#VYLteacher

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.

The hidden perks of teaching EFL pre-schoolers

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Author: Lisa, ca 2016
  • You will train yourself to be extremely well-organised. Never again will you forget to make a copy, to bring the crayons, to arrange the chairs or to pick up the realia from the teacher’s room. Why? Because once you enter the classroom and the kids come in, there is no going out, until the lesson is over. What’s more, all your toys and tools are most likely to end up in neat piles around the room, within an arm’s reach. One of the first things you learn in the VYL classroom is that there is never a minute to spare or, in that case, to look through the lesson plan or to search for the misplaced whatever. If it is not there when you need it, you just get on without it and make sure it is always there, in the future.
  • Apart from that, you will become very resourceful. No matter how carefully you prepare, things will happen and you will have think fast on your feet and come up of ways of making do without the CD player, the computer or the tablet, the glue or the storybook that got left in the bag. And you will, every single time and with time you will get amazingly good at coming up with last minute solutions. It will feel a lot like being about to do magic, actually.
  • You will become greener because you will find ways of recycling pretty much everything: milk cartons, chopsticks, ribbons, wrapping paper, pots, cereal boxes. Nothing will ever be thrown away. At your house and at your friends’ houses, too, possibly. Because as soon as they find out that you collect and recycle they will be bringing you things, including the unusual things that you will later try to use in class.
  • You will discover your hidden talents or believe in your so-far-unused talents for singing or drawing. Such a confidence boost! You will have to draw or sing at one point or another and what a revelation it will be to discover that those (little) people do not care which key you are singing in and they will just accept your involvement. As well as absolutely all your attempts at drawing a cat, a dog, a panda, a dinosaur…
  • Whether you were born with micro-staging skills or whether you have worked hard on crafting and polishing them, over every lesson with your preschoolers, eventually you are going to get there and you will rock at dissecting any random task or activity at a glance, down to the most minuscule details and, no matter how complex the task, your instructions giving skills and modelling will be simply first-rate.
  • You will enjoy any lesson with adults twice as much only because they: do not rock on chairs (even if they do, you are allowed not to care), they pick up the resources, flashcards, cards, notes and put them back together, with the paper clip on, they will not cry because there is only one pink pencil, they will open the book and find the page all by themselves, they will to the other side of the handout but they will still focus on the right page, they will not get irretrievably distracted by your earrings or by another student’s fluffy tiara…
  • You will learn that lesson planning should start in the classroom and with the students who are there, not just any typical 4-year-old beginners and not with the activities that the coursebooks authors intended for them. Typical 4-year-olds don’t exist and who turns up on Friday is Masha, Katya, Anya, Egor, Petya and Sasha. They are the lesson and if some pages of the coursebook are not compatible with the bunch in the room, these pages have to go. Good riddance.
  • You will quickly become a champion at devising a good plan B (or even a good plan C), to resort to in any given situation, an additional copy of the handout, a spare puppet in your Mary Poppins bag, a glue stick in the back pocket and, on top of that, three more ideas in your head. Just in case.
  • It is not going to happen automatically but once you believe and see that your little EFL students can go beyond one-word answers, beyond rehearsed and drilled lines and that they can use full sentences, complex sentences and can produce language spontaneously (because, yes, they CAN!), there will be no stopping you. Because if the pre-schoolers can, they absolutely everyone can! High five to the level of challenge!
  • Developing learners’ independence and involving them in the shaping of the lesson is something that the VYL do on daily basis. The kids learn to make decisions, choose their favourite games and songs and given the chance to be the teacher and lead the activities. This ‘democracy in the classroom’ (which I first heard about at the wonderful presentation given by Katherine Bilsborough) should be a part of the lesson with primary, juniors and teens. It really does work wonders!
  • A chance to forget about the traditional assessment in the form of tests, quizzes and standardised exams because the little people just don’t take part in those. Instead, the teacher can just focus on assessment for learning and start experimenting with all the alternative methods of assessment, better suited for the pre-literate, pre-school EFL students.
  • A unique opportunity to sing and jump and put on voices in the middle of the day and to forget about the world for a moment, about the mortgage, the heartbreak, the tiredness, the pandemic, about anything that is not the lesson and the students. Time out, for the teacher this time.
  • A new perspective on the world as you will be learning again to see the world from the height of 70 above the ground, getting lost among the pages of the book, forcing the pencil to stand still and to produce scribbles…Brand new world!

So here we have a resourceful, creative, green, well-organised, confident, calm, open-minded teacher who is great at giving instructions and planning student-centred lessons…Any student’s dream, right?

Happy teaching!

P.S. Here you can find another post on being a VYL and YL teacher…

A square peg in a round hole. New kids joining the group mid-year.

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Back in the classroom

January, January. Here we are, are still dragging the residue of the Xmas – New Year laziness in our blood cells but the time is now to enter the classrooms briskly (also, because the school hallways is the only place where you can do ‘briskly’, the pavements outside are either icy or covered with snow or slush), with the new energy and to start the second half of the game.

Sometimes, let’s be honest, this YAY attitude is a show you put on (see the laziness residue) but if it doesn’t start with the teacher, then there is no or very little hope that it will be student-generated. After all, they don’t only have you, their after-school English classes, they also have the regular school, with the huge piles of homework and, this year’s special – they are back to the regular, offline classrooms, after three months of the screen’n’pjs education. This is the older students.

