http://www.eltnews.com/columns/young_learners/ Teaching English to Elementary School Children en Copyright 2012 Tue, 19 Apr 2011 09:44:02 +0900 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss After reading a couple of books by Peggy Orenstein who writes about how teachers, both male and female, in American public schools treat boys and girls differently, I was prompted to look at my own teaching and the way I treat boys and girls in my elementary school classes. I found that when boys raise their hands to answer questions, they tend to shout “me, me, me” or “Hai, hai”, while girls are more likely to raise their hands in silence. While I do try and ask students who raise their hands silently, my attention was often drawn to the loud (mostly) boys. I also noticed that boys are more likely to try and answer questions that they are unsure of, while the majority of girls will only answer when they are certain they have the right answer. I also found that I tended to be more inwardly tolerant of naughty behaviour from boys than from girls. Although my reaction to the behaviour was similar on the surface, I realised that underneath I was more accepting of bad behaviour from boys than from girls, and students can probably sense this. Do these things really matter? Almost certainly, yes. Students are learning a lot more in the classroom than what we are explicitly teaching them. While the lesson is in theory an English lesson, the students are constantly learning other lessons about social roles, social norms, what constitutes acceptable behaviour and so on. How we as teachers treat our students will affect how those students think about themselves and about their roles in the classroom and more widely in society. How can we ensure fairness between boys and girls in our classes? Firstly we have to be aware of our own tendencies to treat boys and girls differently. Once we become aware of our own inconsistencies it becomes much easier to ensure our actions in class are fair. We can have strict rules about how students answer questions. For example, only students who raise their hands silently can answer. Or, if we do’t want to discourage this enthusiasm we can have a rule that we will ask boys and girls alternately. If girls are more reluctant to answer question than boys, we can have a system of points for girls versus boys, to encourage girls to answer questions. As well as ensuring fairness between boys and girls, we also need to encourage quieter students to speak out, regardless of whether they are a boy or a girl. Some students are naturally quieter and we don’t want to force them to speak but reluctance to speak out in class can have a detrimental effect on learning. According to Orenstein, “students who talk in class have more opportunity to enhance self-esteem through exposure to praise; they have the luxury of learning from mistakes, and they develop the perspective to see failure as an educational tool”. One way of allowing all students a chance to speak out is to have students divided into a number of teams. Points are awarded when students answer questions. To ensure all students have chance to speak, a rule can be used where the same student can’t answer again until all team members have answered a question. Students can help each other in order to avoid pressure on weaker, quieter students, but a new student must actually answer the question each time. http://www.eltnews.com/columns/young_learners/2011/04/ensuring_fairness_between_boys.html http://www.eltnews.com/columns/young_learners/2011/04/ensuring_fairness_between_boys.html Teacher Development Tue, 19 Apr 2011 09:44:02 +0900 I have always struggled to find ways of giving students opportunities to speak English in class in a communicative way without being prompted by questions, either by me or by another student. While being able to answer questions is an important skill in a foreign language, it is also important to be able to speak without having first been asked a question. One activity I have found that allows this kind of practice is using Spot the Difference pictures. The way I use these pictures is to give the students a pair of pictures which have about five differences and set a 3-minute egg-timer going. I sit with my back to the students with a piece of paper and pencil. The students try find the differences and explain them to me before the time limit is reached. Once all the differences have been explained, I read what I have written and they show me on the picture what it refers to. If there is something they didn’t know how to say or explained unclearly, this is when I can teach them the correct word or phrase. It helps to have your back to the students so that they can’t point at the picture - they have to explain clearly. The time limit encourages fluency and makes it more fun. This activity allows students to use language they have already learned in class in a meaningful way, and at a level that is appropriate. Lower level students can use single words while higher level students can use phrases or sentences. I have been using this activity in a class of three students who are in their third year of learning English. I have a very small, cheap book of Spot the Difference pictures which I bought from Amazon, called Spot the Differences Puzzle Fun published by Dover Publications. The pictures are simple line black and white line drawings and the differences are easy to find. The second time I did this activity in class the students immediately started asking me the English for anything on the picture they didn’t know, which they knew they would need for the activity, before they let me start the egg-timer. I let the students flick through and choose a picture. They usually demand to do two per class. The only special language that I taught in advance was “left picture, right picture” although these are words they already knew. I have found that they are very creative in using language they know to explain the differences to me, even if they don’t know the exact way to say it. It is also a useful way, depending on the pictures, for students to learn phrases such as upside-down, back-to-front, topsy-turvy etc. As the pictures are designed for children, the vocabulary that comes up is vocabulary that is interesting for children. It also lets students use a mixture of sentence patterns such as describing actions, describing positions, describing size differences and so on. ]]> http://www.eltnews.com/columns/young_learners/2011/03/spot_the_difference.html http://www.eltnews.com/columns/young_learners/2011/03/spot_the_difference.html Games and Activities The Four Skills Sun, 20 Mar 2011 12:45:30 +0900 About a year ago, after watching a presentation by Paul Nation, I wrote an entry about analysing children's lessons in terms of striking a balance between activities involving meaning based output, meaning-based input, fluency building and explicit language learning. As ELT expo season came around again and Paul Nation visited the Hiroshima expo, I decided to see how much my lessons had changed during the last year as a result of paying more attention to this kind of balance, and which activities had become more of a regular feature