Ten helpful ideas for teaching English to young learners

Full text

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Teaching English to Young
Learners (TEYL) has be-
come its own field of study
as the age of compulsory English edu-
cation has become lower and lower in
countries around the world. It is wide-
ly believed 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 start in English lan-
guage learning in foreign language con-
texts produces better English speakers
(Nunan 1999). Levels of proficiency
seem to be dependent on other fac-
tors––type of program and curricu-
lum, number of hours spent in Eng-
lish class, and techniques and activities
used (Rixon 2000). If an early start
alone is not the solution, then what
can EFL teachers of young learners do
to take advantage of the flexibility of
young minds and the malleability of
young tongues to grow better speakers
of English? As the age for English edu-
cation lowers in classrooms across the
globe, EFL teachers of young learners
struggle to keep up with this trend
and seek effective ways of teaching.
This article contains some helpful
ideas to incorporate into the TEYL
classroom. These ideas come from the
discussions and assignments done in an
online EFL teacher education course
designed for teachers, teacher super-
visors, and other TEYL professionals.
The participants in the online course
came from a number of different
classroom situations and countries in
the Middle East, North Africa, Cen-
tral Asia, and Southeast Asia. Some of
the teachers worked in immersion
classrooms; others saw their students
in class two to three hours per week.
Regardless of the country and the
types of classrooms these teachers of
young learners came from, the list of
helpful ideas below seemed to be
applicable to most situations.
To clarify for whom these ideas are
targeted, it is important to define
young learner. The online course used
the definitions provided by Slatterly
and Willis (2001, 4): “Young Learn-
ers” (YL) were 7–12 years old; “Very
Young Learners” (VYL) were defined
as under 7 years of age. Although the
2006 NUMBER 2|ENGLISH TEACHING FORUM
Ten Helpful Ideas for Teaching
English to Young Learners
Joan Kang Shin
UNITED ST A T E S
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online course was designed to train teachers of
young learners, participants discussed ideas
related to their teaching situations, which
focused on both YLs and VYLs. Therefore, the
ideas given below can be applied to learners
ranging from approximately 5 to 12 years old
and can be used for various proficiency levels.
1. Supplement activities with visuals,
realia, and movement.
Young learners tend to have short attention
spans and a lot of physical energy. In addition,
children are very much linked to their sur-
roundings and are more interested in the phys-
ical and the tangible. As Scott and Ytreberg
(1990, 2) describe, “Their own understanding
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 activities is to supple-
ment the activities with lots of brightly colored
visuals, toys, puppets, or objects to match the
ones used in the stories that you tell or songs
that you sing. These can also help make the
language input comprehensible and can be
used for follow-up activities, such as re-telling
stories or guessing games. Although it may
take a lot of preparation time to make colorful
pictures and puppets or to collect toys and
objects, it is worth the effort if you can reuse
them in future classes. Try to make the visuals
on thick paper or laminate them whenever
possible for future use. Sometimes you can
acquire donations for toys and objects from
the people in your community, such as parents
or other teachers. A great way to build your
resources is to create a “Visuals and Realia
Bank” with other teachers at your school by
collecting toys, puppets, pictures, maps, calen-
dars, and other paraphernalia and saving them
for use in each other’s classes.
Included with the concept of visuals are
gestures, which are very effective for students
to gain understanding of language. In addi-
tion, tapping into children’s physical energy is
always recommendable, so any time move-
ment around the classroom or even outside
can be used with a song, story, game, or activ-
ity, do it! James Asher’s (1977) method, Total
Physical Response (TPR), where children lis-
ten and physically respond to a series of
instructions from the teacher, is a very popular
method among teachers of young learners.
This popular method can be used as a tech-
nique with storytelling and with songs that
teach language related to any kind of move-
ment or physical action. Children have fun
with movement, and the more fun for stu-
dents, the better they will remember the lan-
guage learned.
2. Involve students in making visuals
and realia.