The younger ones, well, they have been attending regular classes, without any breaks, in most cases, but these, they come after not having seen you for two weeks. Will they be a little bit displaced and confused? Yes, they will. Will they have forgotten some of the class rules and routines? Most likely, yes. Will this first lesson after the winter holidays be to some extent like the first lesson of the course? It might be.

What to do with it? Not much, really. Just being kind to yourself and to your students and acknowledging the fact that it will take some time to warm up the neurons and to have them work at the top of their capacity. And a lot of revision, as regards vocabulary, structures, rules and routines. It is not that difficult to put together a great and meaningful ‘revision’ lesson and all the students will appreciated and enjoy doing something that is familiar (but not boring) and achievable (but still challenging enough). Before we get back to climbing yet another of our EFL Everests.

But that’s not really what I wanted to write about today

Imagine, dear reader, that to all the hoops that are already in place (a long break, sleepy students, tired students, all over the place students), you get one more: you find out that a brand new student will be joining your group. Or coming to do a trial lesson. Or just joining you for a catch-up lessons since he/she missed a few classes with their regular teacher.

I am not sure how common an occurence that would be in state schools, kindergartens or classes given by private tutors, or, even, whether it does happen in other private language schools. It does in mine and it is an interesting experience. Here are few thoughts from the last two weeks.

The teacher

It is a challenge, admittedly, because in a way we work the double amount, on the one hand dealing with the group, re-instating the kingdom from before, on the other hand, taking the new student on a brand new adventure and that might mean some temporary dissonace that will have to be managed.

It might also happen that the new student’s mum will want to take part in the lesson or that the new child will refuse to enter the classroom without her. How you react here will, of course, depend on the school’s policy.

It might be a good idea to invite the parents in or to have them sit in the hallway but with the door open so that everyone (the parent and the child) feel comfortable and it is equally important for the teacher to explain what is going to happen in the lesson and how the parents can help. What usually happens is, the child stays around mum in the very beginning and then, slowly, wanders towards the teacher and the group and, eventually, takes part in all the activities. This period of time might be different for different children and it is crucial that they are not rushed here, by the teacher or by the parents, and that they make the decision when to join all by themselves.

The best advice that I might give teachers (and that I give myself when I enter the room on a day like this) is to stay calm and to smile a lot, because things will get better soon. Of course, in 2020 – 21 even smiling might not such a straightforward solution, but even with the mask on, it is good to remember that it takes a few muscles to smile and that the smile spreads all over your face. Plus, it might be a good idea, to stand at a safe distance and to take off the mask just for a second, while meeting the child for the first time to let them see your face.

The activities

This is an interesting case, especially with the very young learners. As mentioned before, some revision is absolutely necessary in any lesson and especially in the first lesson after a long break. However, that might mean that the new students will be constantly at a disadvantage, because for example, they won’t know all the songs that everyone else already loves or to take part in all the games because in order to do so, they would have to be familiar with all the vocabulary and, of course, they are not.

For that reason, it would be good to start each activity with a quick revision of the vocabulary and drilling, to inlcude the games that will have a double focus, something apart from the language itself, for example langauge and CLIL (names of the animals and whether they are big or small or numbers and counting real objects) or language and cognitive skills (names of toys and looking for differences between two pictures or odd one out) because the new students will be able to participate partially at least, relying on their ‘previous knowledge’ not on the langauge only in order to complete the tasks.

What’s more, despite the overall focus on the revised, I would still recommend introducing some new material, in order to ensure that there is something which is new to absolutely everyone, the ‘old’ students and the new and that we all learn it, together, as a group. It doesn’t have to be a brand new topic, only a couple of new items to extend their vocabulary range in the topic of toys, a new song or a new story.

Using gestures is always a good idea, but it can be especially beneficial in the begining of the course, the new topic or when there is a new student in the group. They might not be able to produce all the words straightaway but they should be able to show them, if they know how.

As for songs and videos, in general, although there are plenty of advantages of using a mixture of both audio and video or even moving to using audio only, once the kids know the song very well, the videos will help to support the new kids for whom all is new. At the very minimum, they will be able to follow and understand the plot of the song.

The new child

Well, in a way, this is the most important person in the room as this is, definitely, the most confused, the most singled-out and the most vulnerable person in the room. The adults definitely know what is going on, what we are doing and why we are here. The other non-adults, albeit a bit out-of-sync perhaps, also seem to recognise the set-up and the procedures and they also know each other.

The reactions to this amount of ‘new and unfamiliar’ might vary, from a complete disregard for it (‘There are other kids, they do something, I want to do it, too! What, they use some strange words all the time? Nevermind! ‘), through one million questions in an attempt to take the situation in (‘Why?‘ ‘Who?‘ ‘What?‘ ‘Why?‘ ‘Why?‘ ‘Why?‘) to a complete refusal to take part (‘I can’t, I won’t‘)

As I said before, it is rare that the children are completely uninterested and not ready to be involved. Usually, it wears off during the first fifteen minutes so it is only up to the teacher and the parents to wait it out, patiently, while providing all the support necessary.

