routines is in place. Perhaps, it’s because we have known each other for a bit longer than with the other group. Perhaps all three?

What to do and what not to do?

Luckily, not all the situations are as dramatic as the Dreaded Cake Day but the teacher still sighs when the (plastic) dinosaurs are arriving.

‘No toys in the classroom‘ is one of the options, of course, especially if agreed previously with the parents, carefully discussed and explained. And with time, children get used to the fact that even if the teddy (or the banana) come to school, they stay in the hallway.

‘Bring it on‘ is another. Turning the tendency into a part of the classroom routine might benefit the lesson and the kids. Bringing toys (or else) can be an opportunity to produce the language as even the youngest kids can answer the questions such as ‘What is it?’, ‘What colour is it?’, ‘What can you do with it?’, ‘Why do you like it?’…

‘They are sleeping‘ could also be an approach. If you have a table or a shelf, all the toys could be welcomed, interacted with and then, after having been granted the permission from the owner, left in this one special place. I am sure that they are tiny and very very tired. Ideally this place is out of reach but visible to everyone (especially the owner:-) and this way, the precious things are there, visible but out of the way.

The shameful thing is, perhaps, the fact that I got bored with both of these approaches. We used to have a beautiful poster in the hallway, in English and in Russian about toys staying behind, but to be honest, I was really more interested in all the treasure (and how a piece of real junk can become ‘my precious’). But I am not into cutting a piece of the lesson every single time and devoting it to random guests, either. Instead, we just mix and match. We always inspect the new arrivals and we look at them (in awe). Sometimes we have a little chat, sometimes not. Sometimes we put them away and sometimes they join as in the circle, to sing a song. Sometimes they play the games with us (which means twice as much production, YAY) but sometimes they don’t and they are just picked up later, already half-forgotten, at good-byes. I guess, I might call it the ‘Go with the flow‘ approach. And this what I preach at the moment.

I will happily blame the pandemic for that attitude. I rule in my little kingdom but it is easier said than done in the online classroom. On the one hand, it is a definite advantage that all these distractors do not physically invade the classroom . On the other hand, no physical presence means no actual control and, there is a lot more potential for the unexpected. No matter how good your lesson planning skills are, try predicting that a student of yours will be sitting outside, in the field, and that cows will be walking past and that, they, too, will become a part of your lesson!

Happy teaching!

P.S. Don’t forget to check out the wonderful directory of all the useful things in the VYL world created by Sandy Millin. You can find it here.

Children as symbols users and the EFL world.

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‘Symbolic representation – making something stand for something else’*

Symbolic representation, its importance and development in children are a truly fascinating topic and one of the crucial ones to anyone who works with the little children.

Tina Bruce’s definition of symbolic representation has become the title for this paragraph and that means that absolutely anything can become a symbol of something else and being able to read these symbols is an important step in child development.

Symbols are everyone around us. Some of them are universally recognised such as mathematical symbols, musical notation or the letters of the alphabet, some are personal. While growing up, children are learning to differentiate between the symbol and the real object, they learn to recognise, learn and, eventually, to create symbols.

Examples? Imagine a cat, a black beautiful and soft murmuring creature. Now, imagine a flashcard of a cat. Obviously, as adults we have no problems differentiating between these two and understanding that the flashcard, no matter how realistic, is not a cat and that it only represents it. We can even take one step further and look at ‘CAT’ written on the board also understand that it is not the cat itself, only its symbol. Or that when we move one of our hands in the air (with the fingers spread apart and crooked a bit), while saying ‘meow’, we also want it to represent a cat. Although we are not the cat ourselves. One more step would be going in the direction of what the cat or the black cat itself might represent…

It is basically the development of abstract thinking. Why does it matter to us, the teachers of English? Well, there are a few reasons and a few immediate uses in the classroom.

Flashcards…

This is probably the easiest to highlight and, at the same time, the most obvious way in which the symbolic representation and its development influences our daily life in the classroom.

Flashcards are the staple resource of a VYL and YL teacher. We can bring toys into the classroom or plastic fruit to introduce and practice vocabulary with them but it is not possible with all the topics. Sadly, we can never have a real elephant or a real princess in the classroom, sadly, and for that reason we have flashcards. They help us work with the language as they are not only easy (or relatively easy) to obtain but they also help use the language and the variety of channels: visual (as they are colourful and pretty), kinesthetic (because we can manipulate them) and auditory (with the language produced by the teacher and the students).