One way to make the learning more fun is
to involve students in the creation of the visu-
als or realia. Having children involved in cre-
ating the visuals that are related to the lesson
helps engage students in the learning process
by introducing them to the context as well as
to relevant vocabulary items. In addition, lan-
guage related to the arts and crafts activities
can be taught while making or drawing the
visuals. Certainly students are more likely to
feel interested and invested in the lesson and
will probably take better care of the materials
(Moon 2000).
You can have students draw the different
animal characters for a story or even create
puppets. For example, if the story is Goldilocks
and the Three Bears, you may want to use pup-
pets to help show the action of the story. To
get students more excited about the story, have
them make little pencil puppets of the three
bears and Goldilocks before the storytelling.
It’s a nice little art project that doesn’t have to
take up too much time. If your students are
too young to draw well, make copies of the
characters on paper and have students color
the characters and cut them out. The cut-out
paper pictures can be taped to their pencils.
After the storytelling, you can use the puppets
to check comprehension of the story plot and
have students practice the language by
retelling the story using their puppets.
If you cannot spare the time in class to
make the visuals you want to use, another idea
is to consult the art teacher at your school (if
you have one) and combine your efforts. If the
art teacher is making some objects, pictures, or
puppets, you could ask the teacher to make
them for use in a particular storytelling or
game in your class. Then, when students come
to English class, they will bring their art
projects to use. In addition, before the lesson,
you can warm up by having students explain
in English what they made in art class.
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Some activities could use objects, toys,
stuffed animals, or dolls. A “show and tell”
activity is a perfect way to get students inter-
ested in the lesson with their own toys. The
introduction to the lesson could be a short
“show and tell” presentation that gives students
a chance to introduce their objects in English.
After this activity, get right into the lesson
using the objects the students brought in.
3. Move from activity to activity.
As stated before, young learners have short
attention spans. For young students, from ages
5 to10 especially, it is a good idea to move
quickly from activity to activity. Do not spend
more than 10 or 15 minutes on any one activi-
ty because children tend to become bored easi-
ly. As children get older, their ability to concen-
trate for longer periods of time increases. So for
students ages 5–7, you should try to keep activ-
ities between 5 and 10 minutes long. Students
ages 8–10 can handle activities that are 10 to 15
minutes long. It is always possible to revisit an
activity later in class or in the next class.
For example, if you are teaching a song or
telling a story, don’t stay on that song or story
the whole class time. Follow up the song or
story with a related TPR activity to keep the
momentum of the class going. Then have stu-
dents play a quick game in pairs. As shown in
this brief example, varying the types of activi-
ties also helps to keep young learners interest-
ed. Scott and Ytreberg (1990, 102) suggest
creating a balance between the following kinds
of activities:
•quiet/noisy exercises
•different skills: listening/talking/read-
ing/writing
•individual/pairwork/groupwork/whole
class activities
•teacher-pupil/pupil-pupil activities
When teachers mix up the pace of the class
and the types of activities used, students will be
more likely to stay focused on the lesson, there-
by increasing the amount of language learning
in class.
4. Teach in themes.
When you plan a variety of activities, it is
important to have them connect to each other
in order to support the language learning
process. Moving from one activity to others
that are 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 other can make it easy to
lose the focus of the class. If students are pre-
sented with a larger context in which to use
English to learn and communicate, then attain-
ment of language objectives should come more
naturally. Thematic units, which are a series
of lessons revolving around the same topic or
subject, can create a broader context and allow
students to focus more on content and com-
munication than on language structure.
It is a good idea to use thematic unit plan-
ning because it builds a larger context within
which students can learn language. When
teaching English to young learners this way,
you can incorporate many activities, songs,
and stories that build on students’ knowledge
and recycle language throughout the unit.
This gives students plenty of practice using the
language learned and helps them scaffold their
learning of new language. Common themes
for very young learners are animals, friends,
and family, or units revolving around a story-
book, such as The Very Hungry Caterpillar by
Eric Carle, which includes food and the days
of the week. As children get older, units could
be based on topics such as the environment,
citizenship, and shopping, or based on a web-
site or book relevant to them.