of my lessons. The following is a list of the activities I have been doing regularly in class over the last year or so under the headings of meaning- based input and output, fluency building and explicit language learning. Meaning-based input and output Answering questions against the clock This involves all the students in a small class answering questions in turn, trying to see how many they can answer in three minutes, against an egg-timer. The questions are a combination of questions they know very well, questions related to the current language targets and questions reviewing recent targets. The children don't need to make full sentences, but rather just answer as quickly as they can. The focus then is on meaning rather than accuracy or language. It involves both input and output as students are listening and speaking. Using picture books in class This is something I have only started doing recently. I use them in various ways but often using ones with pictures that encourage students to want to tell me, or each other, something about the picture. This works well even with very young (kindergarten age) students. They shout out what they can see in the picture. For younger ones they generally name objects they can see, while for older ones they start to try and describe what is happening or what they think is going to happen. For elementary-school age children, I also use this as a writing activity. This is predominantly a meaning-based output activity. Describe and draw Students describe something which the other students then draw. This works well for targets such as prepositions, body parts and describing places or people. Fluency-building Self-introductions This involves making a string of longer and longer self-introductions. First the teacher says, "My name is Carla" then each students does the same. Next the teacher says, "My name is Carla. I live in Higashi-ku" All the students then do the same. This continues until there is a string of a few different pieces of information. Most of the language is known well by the students, so it is a case of simply remembering what they have to say. Tests One of my favourite activities has become giving tests. I use the word "tests" in a very loose way. I tell the students it is a test but in fact it is just a way of building their confidence and fluency in writing simple words. They number from 1-10 in their notebooks. I show a picture or dictate a word (real or nonsense) and they write it in their books. I use words that should be able to be written easily by the students as my hope is that they will get all or the majority correct. Race against the clock About six to ten flashcards per students are laid on the desk. Students try to say all the words or sentences about the cards as fast as possible. I time the group, then we repeat a couple of times to try and get a faster score. The cards are ones that are known well by the students. Use of readers Since April I have been using Fun Phonics Readers with Finding Out levels 1-3. In class we read part of a page (students take turns and read one word at a time) and at home students read one page every day for a week. I keep them a unit or two behind the current Finding Out unit so that the reading is relatively easy for them, and include a lot of review of previous pages. Explicit language learning I found that before I went to Paul Nation's presentation, my lessons generally had too much explicit language learning at the expense of other types of activities, and I have tried to rectify that. Of course, explicit language learning is hugely important for young learners as they are learning English for the first time, unlike adults or university students who have learned it, at least to some extent, before. I have however reduced the time spent on this type of activity in order to increase the balance between activity types and this I feel has been beneficial. Below are some of the staple activities for explicit language learning I use in class.　 Memory For language introduced using flashcards, this game involves several flashcards on the desks. The first student makes a sentence for one flashcard (chosen by the student). The second student repeats the first card, then chooses and makes a sentence about another card. The third students repeats the first two cards, and chooses a third card, and so on. The language gets repeated several times, but in a fun way. Car Race Flashcards are laid in a car race track shape. Students decide where to start. They can all start at different places. They roll a dice to determine how far they move. They make a sentence for each card they pass as well as the card they finally land on. They score points based on the number of letters or words on the back of the the flashcard they land on. For example, if they land on "gorilla" they score seven points (seven letters in the word). If they land on "He's watching a movie" they score four points (four words in the sentence). To record scores they must go to the whiteboard. This takes time so they don't get bored between turns, and acts as a change of focus so they forget momentarily about the new words/sentences. Without this kind of point-scoring, the game can be tedious for students. As above, this activity allows new language to be repeated several times in a fun way. Dice points For new language that isn't introduced using flashcards, this game is simple, fun and works well. The students answer a question, ask a question, or make a sentence using the new language. After each turn they roll a dice and score points. Very simple but fun and works with almost any target. ]]> http://www.eltnews.com/columns/young_learners/2010/11/lesson_balance_one_year_later.html http://www.eltnews.com/columns/young_learners/2010/11/lesson_balance_one_year_later.html Curriculum Teacher Development Tue, 16 Nov 2010 12:01:53 +0900 I have recently started giving mini tests most weeks in my lower level children’s classes. Being against testing for children in general, this went against my natural inclination at first, but I could see lots of advantages to it so I decided to try it. The purpose of the tests is to give the children a sense of achievement rather than to assess what they know or don’t know, so the tests are designed to be easy for the students. My aim is for all the students to get all the answers right, or at least most of them. In this respect then, they are perhaps not tests in the usual sense of the word, but they have a test format and we call them tests in class. The students number from 1-10 in their notebooks, then I either dictate words or show pictures and the students write the words. When I dictate words, some of the words are real and some are nonsense, as they are learning to read and write phonetically. After we have finished all ten, I ask the students what number one is, what number two is, etc, and I write the correct answers on the board. The students mark their own tests and we are finished. I don’t ask how many they got right but they often tell me or each other. Sometimes I make intentional mistakes when I write the answers on the board, and hope the students will notice and tell me I have made a mistake. The main