Apart from tthe smiles and the praise, all the new activities should be modelled and demonstrated with the other students. This way, the newcomers will have a chance to see the game in action before it is their turn to take part.

The group

This is, by far, the most interesting component of the whole set. No matter how unfocused they are, and how much they have forgotten, these are the students who have been with you for a few months and, almost automatically, they will become your teaching assistants.

You will be able to demonstrate the activities as well as the behaviour that you want to reinforce or, sometimes, too, discourage. What is more, they will naturally want to be involved and, even without you asking, they will give the new student the best introduction to all the lesson procedures, in the L1 and in a way that is best understood by a child.

It is actually a real joy to see them do that, with all the 3 or 4-year-old kindness and empathy:

‘Don’t worry, we all take turns. First me, then Anya, then Masha, then you. Don’t be sad.’

‘She doesn’t speak Russian. We speak English here.’

‘She will show us how to do it‘

‘And then we will read the story‘.

There is another reason why having a new or a guest student might be interesting. This is a truly unique (albeit unsolicited) opportunity for the teacher to see how much progress the group have made. Assessing preschoors is not as easy and straightforward as assessing other age groups, and comparing them against a beginner who is just starting to learn is fascinating. Even if seemingly, they are all still beginners, still pre-A CEFR and still in year 1, it is possible to see how much progress the children have made over a period of a few months. And it applies to all the areas, vocabulary, behaviour, social skills.

And two stories from the classroom, instead of a coda

The first one, from my preschool group a few years back. Over the course of the year, we got bored and started to come up with more creative names for things that we were using. No more of ‘orange juice’ or ‘cherry juice’, we were drinking ‘clock juice’ and ‘balloon juice’ and we were all using chocolate marker, cucumber marker, strawberry marker and sky marker, instead of all the traditional colours. It was all great and a lot of fun, until a new student joined. We just had to explain what was going on.

The second one, from my teens group. This time, it was not a new but a catch-up student. Who brought her phone and who did not switch it to mute. Whose telephone rang in the middle of the lesson, naturally. Who just picked it up and started a conversation.

We sorter it out later, of course, but before we did, I because a part of a beautiful classroom tableaux. I, in the middle, and a few of heads of my students, first turning towards the new girl and then right at me, with the same question in their eyes, ‘WHAT is she doing?!?!?!’…

It made me giggle, inside. ‘Hm, look, it seems we have a code of conduct here.’, I thought. ‘And someone feels strongly about it.’ Good to know, eh?

As for the square pegs and round holes…Well, even if they that in the beginning, during the first lesson or the first two lessons, they never stay that way. The square pegs become a bit rounder and the round holes get a bit square-y. And that is the way to go!

Happy teaching!

Crumbs #13: Angelina, our class puppet.

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First steps

I still remember my first ever lesson with pre-schoolers in Moscow. I went in prepared, a whole pile of flashcards, crayons, books, mini-cards at the ready. I wasn’t scared or panicky and the thought that we had to occupy ourselves for only 45 minutes was rather soothing. After all, I did teach in Spain, the group was much bigger and the lessons much longer and yet I survived. In a rather victorious manner.

But then the kids came in, only five of them, they sat down nicely and we started the lesson. And by that I mean ‘I’ started the lesson. They did not give me the register before the lesson, the admin left quickly, the door was closed and the parents were somewhere else. I was on my own.

The kids were sitting nicely, very nicely, just looking at me and absolutely not reacting to my smiles, hellos and communication attempts. They did not respond at all to my ‘silly teacher guessing game’ that I normally (and successfully) use to get the kids to introduce themselves at the beginning of the first lesson. I say my name, pointing at myself and then start with one of the kids (the brave-looking one) and start bombarding them with all the boy’s or girl’s names typical of the country that I can think of until I bump into the right one or until the child reacts to the silliness and introduces themselves.

Only this time, I was getting nowhere. Five pairs of eyes were looking at me, just looking at me and waiting for something else. Something else which I did not have. It did last only a minute or even less, in real life, but it felt like a whole eternity. And I did start to panic.

Luckily, among the rubbish that I did bring to class that day, I had a puppet, Max from Playway to English. And guess what, the kids did not want to talk to me but they were more than happy to converse in Max. In English, straight away, even without any special introductions in L1 and explanations that Max is from England does not speak Russian and so we have to make an effort. That was not necessary, they just wanted to talk to him. We did talk. Yay!

I don’t really like puppets, to be honest.

I don’t and I cannot even explain why.

I am actually good at all the puppet-related skils. I don’t have a problem with putting on voices, making faces and role-playing things with myself for the benefit of the 5-year-old audience. And anything in the classroom can find its own soul and voice, flashcards, masks, pencils.

But, really, I use puppets only in the beginning of the course, with new groups, when we have new students joining an already established group or when we were forced to move our pre-primary classes online.

Dex is then ready to help and Teddy sorts out most of the issues. Children feel more comfortable with something that is soft and pretty and right out of the world that they are familiar with and someone who does silly things and who can make them happy. Teddy and Dex are always at the ready.

However, as soon as we done with the first weeks of the course and we feel comfortable in the classroom, they visit less and less frequently. I don’t miss them but perhaps this is something that I should actually reflect on why we are not using puppets more. But there are exceptions, of course.