However, there is the question of what exactly we want from the flashcards. They should be colourful and durable and visually appealing but they should also clearly convey the concept, not to confuse the children. The situation is much better nowadays, the materials that we work with are of a much better quality but you can still find a few ‘gems’ that should have never seen the daylight. I am collecting those and perhaps I am going to share with you my most precious finds (or rather ‘finds’).

It is a fascinating thing to be producing the flashcards to represent a less obvious concepts for example adjectives.

These first two are very straightforward, a frown is easily associated with ‘I’m sad’ or ‘sad’ and thinking of food with ‘I’m hungry’ or ‘hungry’.

The other two were a bit more challenging but I did assume that an owl is considered to be a very wise animal and it is often used in such a way. That is why we have also adopted it in our class. The other was even more challenging but I assumed that kids (or not only kids) often cover their eyes when they are scared and don’t want to look at what frightens them (although they sometimes peek through the fingers nonetheless:-). This is how we have ended up with these two symbols for ‘I’m clever’ and ‘I’m scared’ (or ‘clever’ and ‘scared’).

But things got really interesting and challenging recently. I needed a flashcard for ‘It’s scary’ (or ‘scary’) because we are in the unit of pets and animals and we learn to describe them, including what they like to eat, what they can do and what we think of them.

I already had a flashcards for ‘I’m scared’. For a moment I was considering using an image of a monster but those nice ones were sweet and funny and those that were really scary and illustrating the concept well, they were just too scary, even for me. In the end, I decided to go for a spider (as most kids don’t like them and I hate them so my reaction to them is always very real) but I covered it with a flap. My reasoning was that if something is scary, we don’t really want to look at it. So far it works well. And my kids love to pull off the flap while telling me that it is NOT scary.

Gestures

The gesture is king! By adding gestures while teaching kids vocabulary or structures, we multiply the number of channels through which the kids are operating (visual – with flashcards, auditory – the words spoken and kinesthetic – through gestures) and we help them remember and recall the language with more ease.

It does not really matter if we use gestures (or symbols) that are universally recognised. It is an advantage if we can, of course, but I doubt that any culture has a gesture ready for the vocabulary that you are studying at the moment, for example ‘It is snowing’, ‘it is windy’ or ‘a clown’, ‘a doctor’, ‘a princess’. It does not really matter, though. The English classroom is a sort of a bubble, a mini-universe where its own rules apply. It is almost natural that this world will have its own set of symbols or gestures.

I have already committed a separate post on different ways of using it with preschoolers learning English as a foreign language. You can find it here.

Vocabulary and structure or How to teach grammar to preschoolers

Symbols and their application can be especially useful while teaching grammar to preschoolers. First of all, taking the students out of the one word production world and into the phrase- and the sentence- or perhaps even the discourse-level is a challenge all by itself. Our EFL students have a limited class time (unlike the bilingual or the ESL children) and a limited exposure outside of the classroom. Second of all, pre-schoolers are indeed very young and their cognitive skills and the ability to deal with abstract concepts (such as grammar) are limited. Last but definitely not least, they are pre-literate in English and the structure cannot be just presented to them using the written word. Primary children, who learn grammar but depend heavily on the context (which is an advantage and a source of support), still receive the basic form of the target langauge on the board or in the coursebook for example ‘I like…’ which helps them remember the key structure and which supports production.

For that reason some other solutions have to be found and, at least, for me and my students relying on symbolic representation has been a life saver.

It started with a heart, you could say. I needed a symbol to stand for ‘I like’ and ‘I don’t like’ and at first I went for something resembling a face of a child that might be saying ‘Yummy’ but when I brought them to school, my students looked and said ‘happy’. Not good at all. The distance between the symbol and the real thing was too long and our new symbol resembled another symbol too closely. This is how we ended up with a heart – a coloured-in heart and a crossed heart to stand for ‘I like’ and ‘I don’t like’ respectively.

