Learning Log n°3:  Some important reflections about the course

 teaching English to children.

This is my last learning log of this course. In this opportunity I want to share some reflections about the course regarding the topics we saw and some important activities we did.

To start, I want to reflect on this question: What is teaching English to children?

One of the most important challenges for a language teacher is to teach English to children. Many students of foreign languages start their teaching experience with children but their experience become a mess when they realized that children don’t pay attention easily, they are extremely active, self-center, and they don’t understand some abstract concepts.

To overcome these kinds of situations is necessary to take into account the following when it comes time to teach English to children:

1.      A teacher must be informed of the children development: It is important to know about the biological, cognitive, affective and the social development of a child, this will guide the teacher when it comes time to plan the class. The teacher can read some important authors that have made some researchers about these topics like Piaget, Bruner and Vygotsky.

2.      A teacher must be informed of children’s interests:  Nowadays children have a variety of entertainment through TV programs and a lot of computer games, so is important for a teacher to be updated on this to take into account when planning a class.

3.      A teacher must know how to plan a class:  The backbone of a class is the lesson plan. A definition of a lesson plan is ¹ “a progression of interrelated activities which reinforce and consolidate each other in establishing the learning towards which the teachers is directing his efforts”. There are many ways to do it but the most important is to take into account in which kind of syllabus our English class is placed. The book ² “The Primary English Teacher’s Guide Book has good examples of how to plan a class, before while and after the class.

4.      And last but not least a teacher must enjoy the classes with his/her kids: This point is important because students’ attention depends on the teacher’s attitude toward the class, and especially with kids is important to have enthusiasm and energy.

Those were some important aspects I learned in this course.

I can learn a lot of thing from readings but if I link the theory with the practice that learning will become meaningful. Through this course we did some “microteachings” that gave us tools to analyze some activities we usually do with our students, and we learn some others. One of the most meaningful and challenging activities for me was to do the final demonstration.  It was challenging because before presenting it we watched in class some videos about previous demonstrations. Some of them were not so good even when they took the same class, so for me and my group was a challenge to try to do the things right, taking into account all the things I mentioned above.

I can say this course gave me great tools to continue teaching English to kids, I love to do this but I love more to learn new things in order to improve and to give the best to them.

REFERENCES 

^{1.        Rivers, W. 1968. Teaching Foreign language skills: University of Chicago Press.}

^{2.        Brewster, J. Ellis, G. & Girard, D. (1992). The Primary English Teacher's Guide. London: Penguin Books}

Hello Classmates!!

Today I want to share with you a wonderful website I use with teenagers and children. The website is http://www.eslgamesplus.com/ . In this website you can find wonderful games you can use in class. 

You can play in your class Who wants to be a millionaire, the page offers many topics, you choose the appropriate for your students.

Or you can play a board game.

I hope this can help you. You don't need to move to a computer room, you need a computer and a video beam and your students and you will enjoy this wonderful tools in the classroom.

Fern goes to India

FREE ONLINE CHILDREN'S STORIES 

This is a shor story about a fox who travel to India. I found this story in this website http://www.storytimeforme.com/player/?id=fern20&fs=0 you can find more of them for your students, they are great because they have the transcription.

Classroom Management

According to the ¹Glossary of Education Reform, Classroom management refers to the wide variety of skills and techniques teachers use to keep students organized, orderly, focused, attentive, on task, and academically productive during a class. This definition is mainly what we learnt after taking didactic courses. 

If you ask to a student who attended a didactic course, what is classroom management? he/she will answer that is the activity to keep the class in order and the act of controlling discipline.  But is that what really classroom management means? Is all about discipline and order for developing a given activity in class?

Let’s give you an example; you are teaching 5th grade students, you have developed some appropriated techniques for controlling inadequate behaviors, you organize the chairs of the classroom in a position students are not allowed to speak with their classmate, and you have to give a two hours English class to 40 students. In order to make all students participate, you plan individual presentations for the class, so each student will make their presentation of any topic. In the first five minutes a big part of the students would be paying attention then some of them will start to talk or to stand up, or throwing some paper airplanes etc, What happened? 
 In this situation we saw that to keep a class in order, on task, and attentive is not just a matter of controlling techniques. Classroom management involves: activities, time management, materials, facial expression,  attitude,  body language. As teachers we can’t think that if we yell on students or talk them “with authority” students will pay attention and behave well, some students are distracted because the way or the shape of the class activities.

I think classroom management is an important topic and through many courses we have seen it as a topic of little importance. If we learn that everything is connected (the lesson plan, materials, discipline, controlling techniques, time management, body language) and if we take into account that everything is important because all those aspects work as a whole body for making a successful class, we will stop to blame students for their lack of interest in our classes.

1. http://edglossary.org/classroom-management/

Did you remember this tongue twister?

"My hat it has three corners,

three corners has my hat; 

and had it not three corners,

 it wouldn't be my hat"

Hello!
In my class with teenagers I did an activity with the tongue twisters we learned in the teaching English to children class.

They are between 12 and 14 years old, that means that they are very competitive.

Before teaching the tongue twister I separated the classroom in two teams and I gave to each team the tongue twister but in 10 pieces. And they had 2 minutes to organize it in the correct way. 

I think they took more than two minutes to resolve it but finally one group did it. Then I wrote the tongue twister on the board and we say it with the gestures representing specific words and omitting some words.

Do you teach little kids?

Hi!
I want to share you these videos I use in my classes with little kids, they really love them.
Those videos are for teaching numbers to little kids.
Enjoy them!

My experience teaching to children.

Hello my dear Classmates I want to share my experience teaching English to little children and teenagers.                                                     

Little kids (ages five to six) love puppets. Let me introduce you Mr Wolf, he is our pet in class, kids always wait for him. I've been used him for greetings and for asking kids' personal information. 

This is the first time I teach English to little children and, this have been a very challenging experience. 

When I accepted the job  the first thing I did was asking for recommendations or advice to a friend of mine that teaches English to little kids, unfortunately she was too busy and we couldn't meet so the only option I had was surfing the internet and looking for materials and information about teaching English to young learners.

A good website I found and I use a lot is http://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/en/  you can find a lot of stories, songs, and games. If you sing up you can have access to the materials, flash cards, audios etc. This is an excellent website because their materials and resources are divided by age, skills, and English levels I recommend you it.
Although this web site has been a great tool my salvation was the course Teaching English to children. I have attended just four classes and I have learned a lot of useful tips and activities and I really enjoy my class with little kids (ages 5 to 6).

But the biggest challenge I have is to teach English to very little kids (ages two to three). This has been the most difficult experience teaching. With them I used songs and the puppets but their attention span is so short and if they are not crying they are hitting their classmates and sometimes I just feel that everything is a mess. 

If you have a similar situation with very little kids this website can help you http://www.dreamenglish.com/2and3yearolds