Teacher Discussion Forums

My best advice would be to let them go as long as they're not disrupting the class. You need to stay focused and teach. They will bore quickly of what they were doing and may come back. That will work if you have one or two but not the whole class.

Try some incentives for game winners and even participants. Stickers, stamps, whatever. That might bring some back to the table. You can also have a behavior chart with stickers. It's amazing how well those can work at times.

You can also try playing some games or activities (non ESl) to get them on your side and focused. Find out what they like to do and then try to work around that or make what they like to do the incentive for other things.

I hope that helps.

mark
www.mes-english.com

Most preschool programs only ask the children to pay attention in a group for 20 minutes so I would think that you are doing well. The groups I have seen call it Circle time and offer juice and cookies as reward for sitting that long. They put the chairs in a circle and do various activities such as you have described, plus reading a story with pictures large enough for the group to see and telling stories from pictures taken of the group doing activities for the rest of the time. They have the room set up with various stations - a playhouse, a painting corner, a large equipment corner, blocks, table with small muscle activities, library corner with books. If the group is large, each student has a card with a picture on it and they must put their card in a reservation board with pictures of the various stations. They allow four students or so in each station and if the stations are full, the student must go somewhere else. When they are finished the station they move their card. Each station encourages English in some way. A tape recorder in the book corner telling English stories that go along with the books, things in the housekeeping corner that encourage English - telephone books, messages on the fridge, family ablums with the pictures labelled in English and so on. The teachers then move about the room and talk to the students in small groups of four and tell them what they are doing in English and point out the English artifacts. They talk to the students on the pretend phone in the housekeeping area in English, or teach numbers by stringing beads at the small muscle activities table. The circle time is held at the end of the time period when the students have had a chance to work off some of their energy. I really think that unless you have 4 or 5 students it would be better to have some help - we usually have 2 or 3 adults to 20 children.

Try to group them. And then play a game. In the game, make sure they learn something. In each group, assign a leader. The best group will receive an award. Let them compete to each other. It will challenge their mind and be more organized (since they will outsmart other teams).

Yolanda,

I know just how you feel. This is my first time teaching little ones. I only have 3 five year olds to teach though. I'm not sure how these ideas would work for you but here are some of the things I do.
First, don't expect little kids to focus on any one activity for more than 5 or 10 min.
Second, it helps to let yourself be silly. The kids love it and will identify with you more.
Third, set a predictable schedule for your class. For me, it's 5-10 min. of free play time at the beginning of class (with occasional English interjections from me, i.e. if they are talking about something I might rephrase what they've said in the form of a question.), then we do various review activities and games for 15-20 min. followed by letter review and new vocab. then another game, playdough time or drawing. You can talk to them in English and make playdough shapes or drawings right along with them while talking about what you're doing. Having a predictable schedule helps the kids know what is expected of them and anyone who has or cares for small children will tell you kids focus much better if there is a schedule.
Fourth, be flexible. If the kids loose interest in an activity or don't "get it", move on to something else or try introducing it in a different way. I've had to simplify games for my students or just skip things that they just couldn't get. Chances are, if the drift away or start talking to each other, they don't get what you're doing and no matter how hard you try, they won't pay attention again until you switch activities.
Fifth, review is key for kids this age. Just like adults, they have to feel like they are accomplishing something and need the positive reinforcement which comes from practice. For example, I introduced colors the fourth day of class and we have reviewed them in some way (different games or question/answer activities) everyday for the last 4 weeks and now they are racing each other to get it right first. Games and songs like Simon/Teacher says and Hokey Pokey are great for reviewing actions, body parts, right, left, in and out. The kids love it because it lets them move around and be silly.
Sixth, relax. Kids are very sensitive to the emotions of adults and will often reflect your state of mind or act out when you're upset. There are times when the kids have lost focus and refused to pay attention so I just sit down and wait patiently for them to decide to come back. You'd be amazed at how well this works (at least for my class).

Kids this age are naturally curious and are very good at picking up new information but don't expect them to be able to sit still for very long or look like a "normal" (older) class. We do alot of movement and most seated activities are done on the floor because kids are often more comfortable sitting on the floor than in a chair or at a desk.

Unlike some of the responses here, I don't believe in bribing the students with food or prizes because they sets up false incentives. I've found that more often than not, it's simply unnecessary. Positive reinforcement, Genuine praise from the teacher when they do well and feeling like they're "getting it" (through repetition/review) is all the incentive they need.

These are the things I've learned so far with my class as well as from having four children of my own. I hope this helps.

Shellie

I think Shellie raises some really good points. Most of my teaching schedule is filled up with kids between 2-6 years ranging in class sizes from 4 to 40.

I think the main thing is that the kids are getting exposure to English, so try to speak only in English.

Kids at that age and in general just want to have fun. They have a lot of energy - use that ruun around alot, try to avoid sitting down and just talking to them, you'll get the best results when you have student to student interaction.

Only a few words per lesson - I only introduce 2/3 new words a lesson (this is for a low level class). The kids don't have the attention span to remember any more. Spend time reviewing old material.

Change activites often to keep things interesting. If an activity is going well, then keep it going a little longer, if it's not then stop and change to something else.

Either these methods work or i just have really nice and obedient kids, about 150 of them.