Teaching young learners

Principles, strategies and training

Marianthi Kotadaki
ELT School Advisor, Ilia, Peloponnese
 How do children learn?

• “Young children are still using their individual, innate

language-learning strategies to acquire their home language
and soon find they can also use these strategies to pick up
English”.

• “Young children, who acquire language rather than

consciously learn it, as older children and adults have to, are
more likely to have better pronunciation and feel for the
language and culture”.
 The children as esl/efl learners
• more enthusiastic than • they lose interest more
adults. quickly

• they want to please their • they become less

teacher rather than their motivated when tasks
peers. are difficult

• they will have a go at an

activity even when they
• they find it difficult to
don’t understand how or use language to talk
why. about language
"Do it again.“ : a powerful tool! If the pupils find something amusing
they will want to do it over and over again

So, how can these help?

FUNNY SOUNDS
FUNNY WORDS
PHYSICAL COMEDY
 Characteristics of young learners
• “Children are active learners and thinkers.”
(Piaget, 1970)

• “Children learn through social interaction.”

(Vygotsky, 1962)

• “Children learn effectively through scaffolding

by adults.” (Bruner, 1983)
 According to Piaget
• Children learn through
making sense of the
world.

According to Vygotsky
• Adults mediate the world for
children through playing,
stories, questions, ideas,
experiences.
 Piaget in the English class
• Children learn from actively interacting
with the physical environment in
developmental stages.

• They learn through their own individual

actions and exploration.

• The children gradually develop their formal,

logical thinking.

• Children are encouraged to solve problems.

• Knowledge derives from action.

Vygotsky in the English class
Teacher models questions for
children

“Do you like swimming?” and

encourages similar questions

Through doing things in a social

context, the children internalise
language
Bruner’s scaffolding and routines
• Teachers have to get children interested in the tasks

• Teachers have to simplify difficult tasks breaking them

into smaller steps.

• Teachers have to keep the children on track always

reminding of the goal set.

• Teachers have to assist the children’s effort

demonstrating other ways of doing the task

• Teachers have to show the idealised version of the

task.
Key principles revisited

• Children actively try to construct meaning

• Children need space for language growth

• Language in use carries cues to meaning that may

not be noticed

• Development can be seen as internalising from

social interaction.

• Children’s foreign language learning depends on

what they experience.
 Key principles explained
1. Teachers need to examine activities from the child’s point of view to
assess whether pupils will understand what to do and why.

2. Routines and scaffolding contribute to effective learning.

3. Children need to be helped –not through formal grammar- to grasp that

meaning.

4. Language can grow as the child takes control of language used initially
with other children and adults.

5. The broader and richer the language experience provided for the children,
the more they are likely to learn. Development in certain skills means
experiences that will build those skills.
 Important secrets
• Though they may not understand everything they hear, children grasp the gist: they understand a
few important words and decipher the rest using different clues to interpret the meaning.
• Children should not be told they have made a mistake because any correction immediately
demotivates. ‘I goed’ soon becomes ‘went’ if the child hears the adult repeat back ‘yes, you
went’; they will self-correct in their own time.
• Boys need some different language experiences with girls.
• Young children need to feel secure and know that there is some obvious reason for using English.
• Activities need to be linked to some interesting, e.g. everyday activities about which they already
know.
• Activities are accompanied by adult language giving a running commentary about what is going
on.
• English sessions are fun and interesting, concentrating on concepts children have already
understood in their home language.
• Activities are backed up by specific objects, where possible, as this helps understanding and
increases general interest.
• Before they can decode English, young children need to know the 26 alphabet letter names and
sounds. As English has 26 letters but on average 44 sounds (in standard English), introducing the
remaining sounds is better left until children have more experience in using language and
reading.
A purpose for learning
 Key words for YL teaching
• Enjoyable

• Meaningful

• Supported

• Social

• Purposeful

• Full of practice
 YL language teaching “tips”
• Imitate the L1 environment in the class

• Teach language in a context.

• Don’t teach grammar explicitly!

• Create an English speaking environment.

• Keep yourself motivated!

• Encourage!

• Make English fun.

 We usually need
• A starter activity
• An attention getter activity/signal/chant
• Brain breaks
• An end-of-class activity
Do you want tomatoes?
Yes, please.
No, thanks

How many …..?

4 slices of cheese, please
Little Red Riding Hood: A board game
• The children roll a die, and
rather than count the spaces,
say the vocabulary on the
space before proceeding.

• If they land on a flower space,

they lose a turn and take one
of the laminated flowers from
the board, but,

• if they land on the wolf and

have at least one flower,
they’re safe.

• If they don’t have any

flowers, they must return all
the way back to the
woodcutter space (about a
third of the way from the
beginning of the path), as he
was the one that saved Little
Red Riding Hood in the story.
• Not too much time on an activity!

• Different kinds of activities:

quiet and ‘noisy’ ones in turns

listening-speaking-reading-writing

individual-pair work-group work-class

teacher-student and student-student

activities foe various styles and intelligences

• Repeat and recycle as much as possible

• Connect language to other content areas.

 Lesson plan
Lesson (and song/story/poem) title:

Vocabulary:

Grammar:

Objectives: By the end of the lesson, students should be able to…

Warm-up:

Presentation:

Practice:

Follow-up:
 Do we translate? Of course! For …
• hard words and expressions

• (difficult) instructions for activities

• language objectives
 Stories
• She tells the story waving pictures at the
pupils.

• She gets groups of pupils to learn parts of the

story by reading it.

• Pupils act out their parts in groups.

• Pupils complete blanks on a simple version of

the story text.

• Children write their own story using new

ideas.
 Story lesson activites
• Q & A. comprehension questions for students to answer orally.

• TPR. If the story has movements do a TPR activity with pupils.

• Group retelling. Students retell the story and fill in gaps.

• Create your own ending. Tell the story up to the climax, and have students predict the ending.

• Drama. Do a retelling by having students act out the plot of the story.

• Story mapping. Give students a graphic organizer to map out the plot of the story.

• Story boarding. Have students make simple drawings in boxes that show the plot of the story
sequentially (like a comic book). The drawing can be accompanied by text or dialog bubbles.

• Read & Write Books. Students create their own storybook by drawing and adding text.

• Projects. Have students work together in small groups to create projects on the story.
 A handful of resources
• http://www.primaryhomeworkhelp.co.uk/interactive/onlinestory.htm
https://storybird.com

https://storybird.com/books/favorite-animals-7
 Annamaria Pinter Lynne Cameron

http://didactics-a.wikispaces.com/file/view/lynne+cameron.pdf
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/sites/teacheng/
files/B369-Young-Learners-Activity-Book_v10.pdf
http://rcel.enl.uoa.gr/peap/training/e-training