Teacher Discussion Forums

Hi, I'm teaching a group of 8-year old students in a private centre. There are only 5 or 6 students in a group (sometimes even fewer), and I've found out that teaching small groups can be as difficult as teaching very big groups of children. At the beginning of the year things were more or less OK, but now problems are arising since they are so well behaved that they are boring (I'd never tought I would say this!). I don't know what else to do with them: they get bored with the book, they get bored with English songs... some of them even get bored with games, and you know, in a class of 6 children if 2 of them don't want to play... there's no game.
Do you have any idea? Anything that can help me to liven up the atmosphere of the class? I'm trying to do my best, but I feel myself a little bit absurd when I am the only one who is singing the songs and doing the actions!!!!
If you have any idea, game, song... whatever, everything will be appreciated. I'm desperate!!! Thank you very much!

That's a big problem and not a lot of information to work with.

I'm going to write this down, even though it's apparent, you need to appeal to their interests. Boys need to move and burn energy. Girls want to be rewarded for their effort. (These are generalizations, please don't blast me for that.) Here are two examples of games that work really well for me:

I posted a warm-up game on this forum. I use it at the beginning of all my new classes and then I move it to the 2nd of 3rd spot of my lesson to maintain interest:

The Exercise Game: You can always do a TRP segment. Shout commands to the students like jump, sit down stand up, clap, turn around, raise your hand, etc. Do the actions along with the students so they get the hang of it.

Then, jump when you say clap and see how many students make the mistake. Then tell them you're going to try and trick them and this is a game. Then proceed to go through a list of commands while you and the students preform the actions, and then try to trick them. When kids make mistakes they are out and the game continues until you have a few finalists.

As time goes on you can advance to things like, "Don't jump." "Say Jump" and eventually to telling stories and having the students do actions along with you. "I walked to the store. I opened the door. I looked inside. I saw a barber. He looked like a pig. I slammed the door and ran home." Do the story enough times changing the underlined parts and you might get the students to do a story as well or at least call out the underlined parts.

Find This: I have cheap foam letters I hide in the room during the phonics portion of class. The students learn one letter, two words that start with that letter, and it's reading. Then I send them outside and have them count to 20 (30, 40, 50) while I hide the letters. Then I go outside review the information again and then send them in to find the letters. Then at the end I ask who has the letter. The students then tell me the 2 words and reading. I give them a sticker for each one they find.

I have some phonics cards you can use for introduction and playing games www.mes-english.com/phonics.html

One last piece of advice: don't give up on a good idea. Just because it didn't work today doesn't mean it won't work tomorrow. Sometimes the younger kids just need time to get the hang of it.

- Mark Cox
www.mes-english.com

What about a craft activity with the directions in English? They might be tricked into thinking that they aren't learning that day. It could be something from their culture or something American kids would do in school.

Thanks to both of you for your ideas! mesmark the internet site you've given me it's full of resources! thank you very much, and srta. daniels yes, your idea of the craft activity is good, I mean, I've already done it in class and they seem to enjoy it, but we cannot be all the time making postcards or things like that, I've got a syllabus to teach!! . Even though, thank you and if you have more ideas, keep writing!
Regards

How about creating a little competitioin - very low key - among the group? You could have a passport to English with a nice cover from the school and pages they can get stamped when they have completed some of your syllabus. They need to know what it is that they have to learn and you will have to have some way to gauge their knowledge but you can do that through games or quizzes or homework or quizzing each other in pairs. If your syllabus is in themes you could even make a background picture for each page or have them come up with pictures and words or a little story on each page. Stickers are good motivators for this kind of little booklet as well. They can get extra points for doing extra work at home - making an English book or labelling pictures or making a poster, reading to parents, siblings, etc.