EDICT

Each teacher has their own unique teaching style, and every teaching style is a mix of behavior and knowledge. Of course, every teacher should try to improve their style continuously. But, teaching is more than just passing on knowledge; teaching is directly connected to one’s behavior.

A good teacher should be kind and patient. Kindness and patience are two of the most important qualities a teacher must have. Kindness helps you reach out to your students easier while you are making them feel safe, and not afraid to make mistakes. Patience is, in my opinion, the most important quality of a good teacher. Learning is a very challenging process, at times, even difficult, but not impossible. You must be patient in order to see results. You should be aware of the fact that some of your students learn faster, some of them are slower when it comes to learning a new language. You just have to adjust to their own rhythm, wait for them to answer your question, wait as long as it takes for them to find their words. This is the way they will progress; this is how you will do your job well-be patient. A teacher should always be organized, always have their lesson planned ahead. Teaching gets easier when you have in mind exactly what you need to teach, how you will do it and when. Even though sometimes, the teacher will be in the center of attention (and it is normal when teaching new topics), the main ‘actor’ or our English classes is the student. A good teacher should always focus their attention on the student, and they must build their lessons in a way that will allow the student to practice their knowledge more, speak more. Managing successfully your classroom is an art. You will shape your own teaching style through practice. Eye contact, voice and gesture are extremely important when teaching English as a Second Language, for establishing a good rapport with your students.

Tips for a better class management:

• Always look at your students when you speak to them. This is how you maintain discipline, and indicate whose turn is to speak. The eye contact will also show when something is correct or incorrect.
• Your voice should change according to the situation. If you use the same tone and volume of your voice, the students can get bored. There will be situations that will require you to raise your voice, especially if you deal with large classrooms.
• Use as often as possible the students’ name.
• The gesture you use in the classroom is vital for a teacher. Most of the times, especially when you deal with beginners, gesture is what will help you communicate with your students. In time, you will develop your own style and your students will learn all your moves.
• Group your students. The way you group your students is directly connected to what the type of activity or task you want them to complete. Some activities are suitable for groups of two students, some of them for the whole class. Within the classroom, primary aged learners may be seated either in rows with the teacher at the front of the class or in half a circle. Within the UK, primary students are placed in little satellites or small groups of four or five students. It is recommended that seating and the arrangement of the class is organised when thinking about the activities that you are deciding to incorporate in the lesson. For example, if you are doing an art and craft lesson to complement a previous lesson, then placing students into groups may be more beneficial. If you decide to do a pronunciation lesson with focusing on drilling, then a half-circle seating arrangement is likely to be more suitable.
• Classroom arrangement When you arrange your class, you must take into consideration a few aspects: 1.The available space 2.The age of your students 3.Students’ personality 4.The activities planned for that day. A good arrangement of your classroom can help you maintain the discipline, as well as teaching more effectively. It’s possible that you try several class arrangements until you find the best one for each class. Each class is different in its own way. Some classes are noisier than others, older students pay attention to your class more than the younger ones.
• Teacher talking time vs. Student talking time As teacher your job is to help students improve their Oral English, and expand their vocabulary apart from the moments when you will teach new topics, make sure your talking time will not take the whole class.
• Keep it as simple as you can and do not use the language above your students; level.
• Use pictures and videos. There is no class without visual help. Think about it: How can you explain them what an apple is if you don’t speak their language? Of course, you have to show them a picture. Visual clues are extremely important when you give instructions, or when teaching new topics.

If you are teaching primary young learners, the first thing that you will notice is that students will lose interest incredibly quickly so there needs to be a variety of activities included during any one lesson. For example, if you are teaching for 50 minutes, you may be teaching a particular topic but there might be several mini activities during the lesson.

If you look at the contents of some respectable published primary coursebooks or photocopiable worksheets, you may see some topics which are repeated. I would recommend the following topics, to name just a few, for primary young learners:

• About Me – name, age
• The Classroom – school subjects, school objects
• Clothes
• House – parts of the house, furniture
• Hobbies
• Daily Routine – actions, common verbs
• The Body – appearance, adjectives
• Food & Drink
• Sports
• Town – places in town
• Family and Friends
• The Farm – domestic animals
• At the zoo – wild animals
• Jobs and occupations
• Days of the week, months of the year
• Seasons and weather

The suggested activities below could be used to base the topic of your lessons. If you are teaching a topic about ‘the farm’ for 45 minutes, you could start by drilling farm animals with flashcards (5 minutes),then handout a word search puzzle for students to complete (10 minutes), then teach a nursery rhyme, such as “Old MacDonald” (10 minutes), then a colouring activity (5 minutes). which is then followed by a pelmanism game (two cards are turned over at a time and a picture and corresponding word has to match. If they match the student gets one point – 10 minutes) and the final activity could be guess the animal with a student making a noise of the animal and students then have to guess the farm animal. As you can see, primary language learners do need continuous repetition and fun, energetic activities to keep them curious and motivated with the lesson.