Angelina, my superhero

It all started in 2017 because this was the Year of the Rooster and, traditionally, the world filled up with toys, figurines, puppets representing this very animal. One of my friends landed one as a present and decided that my classroom will be the best permanent home for it or, actually, her, because, regardless of the Chinese horoscope, it is a she, a hen, Angelina.

At the time, my youngest group were already very big, already five years old, well-accommodated in the school and in the classroom and definitely beyond the stage when they needed a puppet to ‘feel better’ or ‘to break the ice’.

But I had Angelina and I really wanted to use it and, of course, I did. It was not one of the projects that you start with research and reading that lead to implementing an idea in the classoom to meet some specific aims. Here, we went topsy-turvy. I had a resource, I jumped in at the deep end, without any specific aims, observing, taking notes and reflecting. And learning a lot about working with preschoolers. Here is how Angelina changed my teaching life.

Angelina 1: When puppets listen, kids talk.

Instructions

  • Get a puppet, think of the name, the background, the voice and the movements. Our Angelina, for example, is not quite a puppet, rather ‘a fancy sweets container‘ as she has a big zipped pocket, in her bum (sorry) which I decided not to use it. I do not to put it on my hand. She normally sits in my lap and I hold her by the back, letting her express herself mostly through the head movements. Sometimes, with the use of my other hand, I use Angelina’s wings or wings which are quite dangly. She is, overall, quite expressive for a puppet))
  • Make the puppet a part of the classroom routine. Our Angelina sleeps in her house (this being a rather unappealing plastic bag hanging on the bookshelf). Right after the hello song and hello routine, we wake her up and invite her to join us in the circle. Afterwards, she says goodbye and returns to her house, to continue sleeping.
  • The main aim of Angelina’s visits is to provide an opportunity for freer speaking practice and to encourage the kids to produce the language spontaneously.
  • In practice that means that we ask lots and lots of questions and Angelina is telling us about herself. We start with ‘What’s your name?’, ‘How are you today?’ and ‘What’s your favourite….?’, later moving on to ‘Do you like…?’, ‘Have you got…?’ and ‘Can you…?’, although these are always only ideas and I make sure that all the contributions are welcome. I have not tried telling and retelling stories yet but that might be another option.

Why we love it

  • Angelina (or ‘a puppet’) is a fascinating way of getting the language out of the kids. They start producing the questions because they are really curious about the class puppet’s life and these questions start from the ‘traditional’ questions, often used and heard in class but they quickly become very creative and unexpected.
  • Kids naturally react to what Angelina says and we can use this opportunity to teach them and them a chance to express surprise (‘Wow’), disbelief (‘Really?’) or shock (‘Oh no!’).
  • There is some opportunity for emerging langauge learning, for example ‘wolf’ (things that Angelina is scared of), ‘corn’ (things that Angelina eats) and ‘planet’ (things that Angelina likes) that we might not have learnt otherwise because they do not really feature in our coursebook.
  • It is a woderful opportunity for spontaneous production since with this kind of activities the students are in charge of the content. Naturally, they will not be able to chat freely in English about Angelina (what with being 5, pre-A learners of English, with a limited exposure to L2) but from my perspective (I still teach these same, first Angelina, children, now we are seven and eight and A1 level), this was an important first step that has definitely contributed to my students’ current level of fluency and communicative skills.

Angelina 2: Our class puppet and her diary

Instructions

  • First you need to have had a class puppet for some time for the kids to become familiar with the puppets, their habits and interests. I introduced Angeling in year two and the diary in year three, but it will depend on the group and the children.
  • The teacher starts the journal. I used a sketchbook and filled in the first few pages with Angelina’s adventures. Each of them was a drawing and a sentence.
  • The teacher brings the journal to class. The group look at it together and talk about what they can see in the pictures.
  • After a few weeks, the teacher first explains the whole idea and the logictics to the parents: the kids, in turns, will be taking Angelina and the album home for the weekend and then, when they are ready, they will bring them back, with one more drawing added. In class, we are all going to look at it and talk about it.
  • To lessen the stress of having to draw in the official diary, I have used a template for the main character, an drawing from clip art library that I printer, cut out and glued to a few empty pages. This way we would always create a collage, the drawing of Angelina would be consistent and of a good quality and the students would only work on the scene itself.
  • The kids were only suppsed to write but some of the parents helped and wrote the key sentences.
  • When I introduced the idea, one of my eductional mums said ‘Youa are brave!’ and, I guess, by that she meant that I was risking Angelina getting destoryed, lost, stained or loved so much that she would never want to go back to school…Yes, that is something to take into consideration. The younger students might get too emotionally attached and we would be in trouble. Plus, there are the accidents of the everyday that we cannot predict or prevent. I did think about it and I still wanted to risk. Plus, I had located another copy of Angelina in our accountants’ room and I was ready to ask, bribe or steal, should anything really bad happen to our original SuperHen.
  • ‘Angelina is making cookies’
  • ‘Angelina is having cookies and tea.’