We use them together with the food, pets or colours flashcards and they simply work wonders. Both main components of the sentence are represented here visually, it is easier to remember them, to produce and reproduce them and they can be manipulated physically, too, as each of the students can have their own heart, double-sided. The heart can be put on the flashcard face up or face down depending on how the kids feel about it. It can be also held up, show the other students ‘the right side’.

It is amazing to see how quickly students accept this particular symbol and how effectively they use it. It is even more amazing to witness how they try to adapt it to the situation to make sure that they express their opinion and that this opinion is also reflected in how the symbol is used. In one of my groups we were using it with more complex food items and one of students said that she didn’t know whether she liked steak or not because shed had never tried. After a brief moment of hesitation, she decided to hold the little cardboard heart side-ways (or edge-ways) so that it expresses neither ‘I like’ or ‘I don’t like’.

Another way of applying symbolic representation are the mini-emotion flashcards which we use to describe the feelings of others. These are quite small, small enough to fit on the character or family flashcards and to make it for almost ‘real’ experience when ‘mum’ looks really happy or sleepy or hungry.

These mini-cards can be used in phrases ‘a happy princess’ or in sentences ‘The princess is happy’ and the position of the card will reflect the change in the phrase ie if the card is on the left of the flashcards it reflects the position of both words in the phrase in which the adjective comes first. If the mini-card is on the flashcard (for the purpose of realism and fun) or on the right we produce a full sentence in which the noun comes first, followed by the verb ‘is’ (the only part that needs to be remembered and which can be represented by a gesture) and by the emotion.

Unfortunately, it is not always easy to find a suitable visual symbol for each structure we teach but it does not necessarily have to be a picture, gestures will work equally well. For example for ‘I’m wearing’ I motion my hand from my neck down to point at the clothes and for ‘I can see’ I tap my finger twice on my chest (for ‘I’ and ‘can’) and then point at my eyes ‘(‘see’).

I think it can be safely said that I am (slowly?) adding symbols to my collection. Plus, it is fun to make the ghost scared, for once and this lesson always puts me in a better mood.

And then there are letters, too!

Letters and alphabets or any writing systems are a fascinating set of symbols and, eventually, children get to know them, in their L1 and in English, too. When they are ready. This is an adventure that deserves its own post (or, indeed, a series of posts), soon, especially that when we take the first steps in the world of the written word, it is with a background in another alphabet and another set of symbols, some of which are the same, some of which are different and some of which are false friends because they look the same but they represent different sounds.

Developing literacy skills is as much a challenge as it is fun. Especially that children as young as four and five comment on the fact the English ‘Pp’ looks exactly like the Russian ‘Rr’ and that ‘Ww’ turned upside down turns into ‘Mm’ (well, at least the capital one). Or that ‘Xx’ is a Russian ‘Hh’ or ‘A cross, Anka! It looks like a cross!‘

More on that later.

Kids grow up…

Of course the use of the symbol in the EFL classroom is not limited to pre-school, only later on the symbol is not an essential component (at least in my head) but a pleasant supplement that makes things fun, colourful and a bit easier. Examples? The ghost in the cover photo which we use with my primary kids to stand for the silent letters that started to appear everywhere in our A1 materials or the gestures that we used while learning and practising some basic adverbs of frequence: always (5 fingers – 5 days a week), usually, sometimes and never.

Happy teaching!

*****

If you are interested, make sure you have a look at these:

Symbolic Understanding in Infants and Young Children, a lecture by Dr Judy DeLoache (2013)

Symbolic Understanding in Infants and Young Children, a lecture by Dr Stephanie Carlson (2013)

Tina Bruce (2005) Early Childhood Education, pp 105 – 125

The stages of symbolic development, in a nutshell.

The Spiderman Story. CCQ-ing pre-school?

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Really, the whole story is between me and a pair of blue, three-year-old eyes. The world around does exist, of course, and the world around is watching, with curiosity, but not really participating.

‘Spider’, I say.

‘Spiderman’, he says.

‘Spider’, I repeat, pointing at the spider flashcard.

‘Spiderman’, he repeats, as if not noticing.

‘Spider’, I say, yet again.

‘Spiderman’, he says and, I’d swear, he nods, too.