Haas (2000) supports the use of thematic
unit planning for young foreign language
learners by pointing out that “Foreign lan-
guage instruction for children can be enriched
when teachers use thematic units that focus on
content-area information, engage students in
activities in which they must think critically,
and provide opportunities for students to use
the target language in meaningful contexts
and in new and complex ways.” A good way to
plan a unit is to explore what content your stu-
dents are learning in their other classes and
develop English lessons using similar content.
Look at the curriculum for the other subjects
your students take in their native language
(L1) or talk to your students’ other teachers
and see if you can create a thematic unit in
English class related to what you find.
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5. Use stories and contexts familiar
to students.
When choosing materials or themes to use,
it is important that you find ones that are
appropriate for your students based on their
language proficiency and what is of interest to
them. Because young learners, especially
VYLs, are just beginning to learn content and
stories in their native language in school and
are still developing cognitively, they may have
limited knowledge and experience in the
world. This means that the contexts that you
use when teaching English, which may be a
completely new and foreign language, should
be contexts that are familiar to them. Use of
stories and contexts that they have experience
with in their L1 could help these young learn-
ers connect a completely new language with
the background knowledge they already have.
Teachers could take a favorite story in the L1
and translate it into English for students or
even teach the language based on situations
that are found in the native country, especial-
ly if the materials the teachers have depict
English-speaking environments that are unfa-
miliar to students.
This is not to suggest that stories and con-
texts from the target culture should not be
used. Certainly one goal of foreign language
instruction is to expose students to new lan-
guages and new cultures in order to prepare
them to become global citizens in the future.
However, teachers should not be afraid to use
familiar contexts in students’ L1 in the L2
classroom. In fact, even when presenting
material from the target, English-speaking cul-
tures, it is always a good idea to relate the lan-
guage and content to students’ home culture
to personalize the lesson and allow students an
opportunity to link the new content and lan-
guage to their own lives and experience. Young
learners are still making important links to
their home cultures, so it is important to rein-
force that even in L2 instruction.
6. Establish classroom routines
in English.
Young learners function well within a
structured environment and enjoy repetition
of certain routines and activities. Having basic
routines in the classroom can help to manage
young learners. For example, to get students’
attention before reading a story or to get them
to quiet down before an activity, the teacher
can clap short rhythms for students to repeat.
Once the students are settled down, the
teacher can start the lesson by singing a short
song that students are familiar with, such as
the alphabet song or a chant they particularly
enjoy. Here is a chant with TPR that can get
students ready to begin the class.
Reach up high! (Children reach their arms
up in the air)
Reach down low! (Children bend over and
touch their toes.)
Let’s sit down and start the show! (Children
sit down.)
Look to the left! (Turn heads to the left.)
Look to the right! (Turn heads to the
right.)
Let’s work hard and reach new heights!
The movements can be substituted to teach
new words. For example, instead of “Look to
the left! Look to the right!” the teacher can use
“Point to the left! Point to the right!” Provid-
ing some variation can keep this chant engag-
ing. Just remember to keep the ending since it
starts the class on a positive note.
Add classroom language to the routines as
well. When it’s time to read a story, the teachers
can engage students in the following dialogue:
Teacher: It’s story time! What time is it,
everyone?
Students: It’s story time!
Teacher: And… what do we do for story
time?
Student: We tell stories!
Build on this language by adding more after
students have mastered the above interaction.
The teacher can follow up the previous inter-
action with: “That’s right! The story is called
The Very Hungry Caterpillar. What’s the story
called?” (Students answer.) Whatever the rou-
tine is, the teacher should build interactions in
English around that routine. As Cameron
(2001, 10) points out, “…we can see how
classroom routines, which happen every day
may provide opportunities for language devel-
opment.” The example below illustrates how
the teacher and students can have real com-
municative interactions in English using some
classroom language.
Teacher: Good morning, class!
Students: Good morning, Ms. Shin.
Teacher: Faida, what day is it today?
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Faida: I don’t know.
