Even only looking at the blog here, it is easy to figure out that I am passionate (or, well, let’s be honest: ‘obsessed’) about maximising production in young and very young children and I am constantly on the look-out for new techqniues, resources and activities that can help the youngest of my students produce more and more language.
This is how a few months ago I found Saffira Mattfield, who is a speech therapist from Australia (@onlinespeechie) and who uses colourful semantics with her students to encourage them to produce more language, in full sentences. I have started using it and promoting it here on the blog, too.
Then, a few days ago, while searching for silly pictures that I could include in my lessons, I have found Allison Fors and her blog. Allison (@speech.allisonfos) is a speech therapist from California who creates resources for speech therapy (some are free, some can be purchased at a small fee) and who writes a lot about different techqniues used by therapists, parents and teachers that lead to enabling the little children to speak more and speak better.
If you think about it, EFL teachers and speech therapists have a lot in common. The context is different but the age group is the same: preschoolers and the aim is the same: get them to talk.
For example, when it comes to picture scenes, Allison suggests using them:
- to have a conversation about the picture
- to work on vocabulary sets as all the picture scenes have a theme ie the beach, in the kitchen, etc.
- to work on verbs and Present Continuous as all the picture scenes usually involve a group of characters involved in different activities
- to practise asking and answering Wh-questions
- to practise prepositions, nouns and pronouns, directions and inferences.
Among some other ideas that I have found on her blog are using blank comics in speech therapy, using short videos or sensory play. Of course, the very young beginner learners of English as a foreign language, will not be able to produce as much language as the L1 speakers but lots of ideas that could be adapted to our needs.
Another source of inspiration can be Carmen Perez and her blog, although it is in Spanish so a little bit more difficult to access.
Perhaps this ia a new area to research and to be inspired by for us, too? What do you think? Let me know in the comments!
Happy teaching!