***************

The blue eyes belong to a little Sasha who is quite young, true, but who feels empowered and a lot more confident than any other typical three-year-old might have been in any relatively new environment. It is because this little Sasha never walks alone, he has his older sister as the source of his superpower. He is pretty much fearless. That is why he gets into this, well, debate.

The conditions are perfect. It is a warm May afternoon, the summer is round the corner, and the audience are waiting for some entertainment. After all, the parents have come to see what the kids can do and what the teacher is teaching them. Everyone is present, all the children and all the parents. The teacher is there and even the trainee teacher. Who could have wished for more?

Sasha is not doing it on purpose. One of the most important words in his life now is ‘Spiderman‘ and it does resemble something that the teacher is saying. It feels like a cool game to recite it, together with the teacher, well, almost ‘recite’ it. Sasha continues to play.

He doesn’t see how the world freezes waiting for any reaction. He notices that his teacher’s face has become a bit tense but he does not think that it might have anything to do with the new game. He wouldn’t know that the teacher’s blood pressure is slowly going up because of what is happening and what is happening is this: a student making a mistake and the teacher not correcting him, fossilising the error for the years to come and this little boy confusing the little eight-legged creature with a superhero.

It might be that the parents have not even noticed or realised. It might be that the parents have found it to be funny, too. In the teacher’s head, however, the world is crumbling and the teacher is failing, despite all her experience.

Ideally, the teacher would have just waved two flashcards to illustrate the difference. Only, of course, there were no Spiderman flashcards just lying around.

***********

‘Now, Sasha, spider – Spiderman’, I say. Again.

‘Spiderman’, he says, smiling, probably thinking that I have finally managed to learn the right word. I smile, too.

‘Sasha, listen. Spiderman is a boy. Yes or no?’, I say.

‘Yes’, says Sasha.

‘Mhm. And Spiderman is big or small?’ I ask.

‘Big’, said Sasha, looking at the teacher with curiosity.

‘Right’, I say. And then I ask, raising the spider flashcard. ‘Is THIS big?’

‘No’, said Sasha.

‘Is it a boy?’ goes the next question.

Sasha looks up from the flashcard, he looks at the teacher and smiles.

‘No’, he says, and you, know

‘No’, said Sasha and, you know, the teacher would swear, something sparks up in Sasha’s three-year-old eyes.

‘Exactly. Look. Spider – Spiderman’, I say, once again pointing at the spider flashcard, also adding gestures ‘small’ and ‘big’ ..

‘Spider’, says Sasha, pointing at the flashcard. And then he adds: ‘Spiderman’

***********

Victory? Probably. A memorable moment? Absolutely.

In hindsight, also a bit of revelation that a little adrenaline rush and, all of a sudden, it turns out that it is possible to use CCQs, concept check questions, with very young pre-schoolers who are somewhere in the pre-A1 level. I had never thought it would be possible but, hey, there you go. When there’s a will, there is a way? Aka the games my brain likes to play.

Happy teaching!

From ‘havoc’ to ‘happiness’. Lesson planning for YL (part 2)

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What can you see in the photograph? Oh how I wish I could hear your thoughts and all your ideas, dear reader!

It does look pretty messy, doesn’t it? This is what I call ‘real life’.

Imagine this, I have just come into the office on the day of the training (which is not quite ready yet, not this one, the week must have been a real hell so although the ideas are there, the presentation itself is NOT, not panicking yet, but the adrenaline levels are already up) and I have just taken ‘everything I need’ out of the bag: books, notes, some copies and A LOT OF FOOD (typical). I am about to start planning. Having looked at what my desk has become, I decide to take a photo of this beautiful mess that soon will (I know it now) turn into a great seminar session.

I have decided to use this photo because it is a pretty accurate visualisation of what happens on some days when I plan my classes and to follow it up with a few words on what happens next and how I get from this havoc to the end-of-the-lesson happiness.

Based on the lesson with my ‘adult’ preschoolers a week ago.

The ‘theory’*)…

Step 1: Make a decision what your main aim is. Try to verbalise it and even write it. It really does wonders for the awareness of what you, as a teacher want from the lesson.

Step 2: Make a decision what your focused task is. ‘Focused task’ is the concept that we use at my school (and have used for at least 15 years) and it refers to the main activity of the lesson in which the students get to produce the language and the activity which is the culmination of the entire lesson. All the activities in the lesson lead to it, to some extent, just like all the roads lead to Rome.