Why we love it

  • The kids loved taking Angelina home to play. Once she came back to school with a boyfriend (who stayed only for a day) but she also encouraged other kids to bring her toys. A parrot called Pepsi attended our lessons regularly, participated eagerly and sometimes asked for her own handout in order to be able to do her own homework. Which, accidentally, was always different from her human’s homework.
  • The project gives the kids a chance to be creative as Angelina can do absolutely anything while visiting. She can go to the park and she can fly to the moon, too.
  • It provides the entire group with a picture to talk about, to discuss and to ask questions about and the best bit is – we never know what it is going to be. As a result, we get yet another chance to use the language tools we have to talk and to learn new vocabulary, too.
  • No Angelina was harmed during the entire project. The kids took this responsibility very seriously and I was really proud of them.

  • ‘Angelina is making a cake’
  • ‘Angelina is on the beach’
  • ‘Angelina is jumping into the swimming pool’

Instead of a coda, another puppet story.

If you think that puppets and class puppets work only with the little kids, I would like you to reconsider.

In the classroom where we study with my older kids, we don’t have any balls and whenever we need to throw things (while playing games) we use soft toys. For that reason, we have a creature called ‘Flying Cow’, which lives on the top shelf, is a very sphere-like toy cow and, yes, it frequently flies.

Despite the fact that the students are well-past the primary age, Flying Cow always gets stroked, squeezed, hugged, patted, or, in other words ‘is shown affection’. Last year, while we were playing, the cow got thrown or caught rather too energetically and, as a result, suffered a tail injury (reads: it just got ripped off).

It was an interesting thing to see that all my seemingly teenage students gasped in horror at the damage done. As if Flying Cow would really be in pain. I did keep a straight face and acted like a good doctor ‘Don’t worry, everything is going to be alright. I’ll take her home and fix it.’ Which was met with relief.

Maybe not only the little kids?:-)

Now, dear teacher, take a careful look around. Is there anyone that could become your Angelina?

Happy teaching!

Bibliography

  1. Carolyn Webster-Stratton, PhD, Tips for Using Puppets to Promote Preschool Children’s Social and Emotional Development, accessed on 6 January 2021, from www.incredibleyears.com
  2. Christine Belifiore, Puppets Talk, Children Listen, accessed on 6 January 2021, from https://teachmag.com/archives/5618
  3. When Puppets Speak, Children Listen, No Strings, TeDxBermuda, accessed on 6 January 2021, from youtube.com
  4. Sandie Mourão and Gail Ellis, Teaching English to Pre-Primary Children, DELTA Teacher Development Series, pp 48 – 51

Crumbs #12 In my little house: A craft activity for one hundred occasions.

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If I had to choose only one craft activity for all my classes, a proper all-rounder, for the younger and for the older, to serve a hundred purposes – that is the one!

Welcome to my little house!

First of all, I really did try hard, very hard to remember where and when I learnt how to make it and how to use it and who taught me and I can’t. I don’t know. For sure, it was Moscow, definitely my first year here but who and how? No idea. The only thing that I can do now is to say ‘Thank you!’ to this forgotten and now anonymous benefactor. I am, indeed, much obliged. Now, I am sharing.

