Young
learners
Young learners seem to be getting younger
and younger! In many countries, second language learning used to be mostly a
secondary school preserve - but there has been a definite trend towards
teaching primary learners at lower and lower ages. In many locations there are
even widespread nursery-level language classes. When someone reported, a few
years back, that a famous examination board was about to launch a new English
exam for learners in the womb, it sounded almost believable.
These changes are based on the belief that
the younger you start, the more chance you have of making the learning
successful. If there really is a critical age - up to which it is natural and
easy to acquire a second or third language - and after which it is much harder
to - then it does seem to make sense to exploit this. After all, young children
who are brought up in bilingual households often speak both languages to
native-speaker level; why shouldn’t a similar effect be achievable in schools?
A stronger reason for teaching English to younger learners may simply be that
starting early will give them many more years at school in which to develop and
improve their language skills. By the time they reach higher levels in
secondary many will be very competent users.
List
some of the main features that characterise young learners. What do you need to
consider when teaching them?
•
Children are keen. Children are noisy.
Children can be chatterboxes. Children want to learn new things. Children like
to experiment. Children are curious. Children get easily excited. Children want
to have fun. Children have a great sense of humour. Children love attention.
Children can’t concentrate for very long. Children can be hard to calm down.
•
Children don’t respond very well to explicit
input and work on language systems (grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation).They
want to use language, not to study it in its own right.
•
Children may not see the point of English. But
they do see the point of doing interesting tasks, games and activities.
Very young
learners (pre-school and lower primary)
Approaches with low age groups will
reflect tire kind of work typically being done in the rest of their school day
- just that it will be done in English rather than in die first language.
Teachers can:
•
tell stories (with lots of use of pictures,
gestures, facial expressions, mime, puppets and toys);
•
sing songs and nursery rhymes with children -
especially action songs that involve participation from the children ( The
Wheels on the Bus, Hokey Cokey, Row Row Row Your Boat);
•
get
children to act out stories and songs following the teacher’s model;
•
do
practical tasks (painting, colouring, making things, looking after pets and
plants) but with instructions and help in English;
•
help children learn basic skills (recognising
alphabetic letters and associating them with objects or picture, counting
coconuts);
•
run
simple games using limited vocabulary (musical games, walking around games);
•
give listen and do tasks (draw a cat,
make a noise like a cat, touch your nose).
At this age the children will not have
reading and writing skills in their first language, so text-based work may be
unsuitable.
Middle and
higher primary
Once students are above a certain age you
may well find that your school gives you a coursebook that has traditional
units on different topics and works on an explicit grammar and vocabulary
focus. You may also find that students are expected to pass tests that check on
their ability to recognise, name and manipulate specific language items.
This means that you have to decide a serious
question: how do you believe that children learn a second language? If
you feel that the coursebook has a valid approach, then you may end up using it
for a large amount of the class time. If you feel that children need a more
active, more in-the-classroom experience of activities and tasks, then you may
need to find a way to use the book only as much as absolutely necessary and
devise or find other activities that reflect your own beliefs.
Whichever way you go, here are some ideas
for working with such classes.
•
Find tasks and activities that are exciting
and motivating in their own right. Where possible, go for active tasks,
physical tasks, dressing-up tasks, moving-walking-hands-on tasks. Give students
the language they need to do the task.
•
Don’t just talk. Use pictures, models, short
videos, board drawing, toys.
•
Don’t worry too much about the children’s
accurate production. Aim initially for listening and understanding.
•
Think very carefully about whether you really
need to do some (or any) actual input or explanation about grammar and
vocabulary. Might it be enough to integrate all language work into the tasks so
that children can understand and use the language without further analysis?
•
Don’t expect immediate (or even long-term)
student use of English. Just keep using English yourself. When a child says
something to you in their language, reply in English.
•
Keep activities short. Plan for variety and
frequent changes of focus, working modes and pace.
•
Keep much of the focus on the children’s life
and things they understand rather than abstract or hard-to-grasp concepts.