Activities for teaching English to primary young learners

Dancing and singing. Examples: Let’s count to 20; Let’s go to the zoo, Head, shoulders, knees and toes, Five little monkeys, If you are happy, Colors of the rainbow, Seasons of the year. Word games: animals, fruits, vegetables, jobs, days of the week, jobs, places in the town, food, insects. Writing : write 5 animals that live in the jungle, write 5 fruits that you like Drawing : worksheet “Giving directions” – Draw a book under the bed, draw a black cat. Colouring – worksheet – color the sun yellow, color the strawberry red. Wordsearch activities: find 10 fruits. Art work – Draw your bedroom and describe it. Draw your favorite animal and tell us facts about it. Worksheet : Multiple choice, Cross the odd word, Fill- in gaps, Match pictures with text, Answer with yes or no, Circle the proper answer Listening comprehension – listen for the main idea, listen for specific information Reading comprehension: matching pictures, fill- in exercise, Answer with yes or no.

Chinese Whispers. It is an activity which usually can be used as a filler for the last 10 minutes of class. Most teachers know the game but if you are one of the very few who doesn’t know the game, here is what you do. You get students either into a line or two lines. Place students in a line or get them to sit down facing the board. Give the student(s) at the front of the line a board marker and then you reveal a word, sentence or grammar point to the student at the back of the classroom. The students whisper the word, sentence or grammar point to the person in front and this continues until the person at the front of the row has heard it and then they write the word on the board. I usually give two points to a team which correctly completed the activity first, one point for those that finished second and correctly wrote the word, sentence or grammar point and minus one point to a team that wrote it incorrectly. It is a very energetic game when you put students into pairs so expect a lot of enthusiasm in class.

Hangman is another activity which many teachers have used over the years. You choose some words that you would like to introduce at the start of class, otherwise you could choose a number of words to review at the end of the lesson. Write them on a piece of paper and make a note of the number of letters in a word. For example, “helicopter” has 10 letters in it. Keep a note to the number of letters in each word that you would like to use in the hangman game as this is important. I always find it easy to have a list of words ready to hand and make a note of the number of letters next to each word. It makes it easier to prepare the game. These are great activities to use in class should you have a projector and internet access.

Board Games are wonderful to use in the classroom. You could create your own board game for use in the classroom. Or better yet, get the students to make their own board game. You don’t necessarily need any dice, you could use a coin – heads move two spaces, tails move one space. If you make your own board game, it is best to use A3 paper and use some felt tip pens. Create a start and a finish position, add some bonus squares (move two spaces forward, next person misses a turn, etc), add some trapped squares (move back one space, miss a turn, etc) and then either write prompts for questions or discussion topics. Board games can be used in class to prompt learners into talking English in the classroom and they are suitable for any ages.

What if? This is a simple game based on a simple question. The teacher asks questions and the children should provide with funny, unusual and original ideas. What if all the people would dress the same? What is all the animals could speak? What if aliens do exist? What if everyone would have a brother or a sister?

What can you do with….? It is a games based on increasing vocabulary and using the children’s imagination. They should think and answer to the teacher’s question very quickly. What can you do with a needle? What can you do with a slice of bread? What can you do with a sheet of paper?

Time travelling. Students are asked to close their eyes and to travel in time, either in the past or in the future. They should write a short composition based on this theme. The teacher can ask you questions while you have your eyes closed. Where are you? Who is with you? What are you doing? How do you feel?

Role-plays. Through this game, students are acting like actors and actresses and it is strongly encouraged creativity and imagination. They could be waiter – customer, citizens – policeman, teacher- students, seller – buyer, parent – child.

Headbenz. This is a funny game for every child. Vocabulary, pronunciation and speaking are being tested and encouraged. They should wear a band on their head and the teacher puts a flashcard on it. The students should give him/ her clues regarding the picture in order to guess the word/ picture. It is an animal. It is big, it lives in the jungle, it is called the king. (lion) It is a fruit. It is red. It is small. It grows in summer (strawberry)

Miming. One student should come in front of the class and should mime a word that the teacher has whispered to his/her ears. The other students should ask questions in order to find the answer. The student that mimes can only answer with yes or no. (butterfly) Is it an animal? No Is it an insect? Yes It can fly? Yes Is it big? No. It is a bee? No It is a butterfly? Yes

Bingo. The teacher gives the students different papers based on a certain topic (fruits, animals, jobs). The objective is to revise the new vocabulary. On the sheet of paper there is a table with different pictures. The teacher says: cherry, apple, banana, grapes, watermelon, etc. The students check and tick the words/ pictures. Who ticked all the pictures says Bingo and he is the winner.