A while ago I realised that this is the approach that I am using in all my lesson planning, for all the age groups, levels, for teaching and for teacher training, too.

Step 3: Consider the materials available (mostly by looking at what the coursebook has to offer) and whether they contribute to your aims and your focused task. If not, you will need to adapt them or design new materials.

Step 4: Think of the activity that is going to be most suitable for your materials. It is like differentiating between a tool and how you are going to use it.

After all, there are plenty things that can be done with a hammer (materials), such as putting in a nail to hang a picture, breaking a window, smashing a walnut open, stirring soup (activities) and so on. Some of them are more or less appropriate, of course. The same applies to the flashcards, boardgames, handouts and what we are going to do with them.

Step 5: Take a moment and go over the activity in order to make decisions about staging. What are going to be your baby steps within the activity? whenever we do something for the first time (regardless of whether it is the first time for me or the students), I like to make an effort to actually write the main stages, even if in a very simple form, a sequence of infinitives.

Step 6: An additional step: a homework task. It might not be always possible or, rather, sometimes it might involve a lot of work as regards material design or adaptation. To put it simply, not every teacher will have enough time or energy every single time, with all the lessons taught in a week but a homework task that is an extension of exactly what happens in the lesson and creates an opportunity to continue practising the same language or structures at home, with parents.

….and the practice. Our lesson last week.

Aim: For the kids to start describing school objects and the objects in the classroom, using full sentences such as ‘It is a blue pencil’, with the focus on colours and some simple adjectives. The kids are 5 and 6 and in the beginning of their third year of EFL.

Focused task: A game in which the kids will be guessing the secret word depicted in the cards, producing full sentences instead of questions as we have done so far. The kids will be saying ‘It is a blue pencil‘, ‘It is a red pencil‘, etc until they produce an accurate description of what is shown in the picture which they cannot see.

Materials: There is nothing in the book that could help to achieve the aim. There is one practice activity but it focuses on reading and the students are only taking their first steps in the world of the early literacy. A decision is made to design the materials. Yay.

The materials are a set of cards, 7×7 cm, with clip art pictures on them, coloured-in by hand. There are three types of cards (a pencil, a schoolbag and a rules) and six variations of each, in six different colours.

The cards must have a specific size for the kids to be able to manipulate them easily. They cannot be too big (the ‘secret’ will be difficult to keep and the regular A5 flashcards might be not comfortable enough for the little hands) and not too small (as they will be too flimsy and are likely to be ‘spilled’). It might be a good idea to keep the cards in an envelope to add one more layer of guarantee that the technical bits don’t get in the way of the successful playing of the game.

There are only three types of cards in order to make it achievable, at least when the game is first introduced. Later on, when the kids feel familiar with the concept of the game, more objects or more colours can be added.

Activity: The activity itself is a simple guessing game of two stages. The teacher chooses one of the cards, keep it secret, say ‘What’s my secret?‘ Stage 1: students guess which of the three objects is depicted on the card. They say ‘It is a ruler’ and so on, until they guess.

Once they do, the teacher confirms and asks the following question ‘What colour is it?‘. Students continue guessing. They produce the sentences such as ‘It’s a blue pencil‘, ‘It’s a green pencil‘, until they guess. To help them remember the full structure, teacher counts the parts of the sentence on her finger.

Staging

  • revise the vocabulary with the regular flashcards
  • show the kids the game cards
  • elicit the full sentences (signal withe the fingers), while flipping through the cards: ‘It is a green schoolbag’, ‘It is a yellow schoolbag’ etc.
  • mix the cards, to choose one and keep it close to the chest
  • say ‘What is it?‘ and peek at the cards, secretly and suggest a possible (wrong) answer.
  • wait for the kids to start guessing.
  • keep showing the fingers and counting parts of the sentence as the students are producing the language, developing the habit of answering in full sentences.
  • confirm when the kids guess the object in the picture, praise the student who guess and all the students
  • say ‘What colour is it?‘, peek at the cards, secretly and suggest a possible (wrong) answer
  • wait for the kids to start guessing.
  • after a round of two, the kids take over – call one of them out and ask them to sit on the teacher’s chair, choose the picture for them (to save time, especially in the first lesson) or let them choose the picture they want to play with but operating the cards yourself. The kids might be able to take over in the first lesson, they might be able to take over only in the following lesson, when the game is played for the second time.
  • encourage the group to make sentences, counting on your fingers, praising the kids, encouraging them to produce full sentences.