Exams
There are now many excellent YL exams.The
ones from Cambridge ESOL are known as Starters (lowest level), Movers(mid-level),
Flyers (higher level).They arc colourful and interesting tests that will
motivate and encourage students.
Some popular
ideas for young learner classes
Teach
around a topic
If you decide not to get tied to a
coursebook, a strong alternative is to choose a theme or topic to give shape to
each week’s work. Explore it from a range of different angles, choosing a wide
variety of practical activities. For example, with the topic of shops, students
could make a pretend shop in the classroom, write names and price labels for
different items, match words cards to shop items, design posters to advertise
their shop, read a story about a girl who goes shopping with her dad, look at
photos of shops in the past and guess what they sold - and so on.
Teach
around a book
Choose a book that you think students in
your class will enjoy (eg The Gruffalo, The BFG). As with the teach
around a topic idea, devise a range of activities that pick up themes,
characters and language from the book. For example, with The Gruffalo
children could design a monster, say frightening words in the most frightening
way, mime walking through a forest, think of a good plan to trick a monster,
find words to describe a mouse, collect rhyming w'ords, make a monster mask-and
so on.
Show
and tell
Every day, ask two or three students to
bring in something that is important to them. They will come to the front of
class, show the object and tell everyone about it. Alternatively, ask everyone
to bring something - and the show and tell can be done in small groups.
Circle
time
Everyone sits in a circle. Some basic
politeness ground rules are established (eg one person speaks at a time). A
topic is given by the teacher (eg Something I enjoyed in school this week)
.The teacher leads by giving an example, and then, going round the circle, each
person says something on the topic.Translate if students can’t say what they
want to in English.
Total
Physical Response (TPR)
The
teacher gives a series of imperative instructions (eg Stand up, shake hands
with someone, walk to the front of the room). As each instruction is given,
the teacher shows the movement herself and the children copy it. Don’t worry
that it’s only listening to teacher with no learner production. It’s fine
because there is a huge amount of listening, understanding and internalising
going on: very rich exposure to English.
TPR
fairy stories
Tell a story as a sequence of sentences
with mime-able verbs. Students copy the teacher’s actions (eg She waved
goodbye to her mother. She walked through the woods. She saw a beautiful
flower. She bent down to pick it. She looked up. She saw a wolf.)
Carousel
Select a variety of different activities
and make sufficient copies of them. They should be simple enough to understand
quickly. Arrange different tables around the room. Each table should have lots
of copies of one of the activities, ie each table has a different activity on
it. When the children arrive in class, they immediately form groups based at
one of the tables. Each group works on the task on their desks. After a set
time (eg eight minutes) or when the teacher feels the time is right, she rings
a bell (or taps the table or shouts) and every group stands up and moves
clockwise round the room to the next table - where they can start work on the
new task. The lesson proceeds in this way, with regular changes of table and
task.The teacher may need to do a lot of buzzing around, assisting with
understanding what to do. Students will get a lot of chances to use English in
a wide range of tasks and exercises - lots of variety.
Community
Language Learning (CLL)
Although a method devised for use with
adults, the basic principle works well with older primary students, whether in
whole-class discussion or while supervising pair or group work. Initially you
will need to train students into this way of working, but after you have, it
can become very effective as an everyday way of working.
CLL essentially makes you the class
translator who will help students to say what they want to say. Three steps:
•
Allow students to say what they want to say.
Encourage brief statements in their first language.
•
Say
a good English translation yourself of what they want to say. Don’t explain
anything about the grammar or vocabulary. Just model it clearly. Don’t worry if
the language you say is above their supposed understanding or syllabus level.
But do keep it short. If necessary, edit what they said down to a few words.
•
Help students to say the English version
themselves. Repeat your model as often as needed. Once they have said it to the
class, move on to the next speaker. No analysis or study. Write a note to
record what the sentence was. (Alternatively - and even better, is to record
what the student says.)
At the end you can review what everyone
said, maybe preparing a handout with the whole English language conversation.
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