Teacher: Okay, then ask Asli.
Faida: Asli, what day is it today?
Asli: Today is Tuesday.
Teacher: Good! And what is Tuesday?
Students: Tuesday is Storytelling Day!
Notice that the communication is real and
that a routine has been established––that
Tuesday is Storytelling Day. Once students
become fluid with certain interactions, as in
the example above, you can begin introducing
more language into the daily routines.
7. Use L1 as a resource when necessary.
Because many interpretations of various
communicative approaches try to enforce the
“English only” rule, teachers sometimes feel
bad when they use L1. Teachers these days are
mostly encouraged to teach English through
English, especially at the younger ages. One
reason is to give students the maximum expo-
sure to the English language. Why not use L1?
It is one quick, easy way to make a difficult
expression such as “Once upon a time” com-
prehensible. After you quickly explain a diffi-
cult expression like that in L1, students will
recognize the expression in English every time
it comes up in a story. Since EFL teachers usu-
ally have a limited amount of time with stu-
dents in many classroom situations, that time
is too precious to waste. If it is more efficient
to use L1 for a difficult expression or word,
just use it. Concentrate on building commu-
nicative skills. Save your time for the target
language that is actually within students’
reach. For words that students can figure out,
the teacher can rely on visuals, realia, and ges-
tures. Important in the decision to use L1 to
translate new language is carefully defining the
language objectives for the activities. The
teacher should spend class time focusing on
those target language objectives rather than
spending time trying to make a difficult word
or expression comprehensible in English.
In addition, some students who have very
low proficiency can easily become discouraged
when all communication in the classroom
must be in English. Sometimes these students
can express comprehension of English in their
native language, and this can be acceptable for
lower level students. However, whenever pos-
sible, take the answers in L1 and recast them
in English. In addition, directions for many
activities can be quite complicated when
explained in the L2, so consider using L1
when it is more important to spend time
doing the activity rather than explaining it. In
short, use L1 in the classroom as a resource for
forwarding the learning process without
becoming too reliant on it.
8. Bring in helpers from the community.
If possible bring in helpers––parents, stu-
dent teachers from the local university, or
older students studying English––to tell a
story or help with some fun activities. Collab-
orate with others who are studying English,
studying to be English teachers, or who speak
English well in order to expand the English
learning community. Having someone new
and interesting do a storytelling can get stu-
dents more excited and create a break in the
regular routine. The best scenario would be to
carefully coordinate the guest with your lan-
guage objectives. Using helpers means taking
extra time to communicate your expectations
with the guest and working this special event
into your lesson plan.
Besides storytelling, helpers could assist in
the class when you want to do group work or
cooperative activities. With young learners,
group activities can be hard to coordinate, so
utilize volunteers in the community to help
manage the class for special activities. For
example, you may have stations set up around
the classroom, each station representing infor-
mation about the seven continents. Students
need to collect information about the geogra-
phy, wildlife, and countries from each conti-
nent. If you have English-speaking volunteers
at each station, then students will be more
likely to stay on task.
9. Collaborate with other teachers
in your school.
As mentioned in #4 (Teach in themes), it is
useful to find out what students are learning
in their other classes, in their native language.
Collaborate with other teachers in your school
to make the learning experience richer for
your students. Connect your lessons to the
topics, activities, and stories your students are
learning in their native language by planning
related thematic units that parallel the learn-
ing in other subjects. Since students learn lan-
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guage better when it is connected to their real
life, it is a good idea to consider what else they
are learning in a school day. Most children’s
lives revolve around home and school, so try
to coordinate with other teachers to find out
what is relevant to students; then add English
instruction on top of that.
If other teachers at your school are willing,
visiting each others’ classrooms can be a won-
derful way to get to know what is being
learned in each others’ classes and how. It can
aid in the creation of more effective lessons for
students and can increase their ability to make
connections between language and content. If
teachers have some anxiety about being
observed, Crandall (1998, 4) suggests that, “A
focus on shared students and their attempts to
negotiate meaning and construct understand-
ings in both classes can help keep the atten-
tion focused on student learning, rather than
on teacher effectiveness.” Then the EFL and
content teacher can view the observation as a
great opportunity to build bridges between
the language and content for their students.