Homework

The homework task in this lesson was a simple handout, ‘a sentence maker’ in which the students have to complete the missing parts of the sentences, either by adding the colour (by colouring the box) or the adding the school object (by drawing it). The kids choose their own words. Later on, they ‘read’ their sentences. You can find the basic handout here.

The teacher makes one copy per child and one more to demonstrate the instructions in class. When we did this kind of an activity for the first time, I added the colours myself in line 4 and 5 to make the task straightforward. In the future, they will be given more freedom when they are more familiar with the format and the idea that each part of the sentence is represented by a visual or a symbol.

Did it work? aka ‘Happiness’

You know this moment when you are teaching and you literally want to get up and pat yourself on the shoulder with ‘OMG, you rock’? because you are allowing yourself, simultaneously, to teach and be fully in the lesson but also to be evaluating this lesson as if you had been the observer in the room. And it is actually going on very well?

This was one of these lessons.

The kids loved the guessing game, especially that they were given a chance to lead. The cards and the handout did help me achieve my aims and by the end of the focused task, the kids were producing full sentences, although I had to remind them a lot to use full sentences. It was much better in the second lesson with the same game. The kids were eager to start playing the game and I only had to model once. They were ready to take over and they produced a lot of language.

If you want to read more on the subject, have a look at this post where I share how I approach the everyday lesson planning for preschoolers.

Happy teaching!

*) Inverted commas because it is not a real theory, only a set of daily procedures, verbalised.

‘Are you a girl or a lion?’

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Friday, twenty minutes before the start of the lesson. Two of the girls (5 and 6 y.o.) remember about the amazing game they played about a month ago and, immediately, decide to play it again. There is only one rule in the game: to follow the teacher around the school, as she gets ready and fixes the last bits before the lesson and to say ‘I’m hungry. I will eat you‘ to which the teacher offers various things to eat (‘Do you like books?’, ‘Do you like markers?’), *) to which you have to answer ‘No. I’m hungry but I only eat people‘. And you roar. A lot. The other kids are arriving gradually, the hallway is filling up with parents, grandparents, nannies and brothers and sisters.

Friday, five minutes before the lesson. The lion game is getting better by the minute so now there are four lions running around (Did I mention running before?) and roaring. And, believe it or not, four lions roaring make a lot of noise. It’s not that we pretend that kids are made of sugar and they are always sweet and quiet and picture perfect. Kids are kids and they should be but the teacher picking up the flashcards and taking the last sip of water in the teachers’ room thought, briefly, of an avalanche of noise and ‘unwanted behaviour’. The lions did not really care, they were having lots of fun.

Friday, 2 minutes before the lesson. The teacher is ready and is collecting the group to start the lesson properly. Alas. The lions are roaring, more and more loudly. ‘Let’s go!’ (Roar). ‘Please, stop’ (Roar roar), ‘OK, everyone, 10, 9, 8, 7…(Roar roar roar).

The teacher suddenly understands that she is not in the hallway of the school but on the edge of the cliff, on a windy day, on an empty stomach hence double dizzy. The lions do not like those lions that might calm down any time soon. The parents, grandparents and nannies have raised their eyes. The security guard, too, came out into the hallway and was observing the almost-mayhem in the hallway. The remaining 120 seconds should be used to re-introduce the order. The order should be sturdy enough to last sixty minutes of the lesson which is about to start.

You could say that’s not an ideal situation…

***********************

There were four things that I could do.

a) do nothing – not recommended, even if only because of those sixty minutes in the classroom to come.

b) let someone else sort it out – not recommended, not really. True, the kids have parents but at this point in the game, I don’t think I would want them to get involved. That’s why when our security guard (that the kids know and respect) started to saying something, I just shook my head and put a hand up to stop him. This mess was my mess and I had to deal with it. I think this is something I learnt during my five years at the state school – other people might be called to help with the behaviour management but at the end of the day it is your pack and you should be considered its leader.

c) talk to the kids in their L1 and sort it out – not recommended, not really. Why? Because I never talk to them in their L1 and this was serious enough, not yet anyway, to resort to that. I decided to keep it for another day and another occasion.

d) talk to the kids in English – tricky, with 5-year-old pre-A1 crowd but this is exactly what I decided to do.

