Teaching Ideas
A Surprise Box: A Resource that Engages the Young L2 Learner
Johannes C. Razenberg
TESOL teacher
March 2003
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When I was a child, I was crazy about boxes, especially ones that had something inside for me to discover. Thus,
it occurred to me back in 2000 that incorporating a box as a teaching resource to aid discovery in my early
childhood classes may very well work. And it did.
Making something meaningful and important in a child's world is no easy task. In the L2 language and learning
relationship, it is essential that a child engages with the learning task to bring about learning according to
ideas of early childhood education presented by Emmitt and Pollock (1997) and Maltby, Gage and Berliner (1995).
A surprise box engages a child with both language and learning by drawing upon a child's natural curiosity in
his/her immediate world, and requiring a child to produce the L2 in order to achieve a clear meaningful goal
(discovering what is in the box).
Furthermore, in keeping with the purpose of incorporating a resource in an educational program, a surprise box:
- helps to gain and maintain interest in a lesson;
- encourages mental involvement;
- encourages the use of various learning styles;
- makes learning more meaningful by linking in with previous knowledge;
- makes previous abstract ideas concrete;
- caters for students who learn best through different senses;
- reinforces, integrates, and extends classroom instruction;
- helps in the recall of information;
- makes previous explanations of difficult concepts and skills clearer; and,
- provides immediate feedback and knowledge of results.
(adapted from Barry & King 1993, pp.136-7)
In short, a box of surprise discoveries engages the young L2 learner with the task and provides him/her with a
context which s/he will want to use the L2 to communicate because the task is meaningful to her/him. I believe
you will find a surprise box to be a valuable teaching resource in your classroom too.
Level
- Early childhood to elementary
Number of Students
Suggested Time
Learning Objectives
- A surprise box will allow and encourage students to cooperatively work together and combine
their knowledge, skills, and abilities in a discovery activity.
Proven Successful Lexical Areas
- Classroom objects
- Belongings
- Sports equipment
- Household objects
- Clothing
- Fashion accessories
- Food
- Toys
- Musical instruments
- Animals (a real puppy is quite a surprise)
- Class rewards
Functions
- Guessing
- Predicting
- Problem solving
- Synthesizing
- Gathering information
- Describing
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