Riddles. The teacher organizes a contest. She divides the students into three or four groups. She reads some riddles and the students should guess the right answer. Those who have guessed gain one point. The team who has a high score, win the game.

Memory Games: Shopping List. The first S says “I went to Asda and I bought…” and chooses an item to start the mental list eg: some butter. The next S says: “I went to Asda and I bought some butter and …” and adds another item to the list eg: “a bottle of shampoo”. The next one says “I went to Asda and I bought some butter, a bottle of shampoo and …” etc. Teacher should write the list and check. Students are eliminated for mistakes or (excessive) hesitation. You can make it easier to remember by ruling that goods are added to the list in alphabetical order.

Stop! / Pants Game/ Baccalaureate. Draw a grid on the board: Places Animals Names Things Fruits Vegetables

Ask Ss to copy it. Tell Ss you are going to give them a letter. They must write the letter in the first column and then think of a word for each category that starts with the chosen letter. The first S to complete the line must call out: “Stop!” and everyone must stop writing. Ask this student which word they wrote for Places and write it on the board. Ask if any other S chose the same word; if someone has duplicated the answer, each S receives 1 point, if nobody else has chosen it, the S gets 2 points. If the S is the only one with a word in a particular category he gets 3 points. Ask the other Ss which words they wrote and award 1, 2 or 3 points accordingly. When you have checked with the whole class, go back to the original S and repeat the process for Animals, Names and Things. The Ss write in their score and the T starts the next round with a new letter. Other categories which can be fun include: things you find in your bathroom; things that smell nice; things you hold in your hand to use; adjectives to describe you!

Pelmanism (Pairs). Many course books provide cut up activities involving a picture card and the word on another card, which the students have to match up. It takes a couple of minutes and the activity is over. Why not maximize your cutting out efforts by playing pelmanism? Lay all the cards face down and Students take it in turns to turn over 2 cards. If they match they keep the ‘trick’ and select another two cards, if not, they flip them back over and the next S takes their turn. The player with the most tricks wins and the vocab sticks!

Running Dictation. A text is displayed well away from the secretary of each pair or group and the other Students go back and forth, reading and dictating until the task is complete.

Liar/Tell the Truth. 3 students go out and tell each other about something they have done in their life. They agree on one S’s anecdote. All 3 come back and tell the anecdote as their own. Rest of students have to accuse the two liars after thorough questioning.

Coffee Pot. Give a S a secret noun on a slip of paper. The S must not say this word but must substitute it with the phrase “coffee pot”. Using the substitution phrase “coffee pot”, the rest of his team ask questions to discover what the secret noun is; eg: Is your coffee pot used in the bathroom? Do you brush your teeth with your coffee pot?

The tongue twister game. To practice the pronunciation of difficult sounds. The teacher writes some English tongue twisters on the board or on pieces of paper to distribute to students. The teacher asks them to read the tongue twisters aloud. Then faster. Then three times in a row.

I spy. Teacher says „I spy with my little eye something that begins with B”. Students try to guess the object (e.g. „book”). Colours are a good alternative for younger students („I spy with my little eye something that is red”)

Chair game.  Form a circle with chairs. Number of chairs equal to students’ number. All the pupils sit except the teacher. He writes a sentence in the blackboard as an example: Yesterday I watched tv. He explains the children to listen to the sentences. If they watched tv yesterday, they must change their chair. If not, they must not move. The teacher plays with the children, and then the after the teacher’s turn the pupils begin to tell their sentences.

Topic Ball. It’s an activity to review topics. Pupils make a big circle. The teacher throws the ball naming a topic; the pupil who catches the ball has to say a word that belongs to this topic, and throw the ball again.

Simon Says.  The teacher gives an order by saying “Simon says touch your head”. Pupils have to imitate the order only if the order is told after “Simon says”. If not, they have to rest without doing anything. If children do the action, they are out. The last child left in the game becomes the new caller.

Letter jumble. The class is divided into pair or groups. The teacher writes some words about a topic on the blackboard and gives each group a set of small cards where children write each letter of the words written on the blackboard. Then they have to mix the letters and then recompose each word. The teacher walks around checking the words and asking the children to read out the words. For older students, the teacher can write sentences better than words and pupils have to recompose the sentence word by word, stead letter by letter.

Grammar sticky notes. The teacher writes a Grammar title and the students will stick notes on the board with original examples: Present simple – Clary gets a new job. Prepositions of place – The umbrella is under the chair. Possessives – Your brother looks sad.

Bibliography
Martin Sketchley, “How to teach English to Young Learners”, LTC Eastbourne
J. Harmer “The Practice of English Language Teaching”, Longman, New York, 1991
Peter Burrows, A Creative Approach to Teaching Grammar Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 2014
Veronica Gelfgren , “Fun with Flashcards” , Learnmore Projects, 2012
Martin Sketchley “How to teach English to Young Learners” -LTC Eastbourne