benefit of these tests is that the students get a sense of achievement from them. They almost always can get at least 8 out 10. They do not dread these tests in any way. They look forward to them, enjoy doing them and get a feeling of satisfaction from them. Now that they are all confident with them, I can throw in some more difficult words and they readily tackle them, and don’t mind if they make mistakes. It is easy to see how confident they are when they are able to point out the mistakes I have made. Another advantage is that the students seem to take more notice of any mistakes they make and also seem to think more carefully about words they are not sure about. Another dictation exercise I often do is dictating words for them to write into a bingo grid in preparation for playing bingo. They often rush this activity and don’t think carefully when they do this type of writing. This kind of quick, fluent writing is also useful I think, but it is also good to have the opposite kind of writing where they do think carefully. Asking students to tell me the answers provides an opportunity for reading practise as they have to read what they have written. Noticing how easily students write the words during the tests and also their shouts during the marking help me see where there are areas that need extra review. All of these advantages can of course be obtained in other activities and I am still not sure whether I am doing the right thing by giving these tests, but so far I certainly don’t think they are doing any harm, and they do seem to be having a positive effect. Students have to face a lot of tests in this country and I certainly don’t want to add to that test-taking burden but because of the easiness of the tests we do, I don’t think that is the case. I hope that, maybe, developing a positive attitude towards tests by doing these little English tests could help them face other tests with more confidence. http://www.eltnews.com/columns/young_learners/2010/03/tests_in_class.html http://www.eltnews.com/columns/young_learners/2010/03/tests_in_class.html Games and Activities Tue, 16 Mar 2010 17:12:26 +0900 An egg-timer is a great tool for the classroom. It can spice up old activities, turn competitive games into co-operative ones, and help with classroom management. These are some ways a three-minute egg-timer can be used in class. 1. For small classes (four or fewer). Each student has three minutes in which to answer as many questions as possible from the teacher. Another student keeps track of the score, and another watches the egg-timer. It is a good way to practise new targets and review older targets, as well as to practise general personal questions such as What school do you go to? Where do you live? etc. It also really improves students’ listening skills. It can be turned into a co-operative activity by having all students answering questions during the first round, then repeating the activity and trying to beat the previous score. 2. For large classes. The whole class has three minutes in which to ask one question each to the teacher (or to one volunteer student). Questions such as Do you like...?, Do you have ...? Can you ...? What ... do you like? work well, as well as any other questions the students know and want to ask. 3. For any size class. Divide students into small groups (about four). Give each group a set of cards that consists of some kind of pairs, for example, pictures and initial letters, pictures and words, questions and answers. Students have three minutes in which to match up the pairs. 4. For any size class. Divide students into small groups (about four). Give each group a set of cards that consists of some kind of pairs (as above). Students play concentration (shinkeisuijaku) and try to finish within three (or six) minutes. This makes for a faster game avoiding the time-wasting that sometimes occurs as students deliberate over which card to choose. It also makes it a more co-operative game than the standard one as the goal is to finish in the time limit rather than to win the most cards. 5. For any size class. Write “yes” ten times and “no” ten times on the board. Students have to ask yes/no questions to the teacher (or volunteer student). When the teacher answers “yes” erase one “yes” and when the teacher answers “no” erase one “no”. The goal is for all the “yeses” and “no’s” to be erased within three minutes. 6. For any size class. Give verbal maths problems to the students e.g. ten plus twelve, forty minus twenty-five etc. Students raise their hands and answer. They see how many they can answer in three minutes. Play again later in the class and try to beat the previous score. 7. For any size class. Divide students into small groups. Each group has paper and pencil. Give them a category, e.g. clothes and they write as many types of clothing as they can in three minutes. Points can be awarded for the number and bonus points for correct spelling. 8. For small classes. Practise reading or writing for fluency by showing words or pictures, (or dictating words) and having students read or write the words. See how many they can do in three minutes or ask them in advance how many they think they can do, and try to reach that goal. If there is more than one student, then, for reading, students can take turns, and for writing, all the students can write and, once all have written the first word, show the second picture, and so on. 9. For any size class. For time-consuming preparation or clearing away, use the egg-timer to encourage everyone to hurry up and get the job done. This can save a lot of time in class. A one-minute egg-timer is also good for smaller jobs. 10. For sleepy students. I have a student who has some kind of “writing narcolepsy”. I see his eyes rolling back in his head, and his attempts to conceal his yawns as soon as he has a pencil in his hand. However, the egg-timer works wonders at removing his sleepiness. I ask him how many questions and answers, or words, he can write in three minutes, and then we start. He hates to not reach his goal, and enjoys the excitement of trying to beat the clock, and this keeps him awake. We then have another three minutes for corrections. Then start again. The egg-timer has made a huge difference to my class with this boy. ]]> http://www.eltnews.com/columns/young_learners/2010/02/ten_ways_to_use_an_eggtimer_in.html http://www.eltnews.com/columns/young_learners/2010/02/ten_ways_to_use_an_eggtimer_in.html Games and Activities Mon, 08 Feb 2010 15:29:23 +0900 Why do we check homework? Firstly, we should consider the reasons we check homework. They probably include some or all of the following: to see how the students managed with the task set for homework in order to evaluate the students’ progress to give students another opportunity for learning as they make their corrections students and parents expect homework to be checked checked homework provides a correct model for students to look back on when necessary. How many of the mistakes in students’ homework should be corrected? If we look again at the above reasons for checking homework, it would follow that we should probably attend to all the students’ mistakes. This, however, may have