Instructions

  • Two pieces of paper per student / house. In the samples in the photos I have used A4 but in the classroom, with my kids I tend to use both A3 and A4, depending on the main aim. If we are just glueing things, A4 works just fine. If we draw – A3 is bigger and offers more room for the kids’ drawings.
  • Fold the house. It is pretty easy and you can watch this video here, from Inner Child Fun to see how it is made. Emily is using origami paper but a regular A3 or A4 will work just fine!
  • Important: I normally do it myself, for all my students because even adults (like my trainees) might not be very good at origami-like activities and the house, although it is relatively simple, it does require some precision and if it is not applied, it is not going to look very well, unfortunately. Preschoolers will not be able to fold it and when I once tried with my primary school kids, I immediately began to regret it because some of them took the responsibility of the taks too seriously and were getting very nervous, predicting that they might not be skilled enough to manage the task. They did, in the end, with a lot of encouragement but I think it is just not worth it. We can still teach them how to do it, for them to practise and play at home but if you think of the lesson itself, the timing and the aims – just not worth it.
  • In my case, depending on the aim of the particular house (see below, there are plenty of options), I make one house myself, as a template, hand-drawn or using clip art images, and then I photocopy it to fold for each student. The advantage of it is that you can put in your house whatever you want. The basic design involves only the lines inside the house and the division into rooms, with numbers. That helps during the activities because you can ask your students ‘Go to room number 1’ and this way you make sure that everyone is on the ball and that they don’t glue pictures wherever they should not, for example, on the lines as that would get in the way of the house closing and opening.
  • Also, before the lesson, I glue the houses onto the garden page. This is especially useful in the case of the pre-primary students and in the case of those of my primary kids who have not done the activity before. Being glued on, the house is not as easy (although not impossible) to be dismantled and unfolded and it is just easier to manipulate in class.
  • I start with demonstrating my house, with all the theatre that I can muster. We look at it, we knock at the door, we open it and look inside. This can be done on the carpet or with the kids gathered around you so that everyone can see all the details.
  • I give out the houses and we start with drawing the door and writing the number (ask talking about them) and then drawing the windows (and talking about them). Make sure that all the students are more or less in the same place here. I normally only give out one colour per child (although they can ask for a different colour for the door and a different colour for the windows) or, with the older kids, with a pencil only. They will want their houses to be really pretty so erasing might be necessary and I really don’t want to waste time on colouring, this can be done at home.
  • The main task usually involves glueing things in different rooms, for example pets. For that, I prepare small pictures of all the pets, one set per child, on a tray (or whatever works as a tray) and a poster to put up, for everyone to see all the options. We start with room number 1 and I say, ‘Go to room number 1’. ‘I can see a cat (in my room number 1)’ after which I glue there the small picture of a cat. Then, the kids take turns and make similar sentences choosing their own animal from the set. They only receive a picture to glue after they make their sentences. When everyone is ready with room 1, we show our pictures, we say ‘I’m ready’ and move on to room number 2. And so on.
  • In the end, if there is time, we draw the sun, the tree and the flowers in the garden and we colour the house for homework. Also, if there are any leftover animals, these can be given out to glue at home (although, yes, that involves some more complex logistics, paperclips, small envelopes, not impossible though).
  • In the following lesson, we look at our houses and describe the rooms, the colours etc.
  • Variations: there are many of these. The house can be anything you want it to be. Here are some of my favourite ones:
  • Any set of vocabulary and almost any set of stucture, starting with ‘I can see’ and ‘I’ve got’, with some less obvious ones like the pictures of activities to practise Present Continous (‘I’m jumping in the kitchen’) or even words or word cards with the Past Tense forms which can be used later to tell stories for example ‘A strange Sunday’ (‘My brother slept in the garden’, ‘My dad danced in the kitchen’ etc)
  • Halloween or Christmas house – with the characters and symbols of each holiday
  • International House (accidental) – each room is a country represented by its flag and some symbole, these are drawn or glued, for older children
  • Rooms of the house – template is prepared with some furniture typical of each room, students can place pets in rooms (‘Where is the cat?’ ‘It is in the bedroom’) or family members (‘Where is mum?’ ‘She is in the living room’), add small objects to each room (‘Where is the lamp?’ ‘It is in the kitchen’, it is best to choose things that could be in any room such as lamps, pictures, chairs, rugs) and this version can be also further extented (‘Where is the lamp?’ ‘It is in the kitchen. It is on the cupboard’). The older kids can also draw these, making a regular or a silly house, too.
  • Secret Room – this was a follow-up activity in which I used the template which I drew with one empty box (empty, only because I could not, for the life of me, draw anything resembling a dining room). We did one of the activities mentioned above but the last room was to be drawn at home and it could be anything – a space room, a swimming pool, a library, an ocean zoom, a pirate room…
  • Where are you? – a template with the rooms, pre-prepared, each student gets a set of the leftover stickers or small cards, they put them somewhere in the house, in secret and afterwards they guess where their objects are. It can be used to practise simple prepositions and the rooms (‘Is it in the kitchen?’) or more complex ones (‘Is it in the living room?’ ‘Yes’ ‘Is it on the sofa / behind the chair?’etc)
  • Put your penguin in the living room on the sofa – a template with the rooms, pre-prepared and a set of stickers or small cards. The kids dictate to each other where to glue them, again, it can be used for simple or more complex prepositions, to get the kids ready for the Starters speaking exams. Later on, we compare our houses.

Why we love it

  • It is relatively easy to make and the kids love the fact that it is a real house.
  • It can be used with any vocabulary or structures (or almost)
  • It can be used with pre-schoolers and primary
  • It has to be prepared before the lesson for all the students but it is a good time investment
  • It is at the same time a focused task to be done in class and a homework task. The homework can involve only colouring and decorating it, talking about it in class but a writing task can easily be added for the older students (any template to be printed on the back of the garden, for example the focus can be such structures as there is, I can see, colours and furniture, my favourite room etc
  • It encourages the students to produce the langauge and it is easy to stage since you go from room to room
  • Lots of opportunities for adaptation, even if you repeat it with the same group. Every single time, it will be a different house.

Happy teaching!

Epic Fail! or We make mistakes to learn #1

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Welcome to the new series on the blog.

It started with something Michael said. He is a fellow teacher and he was telling me a story of how Teacher X went to peer observe an experienced colleague, Teacher Z and how the lesson was, well, not very good, bad, horrible, ‘a disaster’…It was not a very pleasant experience for Teacher Z, of course, but a learning opportunity for Teacher X, nonetheless (and for Teacher Z, too, actually). ‘This is what I want to hear, that even with the best intentions, it can all go ‘tits up’ but nobody is prepared to say it‘.

I got inspired. I am ready to share. I don’t mind. We repeat that to our students, constantly, that mistakes are noble and that we can learn from them. If our students can, so can we, the teachers. The same principles apply.

By the way, the Epic Fail Award is actually a real concept. It is a real award given out to employees at Hill Holliday agency, since, as Robert F. Kennedy once said ‘Only those who dare to fail greatly, can ever achieve greatly’ (apparently, have a look at the whole article here)

With that in mine off we go, to the first of my personal disasters or ‘When things did not go to plan‘.

One: The (stupid) Christmas tree craft

Here it is, look!

Did you go ‘Awn’? I bet you did. I did when I saw it and so did my kids when I showed it to them, during the pre-Xmas lesson. It did take place three years ago, I think and back then I was already an experienced teacher etc.

