Learning to teach… is easy to learn.
Teaching English to Young Learners (TEYL) has been one of the things, regarded to education that has its own field of study in plenty of countries around the world.Believing that starting the study of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) before the critical period 12 or 13 years old, will build more proficient speakers of English. However, there is no empirical evidence supporting the idea that an early star in English speakers (Nunan 1999). Levels of proficiency seem to be dependent on other factors _ type of program and curriculum, number of hours spent in English class, and techniques and activities used (Rixon 2000). Sometimes, it can be seen in classrooms that learners tend to have short attention towards the study of foreign languages and what they like the most is the physical and the tangible. Their understanding often comes through hands and eyes and ears; the physical world is dominant at all times. One way to capture their attention and keep them engaged in learning, in this case, English language, is to supplement the activities with lots of brightly colored visuals, pictures, drawings and also songs.
Making changes in the classroom helps you to catch the attention of your students because it would become one of the best places in their daily lives where they could imagine, enjoy and learn at the same time. First of all, you have to remember that you are a leader and you must convey your pupils you have to be respected by them. So a teacher should be organized in order to do the activities and cover daily lessons to catch the attention and respect. The order of the activities is important to have them connected to each other in order to support the language learning process. Moving from one activity to other that is related in content and language helps to recycle the language and reinforce students understanding and use of it. However, moving from activity to activity when the activities are not related to each others can make it easy to lose the focus that children have on class. In addition, if you use thematic units, which are a series of lessons resolving around the same topic or subject, can create a broader context and allow students to focus more on content communication than on language structure.
Teaching English could be better and easier using interesting activities and strategies to develop the learning processes: visual, auditive and kinestesic. Related to this way of making interesting English classes, here are some activities you could use with your students and some advice and tips that you should follow to be a great teacher. We hope you enjoy applying them.
*The game of Opposites*
Opposite Adjectives: tall-short big-small fast-slow thin-fat happy-sad cold-hot...
*_ Show flashcards illustrating opposites. Invite the class to observe the images and repeat their names with you.
*_ Challenge the children to mime the meaning of those opposites. E.g. Call out:Tall! And they will have to represent TALL.
*_ Repeat the activity using opposites. Call out, e.g.:TALL! The children will have to think of the opposite and mime SHORT.
*_Stick opposite picture cards on the floor and walls. Call out an adjective and challenge the classto run, find and touch the picture of the corresponding opposite.
*_Work with colour ribbons. Divide the class into three groups. Each group has a colour: blue, red, yellow, etc. Repeat the activity above, but this time calls a group to find an opposite and join the two words with their ribbon. E.g. Green Team, find the word BIG! Tell them to move the ribbons while looking for the opposite.
*_ Hang cards with opposite pictures from the children’s neck and at the count of three, they have to find their partners. Each pair of opposites stands at the front and waits for the rest to finish the game.
*Learning through songs*
The following is a several suggestion for ELT activities with young learners, a choosing rhyme, a singing game, a chain dialogue, and song. Let us sing the song.
*Songs
OPPOSITES
CHORUS
Op, op, opposites,
Op, op, opposites,
Op, op, opposites,
What a funny word.
VERSE 1
Teach me about this funny word,
“Opposites,” you say.
Op, op, opposites,
Tell me what are they?
SPOKEN
Big, little; up, down;
Happy, sad; full, empty;
Wet, dry; in, out.
Opposites!
REPEAT CHORUS
VERSE 2
Teach me about this funny word,
“Opposites,” you say.
Op, op, opposites,
“Tell me more,” I say.
SPOKEN
Long, short; straight, curly;
Dirty, clean; awake, asleep;
Black, white; heavy, light;
Opposites!
REPEAT CHORUS
TAG
What a funny word.
Created By the Authors Pam Beall and Susan Nipp
*Explanation of the activity*
The group of children forms a circle and the teacher begin to sing the song, and they have to follow the song and repeat it until they learn the song.
Let´s do it!
Posted by:
Zulving Franco
Yesenia Yovera
Gabriel Indriago