some negative consequences especially, but not only, for weaker students. Weaker students may lose confidence if they realise they have made a lot of mistakes. Stronger students too can often be sensitive about mistakes. Pointing out all mistakes may lead students to be fearful about mistakes and may discourage them from taking risks in class, turning them into very passive learners. If they feel that perfection is necessary, they will be much more averse to taking risks. It is far better to have a child spell “desk” as “besc” than have them scared to write anything at all. How should we handle mistakes in homework? If mistakes are handled in a positive way then most students will be happy to deal with quite a few, as long as other students have a similar number or are occupied doing something else. If we correct the mistakes ourselves, the students are unlikely to learn from their mistakes and also don’t get any sense of achievement. It is better to have them self-correct. Giving small hints at first and gradually giving bigger hints as necessary gives maximum opportunity for students to think about, and learn from, their mistakes. For example, for spelling mistakes, first, point out which part has a mistake, then which word, then which letter, then say the letter or sound and anchor word (e.g. if they have spelled “desk” as “desc” we can say “k-key”), and finally we can give them three or four options to choose from written on the board (one is the correct answer - others are incorrect). Working through mistakes in this way will mean that finally the student gets the correct answer without being told by the teacher. This will lead to a greater sense of achievement as well as a greater likelihood of the word being remembered. How should we handle mistakes with punctuation or letter formation? This probably depends to an even greater degree on the individual student. It is important that writing is legible of course, and probably better overall to correct sooner rather than later to prevent bad habits taking hold. On the other hand, younger children may simply not yet have the fine motor skills needed for good handwriting. If students are making mistakes with the substance then we can probably be more lenient about punctuation and handwriting. With stronger students who are making few mistakes with the substance then we can encourage them to rectify any punctuation or handwriting mistakes they are making, such as height of letters, way of forming letters, and so on. How should we check homework for large classes? The method mentioned above will probably not work in a large class. For large classes we have to check the homework in advance or do it as a class activity in class. If we check in advance we can either correct mistakes ourselves or point out the mistakes, without actually correcting. If we have plenty of time for homework correction then students could be encouraged to correct their mistakes, and it can be re-checked with the following week’s homework. If we have time constraints that don’t allow this, it is probably better to correct those mistakes that we think the student may not be able to correct by themselves, and point out mistakes that we consider to be self-correctable. The drawback of this advance checking is that students don’t get the benefit of thinking through the corrections. It can also be quite time-consuming. We can check the homework in class as a whole class activity. This would save teachers’ preparation time. It still wouldn’t give much chance for self-correction as it would probably involve the teacher or a student giving the correct answer. Common mistakes could be done in a more useful way, with the mistakes written on the board and the students trying to correct them individually. One major drawback of class corrections is that it will accentuate differences in ability between students, with the result of lessening the confidence of some students. Weak students will probably not want to correct their own work in front of their classmates because they feel embarrassed by the number of mistakes, and are likely to put their homework away out of sight as soon as possible. An ideal mix of these two methods is perhaps to check homework in advance, and to incorporate any common mistakes into the activities for that day, either in a “Find the mistake” type activity or as part of a regular activity. Final Comments It is important to remember why we set homework and to make sure how we correct it fits in with the reasons we set it in the first place. If the reason to is to provide the students with an opportunity to practise English outside the sessions they have with us, and to increase the amount of time spent on English by our students each week, then it is important to keep homework as fun and as stimulating as possible for the students. This includes the correction of the homework which should also be as fun and stimulating as possible.]]> http://www.eltnews.com/columns/young_learners/2010/01/homework_checking_2.html http://www.eltnews.com/columns/young_learners/2010/01/homework_checking_2.html English in Elementary Schools The Four Skills Tue, 12 Jan 2010 14:42:48 +0900 Checking homework in children’s classes can be time-consuming, especially if the students are self-correcting their mistakes, and if some students have made several mistakes. Many teachers prefer to check homework at the beginning of the lesson rather than a later point in the lesson, when the students may be busy with something, so that any mistakes made in the homework are not repeated in the lesson. The students can’t really play a game at this time as they would be interrupted by having to do the self-correction of their homework. Students who have made more mistakes may feel embarrassed or lose confidence if they are having to make a lot of corrections while their classmates are waiting. The students who have few corrections to do will be bored and likely to get distracted and chat excessively in Japanese, possibly setting the mood for the remainder of the class. Self-correction is much preferable to teacher correction though, as most students rarely look at teacher corrections and so learn little from them. One way of dealing with this potential problem is to prepare worksheets for the students to do while the teacher is checking homework and some students are self-correcting their homework. Such worksheets should be relatively easy so that the students don’t need the teacher’s help, leaving the teacher to get on with checking homework and helping students with self-correction of their homework if necessary. They also need to be attractive (as all worksheets should be) so that the students want to do them, and don’t need any persuasion from the teacher. They can be of three main types - look and write, read and draw, or read, look and match. The students can settle down to these and then, when necessary, pause and do any corrections from their homework, going back to the worksheet when their homework is complete. As well as dealing with the above-mentioned problems this type of worksheet at the beginning of class can have several other benefits. Having a relatively easy worksheet lets the students increase