I did a great job, preparing for the task. I did prepare all the materials; I did make the tree at home. I did think of the staging. I did plan to teach the kids the verbs we needed to make it (fold, press, pause). I did think of how old they were and I knew them, they had been my students for over two years at the time so I could imagine what they were or were not able to do. We had done plenty of craft activities, we had worked with the pipe cleaners in a few different arrangements. I did pre-cut the triangles and tied pipe cleaners (three of them joined would be necessary to cover one tree). I punched the holes at the top of each tree. I wrote the main steps.

You would have thought the conditions were perfect. Yes, yes, they were. And yet it was the biggest craft disaster known to mankind. In my kingdom.

It turned out that even with all of these preparations and the previous experience and knowledge, the task turned out to be too tricky for my students. They were involved, yes, they loved the idea but we soon discovered that if you do not press the pipe cleaner real hard, applying all the strength (that the 5 y.o. did not quite have), it starts sliding, coming off and not looking at all as this ‘Awn’ model that I had already shown and that everyone had already managed to fall in love with and to start dreaming about of taking home.

The point of no return, in other words. Stopping, pausing or aborting the task was completely out of the question at that point. We went on, with me helping to complete eight Christmas trees simultaneously, perhaps singing the song to keep everyone occupied (though, really, I cannot be sure) with me hating absolutely every second of it and swearing that this very craft will never be seen again in any of my lessons. This or any craft, actually.

Everyone survived. Apart from all the leftover trees. I binned them all. With a lot of vidictive satisfaction. The one you can see in the photograph was recreated for teacher training purposes.

Today, I think that the craft is actually child-friendly, provided that you don’t go too minimalistic and that you keep the real Christmas tree-shape. Or that you at least cut the edges of the simple triangle in a few places, on both sides, to ensure that the pipe cleaner has somewhere to get attached and to stay in one place and still look ‘Awn’.

But it is also true that with this particular craft, I did allow myself to fall far the ‘awn’ effect and its strictly decorative value. Linguistically, there would be very little for us to do with it, apart from a few verbs and a few functional language phrases that we use and practise with any craft activity. Maybe, just maybe, I should not have fallen for it and, as a language teacher, first and foremost, I should have prioritised the linguistic aim.

Well, lesson learnt, that’s for sure!

P.S. It was unpleasant but I have not given up on craft! Experiments will sometimes lead to great achievements and sometimes to disasters but the best thing is – we learn, one way or another!

P.S.S. There is more to come in this chapter! I will see you soon with more epic fails stories. If you have some that you would like to share, please, do in the comments below!

Happy teaching!

Child development stories #2

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Enter Sasha

She is five years old and is a big sister to a baby brother. She is in the second year of our EFL course. The group in which she is studying is not big at all, only four kids, two boys and two girls. We can meet only once a week, on Saturday morning, for two real hours.

It happens in the second half of the lesson. The kids are completing the literacy development activities, tracing letter M and gluing in a few pictures with mum, a mouse, a monkey. They are having fun because at the same time we are playing our new favourite game: what colour is it? Which is about making up new names for all the colours. No more ‘green marker’ then, no more ‘purple marker’. They have been rebranded as ‘a cucumber marker’ and ‘an aubergine marker’. All of a sudden brown is the new black because we all call it ‘a chocolate marker’ and everyone wants to use it.

Just then, both Sasha and Andrey reach out for the same marker and Sasha waves her hand so unfortunately that she hits Andrey, not very hard to make him cry but hard enough to cause discomfort. Andrey gets upset.

The teacher says ‘Oh, Andrey, are you ok? Sasha didn’t mean it. She will say sorry. Sasha, please say sorry.’

But Sasha shakes her head.

Teacher continues ‘Sasha, you are fantastic and you did not mean it. But Andrey is sad. If you say ‘I am sorry’, he will be happy’ (all that navigating carefully between the buoys of acceptable English and English graded to the pre-A level, with all the gestures, soft voice and empathy). Andrey is calmer but Sasha shakes her head. ‘Sasha, please say sorry’

And this is when she raises her head, looks at the teacher with defiance and says, in her L1 ‘You can’t tell me what to do. You are not my boss’

The teacher sighs, struggling to keep a straight face because it is hilarious. Even more so because the word she uses is very formal, strong and way above the 5-year-old range. A corporate culture vernacular, she has picked up somewhere.  The teacher gives up and once again smiles at Andrey. ‘It’s OK, Andrey. Don’t worry. It’s going to be OK’

The lesson goes on…

The kids go back to tracing the letters. Just then, Sasha suddenly stands up and starts walking. The teacher looks up and says ‘Sasha, please sit down’ but this is when the little girl looks at the teacher again, right in the eye. The last traces of defiance are gone and now she is something new about her, something in her eyes, as if she is saying ‘Please, let me do it’. The teacher nods her head.

Sasha goes around the table, behind the other kids’ backs, until she reaches Andrey. He looks at her but she bends, with her hands cupped around her mouth and his ear and says in L1 and in that child whisper that absolutely everyone in the room can hear clearly ‘Andrey, please don’t tell anyone, it is a secret. I am really sorry. I didn’t mean it’. The she just goes back to her seat and finishes her task, as if nothing has happened. Nothing at all.