10. Communicate with other
TEYL professionals.
As helpful as it may be to collaborate with
the other teachers at school to see what con-
tent is most relevant to students, it is also
important to keep in contact with other
TEYL professionals, both in your local area
and internationally. Doing so through local
and international professional organizations,
in-service programs, or special teacher educa-
tion courses, such as an online TEYL course,
helps to keep you current with trends in the
field. Most importantly, keeping in contact
with other TEYL professionals helps keep
your classroom fresh with new ideas, and col-
laboration can help to construct new ideas
and solutions to the common problems that
teachers face.
The importance of community
and collaboration
Finally, one of the most important ideas to
take from this article is the importance of
community for learning. Learning a language
is never an individual endeavor, and neither is
teaching. Although teachers can feel quite iso-
lated in their classrooms, it is important to
remember that openness, collaboration, and
sharing are the keys to enrich your teaching
and your students’ learning. The last three
ideas presented in this article encourage
expanding this community of learning. It is
what I call the TEFL Community Triangle,
which refers to a community of English-
speaking and English-teaching members of
both local and international communities
that EFL teachers belong to that can help
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TEFL COMMUNITY TRIANGLE
English Speaking Community
(parents who speak English well, student
EFL teachers from the university, high
school students, etc.)
Fellow School Teachers
(subject/content or grade level teachers
and other EFL teachers at your school)
Fellow TEYL Professionals
(professional organizations, in-service
programs, or special teacher education
courses, etc.)
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enrich their English-teaching practices––in
this case, to enhance the teaching of EFL to
young learners.
Since TEYL is a relatively new field world-
wide, it is important to utilize these various
communities as much as possible as resources
for improving the YL classroom. No matter
where you are, what type of class or curricu-
lum you have, who your students are, or how
limited your budget may be, the availability of
people and ideas most certainly abound. It is
important for those in the TEYL profession to
stay connected with each other and with the
local community in this most important
endeavor of educating our children.
Conclusion
As this article demonstrates, the ideas that
come out of a collaborative learning situation
like an online TEYL course whose participants
come from many different countries around
the world can be very helpful towards improv-
ing classroom practice. All of the ideas given
above stood out––after reflection by and dis-
cussion among many professionals in the
field––as some of the more helpful ideas for
teaching EFL to young learners. These activi-
ties should prove helpful to all teachers of
English to young learners.
TEYL is a dynamic field that is sure to
change in the years to come as Ministries of
Education around the world keep lowering the
age of compulsory English education, as estab-
lished TEYL programs become better devel-
oped, and as teachers of English to young
learners become better trained. Therefore, we
must continue this dialogue through our pro-
fessional communities to find more helpful
ideas for Teaching English to Young Learners.
References
Asher, J. 1977. Learning another language through
actions: The complete teacher’s guidebook. Los
Gatos, CA: Sky Oaks Productions.
Cameron, L. 2001. Teaching languages to young
learners. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Crandall, J. 1998. Collaborate and cooperate:
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content instruction. English Teaching Forum 36
(1): 2–9.
Haas, M. 2000. Thematic, communicative lan-
guage teaching in the K–8 classroom. ERIC
Digest EDO-FL-00-04. http://www.cal.org/
resources/digest/0004thematic.html
Moon, J. 2000. Children learning English. Oxford:
MacMillan Heinemann.
Nunan, D. 1999. Does younger = better? TESOL
Matters 9 (3): 3.
Rixon, S. 2000. Optimum age or optimum condi-
tions? Issues related to the teaching of languages
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council.org/english/eyl/article01/html
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JOAN KANG SHIN is the developer and
instructor for Teaching English to Young
Learners, an online course in the U.S.
Department of State’s E-Teacher Program.
She is a doctoral candidate in the
Language, Literacy and Culture PhD
Program at University of Maryland,
Baltimore County.
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