their fluency in reading and/or writing. For weaker students it is hopefully something they can do reasonably well, increasing their confidence for the rest of the lesson. It is an opportunity to review recent language or language from several weeks or months previously, and also a good way of getting plenty of practice with problem letters, words or patterns. It is a good way of marking the start of the class and getting the students settled into English mode. As the students know the teacher is busy checking homework they are more likely to get help from each other if they don’t know something or need to check something, therefore helping to decrease their dependency on the teacher. As the worksheet is supplementary and not related to the main target of the lesson it doesn’t need to be completed, so as soon as all students have finished correcting their homework, they can stop doing the worksheet and the first activity can start. I have had particular success with these kinds of worksheets in my class of six students that started in April and are currently learning to read and write. The typical worksheets I give them currently consist of either pictures and the students write the words, or words and they draw the pictures, or words and pictures that the students connect with lines. I use a combination of recent language and language, from several weeks ago, that is now quite easy for them. As I am low-tech, my worksheets are drawn by hand and take about five minutes to make. It is a well-spent five minutes. http://www.eltnews.com/columns/young_learners/2009/12/homework_checking_1.html http://www.eltnews.com/columns/young_learners/2009/12/homework_checking_1.html Games and Activities Fri, 18 Dec 2009 13:09:11 +0900 Meaning-based input: listening or reading where the focus is on the meaning of what is being communicated, e.g. listening to a story. Meaning-based output: speaking or writing where the focus is on the meaning of what is being communicated, e.g. explaining how to make okonomiyaki. Language-based learning: activities which explicitly focus on grammar, vocabulary etc, e.g. memorising words from word cards. Fluency Development: activities where the students are engaged in reading, writing, listening or speaking at a level that is easy for them in order to help promote fluency, e.g. reading a book at a level that is lower than the student’s current level. I hope I have summarised them accurately. Of course some activities don’t involve just one of these, and many activities will involve two, three or, possibly, all of them. Nation was also not talking about individual classes but about the overall curriculum. I decided to analyse the two lessons I had prepared for my children’s classes the day after the expo. It was an interesting experiment and I would highly recommend it to teachers. Although Nation was talking about older students, I’m sure this kind of balance would also benefit children’s lessons. Below is an outline of one of the lessons and the analysis I made of the activities. Target: plurals and colours - What are they? They are (dogs). What colour are they? They are (brown, black and white). Number of students: 2 Activity 1: Dog dice game. Students take turns answering questions about pictures of plurals, then roll a dice. The number rolled indicates what part of their dog they can add. The aim is to complete their dog faster than their partner. Activity type: This is a combination of language-based learning and fluency development. They have been practising plurals a lot so if the question I asked was, What are they?, they could answer very easily and quickly and mostly accurately. This meant the activity had a fluency development aspect to it. If the question was, What color are they?, they had to think more both about the individual colours and remembering to use “and” only before the final colour. They haven’t had as much practice with this so are not fluent yet in answering this type of question. This aspect was language-based learning. Listening to my questions, both of which they are quite familiar with was also probably fluency development. Activity 2: Speed writing. Students have a pile of card showing a picture on one side and the word on the back. Against an egg timer they try to write all the words into their notebook. They work independently, first attempting to write the word, then checking they got it correct. If it’s correct they put it in a different pile. If they make a mistake they put it to the bottom of their pile. The words were relatively easy for the students’ level as they were words of mostly 3 letters, were phonetically regular (the students are learning to read and write using phonics) and didn’t include any special combinations (sh, ch, ee and so on). Activity type: Mainly fluency development. Many of the words were known very well by the students and could be written very easily. Some of the words were not even checked by the students before placing them in the correct pile,as they were so confident. As a few words were more difficult for them (some longer words such as melon and panda) this activity was also partly language-focused learning as they were focusing on spelling the words correctly. Activity 3: Racetrack game. Flashcards are laid out in a circle. Students roll a dice to move around the track. For the card they land on, they must make two sentences, They are (trees). They are (green and brown). They score points for how many (trees) are in the picture. Activity type: This is similar to Activity 1. Making the first sentence was fluency development and making the second sentence was language-based learning. It also involved fluency development for saying numbers as each turn they had to answer the question, How many (trees) are there? before they could add their points onto the board. Activity 4: Guessing Game. One students held the plurals flashcards and after choosing a card, gave the other student hints about the colour. The other student guessed the card. Activity Type: This involved meaning-based input and output. Both students had to speak and listen. The language they were using is not easy for them and they were focusing on the meaning in order to play the game. Activity 5: Christmas Picture. Students had to draw a picture based on what was written on the paper (They are presents and Christmas cards.) and then had to write an answer to a question (What colour are they?). Activity Type: Meaning-based input and output. In order to draw the picture they had to read the sentence that described what they should draw. They had to write an answer to a question based on what colours they had used in their picture. The language was at an appropriate level for the students so they weren’t able to read or write fluently, but had to think carefully. The focus was on accuracy related to meaning not related to the language, in that they were following instructions to draw a picture and then writing about their picture. I was happy to find that I seemed to have a balance of the four strands in that lesson. Whether that would apply to my lessons overall I don’t know, and will need to investigate further. It was definitely a worthwhile exercise as it