The things that I have learnt from this story

  • Kids are different and even the bravest and the most outspoken ones will not feel very comfortable with all the limelight and attention on them, positive or negative, even if the audience comprises of only four other people that they know really well.
  • The teacher has to react to any unwanted behaviour to signal that this is not what we are going to tolerate, however, it is also up to the teacher to decide how long this ‘reaction’ should last. When does it stop being effective and turns into ‘torture’ and ‘punishment’
  • Is it always a good idea to encourage or to make the kids say that they are sorry there and then even if they don’t mean it and don’t want to do it? Debatable. It might be a good idea to leave some room for the learner and human autonomy and let them sort it out themselves, under a teacher’s supervision, of course.
  • What Sasha said to the teacher could have been potentially interpreted as a lack of respect but it was something that was clearly overheard at home and applied in a different context, in a similar situation. It never happened before and it never happened again afterwards and, to be honest, the only difficult thing about it was that I had to keep a straight face, although inside I was rolling with laughter.
  • Sasha did understand very well that she was the responsible one, she did not feel comfortable with it and wanted to signal her discomfort to the world. And, in a way, she did and effectively so. Perhaps a sad face or tears would be a more typical way of reacting in such a situation, a more predictable one but children are different and they react differently.
  • We did have our happy ending but if I were to give any advice to this teacher (well, myself from a few years ago), I would suggest telling Sasha a secret, instead of drawing even more attention to something that she did do.

Happy teaching!

Child development stories #1: Luna Lovegood

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Why this series? Child development is one of the key areas when it comes to the teacher education in the area of primary and pre-primary. At the same time, whereas the other two areas, the knowledge of the language and the appropriate methodology, are better taken care of, child development for the EFL teachers is still waiting to happen. Hence this series.

I hope that some of my adventures will contribute to understanding who the little people in our classrooms are and how to approach them.

All of this really did happen but we want to protect real kids and their stories so for the purpose of this little exercise here, everyone will be a Sasha as it can be a boy or a girl and the name is used worldwide, too.

Enter Sasha.

On the one hand, there is nothing unusual about it, really, there is always one child in (each) group that is going to be your space cadet, daydreamer, lost, your head in the clouds, moony, your Luna Lovegood, your Tigger, Little Miss Scatterbrain. There is always one and it is perfectly fine.

My Luna was a boy, aged 5, Alexander, although this name was too big for him, so we just called him Sasha or Sanya.

Sanya could not stay focused…

…throughout the lesson for as long as all the other kids, and despite the fact that it was year 2, with plenty of time for him to get used to the routine and the length of the lesson. He did not pay attention, he would switch off, he had to be called back. He would come late every now and again and very very rarely did he bring the homework.

He did not interact with the kids well, either.

He did not make friends with the girls, who stayed in their own circle but he did not seem to be getting on very well with the other three boys in the group. Grisha, the youngest always chose to sit with his older brother and Artem refused to sit with him. Of course, they did play together and interact during the lesson, I did take care of it, but they only did the absolute minimum.

And yet, Sanya, did look for this interaction only his methods were not approved of by the boys. For example, one day, in the middle of the lesson, he went to Artem and hugged him to which Artem pushed him off with ‘Don’t kiss me, you are not my mum’…All of it was rather unusual and a definite change of behaviour.

But even before I managed to get in touch and talk to Sanya’s mum…

the truth revealed itself. One of these days in November, the lesson finished and Sanya was still there in the classroom. When I asked ‘Where is your mummy?’, he explained that today his mummy is not coming to pick him upstairs (3rd floor) but that he should walk downstairs those six flight of stairs and meet her on the ground floor, by the cloakroom, a strange request and a real challenge, in that building. I let the assistant know and I said ‘Let’s go’ reaching out my hand. And because it was a long trip, step by step by step, hand in hand and because he was a little gloomy, I decided to talk to him. Now, mind you, he was still a pre-A level and so I did speak English and he replied in Russian. We counted stairs, I praised him for the lesson and then, I decided to ask, just making small talk, ‘Sanya, who is coming today, mummy or daddy?’ and this is when the heartbreak began. And the understanding.

Sanya just answered the question and because it must have been something that has been bothering him, he just went on talking.

‘My uncle is coming today. I don’t have a daddy. He doesn’t live with us anymore. He’s got a new home and a new baby son. We live with the uncle, my mummy and me’

At the age of 5, Sanya had already been through his parents’ separation, at an unknown cost and stress, his half-brother’s birth and who knows what else. No wonder he was a little bit off. No wonder mum had other issues to deal with rather than the homework. No wonder he needed some more attention from the other kids and from the teacher.

Back then I was still a very young and shy teacher.

I did not talk to Sanya’s mum. What I focused on was making Sanya’s time in class a little bit more bearable: no stickers for homework, homework replacement that he could do in class when I was checking other kids’ tasks and deal with his in the end, praising him and putting more effort in creating opportunities for him to bond with other children, making sure he is fine.

And walking him downstairs to the cloakroom after the lesson.

Today, it would have been different. I would have more energy and more confidence to talk to mum and voice my concerns and try to work with her more closely.