Teaching English to young learners means more than just providing language input, it contributes to the child’s broad conceptual development. When working with children,we are first of all teachers who are responsible for the overall development in our care. Our role is to introduce activities, materials and values which deepen their awareness and understanding of the world around them and the relationship with it.
When teaching young learners you have to consider the following things:
- Main differences between adults and children
- Motivation
- Different ages-different abilities
- Silent period
- Learning styles
Teaching young learners is very different from teaching adults because of the amount of energy children have. Knowing how to channel this energy or when to “stir’ and when to “settle” children will help you achieve balanced lessons without children becoming over-excited on the one hand or bored on the other. Thus, an essential thing when planning your lessons is to think of the activities you are going to teach in terms of stirrers and settlers and alternate them. Stirrers(energizers) are activities which are designed to energize the students while settlers (coolers) are meant to calm students down.
We might want to use stirrers in order to:
- Make our students feel energetic and enthusiastic
- Lift the energy level of the class
- Motivate our students,especially if they are tired,bored or just do not fell like doing anything at all
We might want to use settlers in order to:
- calm our students,especially if they have become over-excited or too noisy
- give our students the chance to “breathe” after a competitive game or after a TPR activity
- enhance learning-there is often need to allow our students a quiet time into the lesson in order to help them prepare for learning.
Here are some examples of stirrers and settlers that can be used in an English class:
1. Chinese Whisper 1 – the teacher and children all sit down on the floor in a circle; the teacher starts whispering a word to the child next to her/him, then that child whispers the word to the next child and so on until the last child in the circle is whispered the word;he/she has to say out loud the word, to see if iti is the same word that the teacher whispered at the beginning. The game goes on until everyone has had the chance to come up with a word.
2. Chinese Whisper 2 – the children form two lines facing the board and the first child in each line has a marker in their hand; the board is divided in two; the teacher whispers a word to the last child in each line at the same time(the three of them go at the back of the classroom so that the other players will not hear the word, then come back in the lines); the children in each team whisper the word until it gets to the first child in the line, who runs to the board and writes it down, the goes at th back of the line; the game continues until everyone has had the chance to be the first in line.
3. Musical Chairs – the chairs(one fewer than the number of players) are arranged in a circle (a double line can be used if there is not enough space) facing outward and the children form a circle just outside of that; the teacher plays some music and the children walk around the chairs while the music is on, but when the music stops everyone must race to sit down in one of the chairs; the player who is left without a chair is out of the game and one chair is also removed in order to ensure that there will always be one fewer chair than there are players, the music resumes and the cycle repeats until there is only one player left in the game who is the winner.
4. Statues – the teacher plays some music and all the children move or dance around; when the teacher stops the music they all have to freeze, if they move they are out; the game stops when there is only one winner.
5. Simon says – the children listen and carry out the instructions only when Simon tells them to. Whenever they hear “Simon says” + the instructions (clap your hands/run to the board/ touch your head) they have to perform the action, but if they do the actions without “Simon says” they are out; thea teacher can then let one child at a time give some of the instructions.
6. Roll the ball – the children sit down on the floor in a circle; the teacher rolls the ball to the first child and asks “What is your name?”; the child answers and the rolls the ball to another child and asks them the same question and so on until all the children have had the chance to ask and answer. Depending on the vocabulary you are practicing you can use different questions (“ How old are you?/ What is your favourite colou?”)
7. Who am I? – tea teacher sticks on each child’s back a card with an animal name/picture on it; children walk around the class asking questions to find out what animal they are; this game can be played with colours/ food/means of transport etc.
8. Classifying – the children are divided into 3 or 4 groups; each group is given a name (The colours group; the food group; the clothes group; the animals group) and several magazines,handouts or catalogues, the groups have to cut out and stick on alarge piece of paper the pictures that correspond to their topic, the teacher then displays their work on the wall. If the children are old enough to read , the game can be played with words instead of pictures.
It is important to keep in mind that the difference between stirrers and settlers is not always clear,sometimes it depends on how we decide to do the activity.
Bibliography
1. Gordon Lewis, Gunther Bedson-Games for children-Oxford University Press
2. Henk van Oort-Challenging Children- Delta Publishing
3. Peter Watkins-Learning to teach English-Delta Publishing