I had no idea what I was doing, really. There were no previous cases that I could rely on, no plan of action but hey, if I don’t try, I will never know…Challenge accepted.

**********************

The teacher looked at her lions, still roaring in a small circle around her.

‘Now, where are my students? I want to start the lesson. Where are my students?’, said the teacher.

‘We are not students. We are lions!’ said the lions and they roard.

‘That’s a shame.’, said the teacher, feeling how someone continues to pull the rug from under her feet. She took a deep breath. She looked at the first lion on her left.

‘Are you a girl or a lion?’ asked the teacher.

‘A lion’

‘Are you a girl or a lion?’ now the teacher asked the second lion.

‘A lion’ said that second lion, with a beautiful smile.

‘Are you a girl or a lion?’

‘A lion’ said the lion and the teacher realised that almost all is lost.

‘Are you a girl or a lion?’ asked the teacher.

‘A lion’, said the fourth lion and the teacher was feeling pretty desperate then. The parents, the grandparents and the nannies were all watching then. Of course.

‘Right’, said the teacher. ‘It is a real shame but the English lesson is ONLY for boys and girls, not lions. I am sorry. Bye bye, lions’, said the teacher waving her hand and started walking towards the classroom. She stopped after a few steps where a little boy was sitting with his mum.

‘Hello, Sasha! Are you a boy or a lion?’ asked the teacher.

‘A boy’ said the boy.

‘Great! Let’s go to the classroom!’ said the teacher and off they went. They stopped again after a few more steps where a little girl was sitting with her mum.

‘Hello, Sasha! Are you a girl or a lion?’ asked the teacher.

‘A girl’, said the girl.

‘Fantastic! Let’s go to the classroom!’ said the teacher and all three went to the classroom.

At the classroom door, they stopped, and formed a line. The teacher opened the door, walked in, sat at the door and started saying hello to the first student in line (a part of the routine). They were in the middle of the chat about howareyoutoday and green pencils and yellow schoolbags, when one more person appeared at the end of the line.

‘Anka!’ she shouted, ‘Anka, hello! I am a girl!’

This was the first of the used-to-be lions and the other three quickly stood in line behind her. A miracle!!! In the end, we had one human teacher and seven human children taking part in this lesson.

***********************

This is a great VYL anecdote, of course, and I am sure, in the years to come, I will be going back to it to smile and to remember how difficult it was not to giggle when a girl-turned lion-turned girl came up to announce (in English) that she changed her mind and was ready to take part in the lesson for humans.

It is also a story about what it might be like to be a student at five and that what the big people see as being naughty (running around, roaring, pretending to be a lion) is just a lot of fun and an opportunity to do something different and to experiment with the ways of the world.

Finally, it is also a story about using or not using the L1 in the VYL classroom. You an use it, you don’t have to but using L1 is not the only way. It is a challenge but it is an interesting one. And it is possible.

Some people do sudoku to exercise their brains, some enjoy complex Maths thingies (that clearly not me), some like to guess the ending of a crime story before it is officially revealed in the final chapters. My brain seems to revel in such child-development-and-language-grading games. Especially when there is the added bonus of a high profile audience, of parents, supervisors or trainees…

I will leave the Spiderman story for some other occasion.

Happy teaching!

*) The text in italics is what the kids said in L1.

Rewards charts and young learners

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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

Today aka 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…

Happy teaching!

Something else to read

  1. Rewards charts: how to use them to change the child behaviour at raisingchildren.net.au
  2. Are rewards charts actually bad for our kids? at healthymummy.com
  3. Why you shouldn’t reward kids all the time? at sleepingshouldbeeasy.com
  4. Rewards for kids: Maybe all they want is time? at kiddycharts.com
  5. 20 classroom rewards to get students motivated at englishteaching101.com

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!

Bête-noire aka my least favourite conversations.

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Let me introduce you, dear readers. This is my Bête-Noire, a tiny little bundle of unhappiness.

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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.