has made me think about the types of activity I do in a fresh way. In the past I have focused more on whether I have a good balance of reading, writing, listening and speaking. Now I will be checking for a different kind of balance as well. ]]> http://www.eltnews.com/columns/young_learners/2009/12/a_quick_analysis_of_lesson_bal_1.html http://www.eltnews.com/columns/young_learners/2009/12/a_quick_analysis_of_lesson_bal_1.html Curriculum Teacher Development Tue, 01 Dec 2009 13:46:34 +0900 I took over teaching a fourth grade boy in April. This is his third year of learning English including learning how to read and write using phonics but he was still having a lot of problems with reading and writing even simple words. He is the only student in the class so I was able to spend a lot of time on reading and writing activities, going back to the basics of learning the single sounds and then slowly building up to two- and three-letter words. He was quite unusual compared to most students I have taught who have had problems with reading and writing, in that when trying to write a word such as “dog” he would usually be able to write the last letter and often the middle the letter, but not the first. This would happen particularly when trying to write a word where the initial letter was followed by a different vowel than the anchor word he had learned for that initial letter. For example, having learned the anchor word “panda” for “p” he would have problems knowing what letter should start the word “pen” or “pet”. This problem was probably caused by interference from the kana writing system. Many students have problems caused by this interference I think, but it generally causes a problem with writing the vowels following consonants rather than the initial consonants. The first step I took was to make sure he could read all the individual letters. We spent some time reviewing these in various ways. The game he liked best was a “race against the clock” game where we had a pile of letter tiles and we tried to read them all in three minutes. Next, I had a set of small pictures consisting of pairs of pictures beginning with the same letter, e.g. tent and toilet, panda and pen etc. These cards were used in various ways such as a “race against the clock” matching game, concentration, and as a writing task where the student would choose a pair and write the initial letter for the pair. From here we progressed to writing the initial letter after being shown only one of the pair. When he had difficulty I encouraged him to think of or find the other half of the pair. The third step was to show him the pictures and have him write the first two letters of the word - “te” for tent, “to” for toilet and so on. This really helped him to realise that words that seem like they would start with a different letter (if they were Japanese) actually start with the same letter. He is now very confidently writing 3-letter words, and phonetically simple longer words. The problem I now face is how much correction to give him. With his newfound confidence he is attempting to write longer and less phonetically regular words such as “sweater” which he spelled as “sweta”. I don’t want to damage his confidence but don’t want to leave a lot of words uncorrected so have been selecting a few to correct and leaving others. I try to limit the words he writes to ones he will be able to spell but I always give him some freedom to write what he wants as well which is when words like “sweater” come up. However this is a much better problem to face than his previous reading and writing problems. As his confidence consolidates I will give more correction, and introduce more phonetic patterns so that he can attempt a greater variety of words. http://www.eltnews.com/columns/young_learners/2009/11/a_success_story.html http://www.eltnews.com/columns/young_learners/2009/11/a_success_story.html Games and Activities The Four Skills Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:29:45 +0900 The PPP model of teaching (presentation - practice - production) has long been a popular model for EFL classrooms. The usual form it takes is the teacher presenting the language to be taught, the students practicing it in a controlled way and then the students having to use the language in a more natural situation. The presentation stage is usually teacher-centred, the practice stage is usually also teacher-centred, and the production stage is more student-centred. This model was intended for older EFL learners choosing to attend a language school and with motivation for studying English. How effective is this model for teaching children? If we present the new language to the children at the beginning of the class in a teacher-centred way e.g. holding up a picture and saying the associated word or sentence the children will feel that this new language is something the teacher “owns” and wants the the children to learn. It may be effective for some children but there will probably be quite a few who don’t really see any point in learning the new language and will make a corresponding amount of effort. If the children practise the new language in a teacher-centred way e.g. repeating words after the teacher or chorally responding to questions from the teacher, the language will have no real meaning for them. It will just be a classroom exercise and the new language is unlikely to be really internalised by the children. When it comes to the children having to produce the language in a more real-life situation they will probably have a lot of difficulty. The lesson is likely to never really have a production stage as the lack of internalisation will mean that the students are always relying on the teacher to prompt them with what to say. Teaching through games overcomes these problems. When we teach through games the three stages are all still there but they are not discrete steps. The practice and production stages become mixed together in games because as the students need to use the language in order to play the game, they are practising it as we can tell when they forget the word and need a prompt or make a mistake with the pronunciation, but at the same time they are producing it in a natural situation - in a game. What is production for one child may be the presentation for another. This can be illustrated by the Missing Card game. In this game several cards are laid on the desk or stuck on the blackboard. Some of the cards may be previously taught items while some are new. The teacher removes a card while the children close their eyes. They open their eyes and try to guess which card has gone. The correct guesser can be the one to remove the next card and so on. When a new card is the one to be removed, some of the students may know the English word while some won’t. When a student who knows the new word guesses the card, they are producing the language. For the students who don’t know the new word, the language is being presented to them by their classmate. If no-one knows the new language, the teacher can tell them. In this case, although it is the teacher who is telling the children, it is the children who are demanding to know what it is from the teacher. It is therefore a very child-centred method. Once the children know this game, what usually happens is that when they see that there are some new cards that they don’t know, they will ask the teacher or a classmate what they are before the first round of the game so that they are not at a disadvantage. This completely reverses the traditional presentation stage as it is the children wanting to know the new words in order to play the game. The words therefore are “owned” by the children rather than by the teacher. Teaching through games gets rid of the need for the teacher to present the new language while the students passively wait and listen. Some teachers find it hard to make this final leap. They are happy to practise the language through games but feel the language still needs to be given to the students first. Having done both myself and having watched many classes taught by other teachers using both methods, I have seen that introducing new language through games is more effective, more fun and more time-efficient. http://www.eltnews.com/columns/young_learners/2009/10/games_and_ppp_in_the_childrens.html http://www.eltnews.com/columns/young_learners/2009/10/games_and_ppp_in_the_childrens.html Games and Activities Thu, 08 Oct 2009 15:03:48 +0900 Do you like ....? and What ....... do you like? This gives great scope if they meet an English speaker. Do you like Japan? Do you like Hiroshima? Do you like sushi? Do you like okonomiyaki? Do you like baseball? What Japanese food do you like? What baseball team do you like? What sport do you like? and so on. Luckily for us as teachers, these questions are great fun to practise in class. The easiest way to do this is for the teacher to ask a few of the stronger students questions using the target pattern, and help them to answer. Then have a few students ask other students while the whole class is listening. Then put them into pairs and tell them to ask each other ten questions. They usually get so involved in this that they don’t stop after ten. The patterns are fairly easy so usually most students stick to using English and don’t lapse into Japanese. An alternative activity is to have a time limit - about 3 minutes for 20 students is about right. All students stand up, and have to ask one question to the teacher. After they have asked a question, they sit down. They must all be sitting down by the end of the time limit. All the questions should be different. This activity doesn’t use time as effectively as the first one but it is fun and they enjoy asking questions to the teacher. These questions can also be incorporated in a role-play mingling activity (see below). One thing to bear in mind about these questions is that they don’t lend themselves to topic-based lessons. Definitely, What ..... do you like? would be difficult to practise in a topic-based lesson. Do you like ....? could be practised but would soon become boring. They are much better suited to pattern-based lessons, where students can use any topic they wish within that pattern. To practise Where are you from? needs a bit more work from the teacher. This question can’t be practised in such a simple way because it isn’t versatile like the above questions. One way to introduce the question is to have some stick people drawn on the board with flags of various countries. Ask the students Where's he/she from? Then ask a few students where they are from. Then hand out character cards to each student. Mine are about playing card size. They have a name, an age and a country plus that country’s flag in colour. Each student takes on a new identity. They mingle, find a partner, and ask their name, their age, where they are from, plus any other questions they have time for (Do you like ....? and What .... do you like? can be practised). On a signal from the teacher, all students find a new partner and repeat. This can continue until the teacher stops the activity. Doing the above activities from time to time will ensure that when students have an opportunity to speak to an English speaker in a real-life situation, they will have the language necessary to have a reasonable conversation. ]]> http://www.eltnews.com/columns/young_learners/2009/09/english_for_engaging_with_engl.html http://www.eltnews.com/columns/young_learners/2009/09/english_for_engaging_with_engl.html English in Elementary Schools Games and Activities Tue, 15 Sep 2009 18:53:40 +0900 shinkeisuijaku in Japanese is a great game for the classroom. In small classes the basic game with two identical sets of pictures works well. Students take turns to turn over two cards and say the word or sentence associated with the pictures. If it is a matching pair, they keep the cards. If it isn’t a matching pair, they turn them back face down. In a larger class, we can have students divided into groups and each group plays among themselves. However without constant teacher supervision there is a tendency to forget or avoid saying the English and just play the game as they would in Japanese. It then becomes just a game with no English practice. In large classes then we need to adapt the game so that English practice happens regardless of where the teacher is in the room. Fortunately, there are several variations we can use that require the children to use English in some way. Variation 1 Have pictures and words or pictures and initial letters. Students have to match the picture with the corresponding word or letter. This requires the students to know the word in English and read the word or letter and consider if they match. Variation 2 Have two sets of different pictures. A pair is made when the initial sounds of the words are the same e.g. dog and desk, car and cow. This can be used with students who are learning to read and write and also with students before they learn to read and write, as a phonemic awareness activity. Many students have trouble realising that words such as dog and desk start with the same letter because in Japanese they would start with different “letters” - ど (do) and で (de). Having them become aware that English words are divided differently will help a lot once they start learning to read and write. This variation requires students to know the English words and to think about the initial sounds. Variation 3 Have sets of matching questions and answers e.g. What is it? and It’s a pig; What color is it? and It’s white. This requires students to read and understand the questions and answers. Variation 4 Have sets of of opposites e.g. big and small, hot and cold, or words from different categories e.g. lemon and orange, soccer and baseball. This requires students to read and understand the words, as well as think about opposites or categories. Concentration, when adapted, is a great game for larger classes. As mentioned above, it requires little monitoring. It also needs little setting up as all children know the basic game. Most children will automatically start a new game once they have finished one round so the activity can continue until all groups have finished at least one round without the teacher needing to worry about early finishers. The cards can also be used for different games such as a team game where all cards must be paired up as quickly as possible. In fact this is a good activity to do just before the main concentration game so that all the students know how the pairs should be made. ]]> http://www.eltnews.com/columns/young_learners/2009/08/using_concentration_cards_conc.html http://www.eltnews.com/columns/young_learners/2009/08/using_concentration_cards_conc.html English in Elementary Schools Games and Activities Fri, 21 Aug 2009 18:05:42 +0900 animal do you like?", Where do penguins live?", "What do lions eat?", What colour are tigers?". ]]> http://www.eltnews.com/columns/young_learners/2009/08/topicbased_or_patternbased_cur.html http://www.eltnews.com/columns/young_learners/2009/08/topicbased_or_patternbased_cur.html Curriculum Tue, 04 Aug 2009 14:09:35 +0900 How do you go to school? I go to school by bus. I believe this is important mainly because low level learners (children and adults) spend a lot of time asking and responding to questions rather than initiating conversation without using a question. The main chance they have to produce meaningful non-question sentences is when they are responding to questions. As their English improves they can give longer answers to questions, e.g. How do you go to school? I go to school by bus. It takes 20 minutes. If students are capable of this, then I have found that I am less strict about them using a full sentence for the initial answer, e.g. How do you go to school? By bus. It takes 20 minutes. This is the closest to a native speaker's answer, which is probably the reason I found myself accepting it without really thinking about it. There are two main problems I believe with an insistence on full answers. The first is that it is teaching them to do something that most native speakers rarely do. The second is that there are many occasions when students understand the question and know the answer but can't remember how to say the first part of the answer. Very often this will prevent them from answering because they feel they must give the whole sentence. In fact if they just gave the short answer, it would more closely resemble a native speaker's answer. How can we get around this problem? One way is to only insist on full sentences when it is not an answer to a question. If we use a prompt such as a picture rather than a question to get the full sentence practice, then when students answer a question we can encourage them, or at least allow them, to use a short answer. Another way is to have some activities where speed and fluency are emphasised, and in these activities allow short answers. This will let students see that short answers are acceptable. I have been playing a game (with two classes of three children who have been studying English for five years) that emphasises quick, short answers. I have a 3-minute egg timer. I ask questions to one student for three minutes while another student records the number of answers and the third is in charge of the time. We rotate roles so that each student has chance to answer. They remember their scores from previous lessons and try to improve them. As well as practising short answers, it is also a good game for combining revision of old targets with practice of new targets. I occasionally use picture prompts for some questions but mostly there are no visual prompts. I have found this game has worked well even with weaker students, and it seems to be very good for students' listening skills, especially guessing the meaning of the whole question from the keywords they hear. The students know they can answer questions with short answers, but so far I am still insisting on full sentences when answering questions relating to a new target at other times in the lesson. Whether this is the right thing to do or not, I am not sure. ]]> http://www.eltnews.com/columns/young_learners/2009/07/how_important_are_full_sentenc.html http://www.eltnews.com/columns/young_learners/2009/07/how_important_are_full_sentenc.html The Four Skills Fri, 03 Jul 2009 13:07:31 +0900 Notebooks are an indispensable tool for the teacher. Below are five reasons to use notebooks in class, five writing activities for notebooks and five games that can be played using notebooks. Five reasons to use a notebook 1. Students get used to writing on blank paper without the prompts of a textbook or worksheet. 2. Students can be independent, choosing what they write in the notebook. 3. Students can work at their own pace, and choose to write what is appropriate for their ability. 4. Students can easily look back at what they have done and see how they have improved. 5. Parents can easily see what the students have been doing. Five writing activities for notebooks 1. Students draw a picture of their choice and write the initial letter or word or sentence associated with the picture. 2. Give students a pile of flashcards that have pictures on one side and English on the other side.. They choose a card, write a word or sentence and then check the back of the flashcard, correcting their work as necessary. 3. Write questions on the board and have students write their own answers in their notebook. 4. Give spelling tests. Most students love tests if the tests are just to see how well they can do. 5. Dictation. Dictate letters, words or sentences and have students write them in their notebooks. Five games using notebooks (I designate the back pages for games as some games involve speed, and neatness tends to suffer. It is easier to encourage neatness in normal writing activities if the writing is not next to a scrawled page from a speed game). 1. Bingo. Save preparation time by using notebooks for bingo instead of readymade bingo grids. Dictate words then play bingo either using a 10-sided dice or have students take turns to choose a word. 2. Beat the clock. Have a pack of flashcards for each student or one big pile that they can share. Ask students how many words or sentences they can write in a given amount of time (I use a 3 minute egg-timer). Set the timer going and students try to reach their target. 3. Listening quiz. Give a description of something, e.g. "it's a long yellow fruit. Monkeys like them.". Students write their answers in the notebook. 4. Making puzzles. Students can make anagrams for each other, or other word puzzles that they have done in class. Give them a few minutes to make puzzles then they switch books and try to solve the puzzles. Teachers need to be vigilant to check puzzles are correct. 5. Memory pictures. Have students close their eyes and listen to three short descriptions or stories. e.g. "Number 1. It's a dog. It's yellow. It's in a tree. Number 2. It's a rabbit. It's pink and blue It's on a hill. " etc. After the three descriptions, students open their eyes. Ask questions about the descriptions, e.g. "Number 1. What color is it?" Then students get their notebooks and in a given time limit try to draw the three descriptions. For a final writing activity they can write sentences about the pictures they have drawn. ]]> http://www.eltnews.com/columns/young_learners/2009/06/why_and_how_to_use_notebooks_i.html http://www.eltnews.com/columns/young_learners/2009/06/why_and_how_to_use_notebooks_i.html Games and Activities The Four Skills Tue, 02 Jun 2009 12:51:31 +0900