Hello, I just had my very first day on the job, teaching English to Spanish kids in a nursery. I had loads of games prepared, with pictures, colors, action songs, you name it... but, the children just wanted to paint, and once they started coloring "the first two words", they didn't want to stop and no longer paid attention to me for the rest of the lesson. I'd be most grateful for any advice as to how to keep their attention, just so we'd learn a few more words every lesson, but I don't want to be pushy or anything. Have no experience with this age group; I love it though, but I need your help! Any one been there before? Any ideas?
Thanks a million!
Help with students 3 - 5 years old!
Moderators: Dimitris, maneki neko2, Lorikeet, Enrico Palazzo, superpeach, cecil2, Mr. Kalgukshi2
Teaching children
HI!My name is Priscila and I also teach children from this age. I'm brasilian and teach brasilian children English. Children really like to paint, so I think you should give activities to paint only after you tauch averything you want and let they paint freely in the end of the class. Or, you do some paint activities some classes and other activities in other classes.
I'm sorry if you didn't understand me. My English is not so good. But if you want my help anyway send me an e-mail. [email protected].
Hugs
Bye
Priscila Santos Rosa
-
voxangelorum
- Posts: 4
- Joined: Wed Oct 19, 2005 2:28 pm
Arts and crafts make good vocabulary meditation too!
Hi
I taught 2 children aged 4 and 12 aged 5 and *loved* it. Consequently I was really passionate about developing stuff they enjoyed doing. I thought I'd share some of the keepers from my repertory.
In general terms I used arts activities like painting and crafts as a stimulating way for them to repeat what they learned after our more language-intense games, songs and exercises. I found that crafts models or group murals generally proved a good way to keep them talking about your theme vocabulary (if you help out and provide a bit -a bit, mind you- of detail here and there) long after the introductory exercises, songs, games and review. Also art makes a good evolutionary step past the review point, which for me was a challenge to keep interesting. Arts and crafts was not my only trick, but it did save me many times. The first project took up two sessions and got a lot of mileage once completed, mainly because the kids wanted to keep interacting with it and it had just the right balance of detail and open space to foster a lot of imagination. Feel free to modify any of this to include your youngest.
Koreaville - one time we were covering community place vocabulary and so after a few days of covering the jobs like firefighter, police officer, etc and after a day or two of doing various recall games and activities I built a little Koreaville from five small boxes (I taped one box flap up to use as a shingle) and they'd help me suggest stuff to draw on the inside walls (e.g. fire station - fire pole, jackets and a dog- I added three little bays for the fire engines)(my police station had a picture of a jail in the back with an angry prisoner face)(my hospital was a vertical box with a glued paper of kid-drawn windows with happy and sad faces looking out) and then once labelled and completed, and all the 'teacher, why is this' questions answered, I laid them out on our playmat with strips of paper for roads and they would play with dinky cars going from one place to the next for different activities. Getting enough with Korea-ville came quickly so I made sure to alternate activities and revisit it so it stayed interesting, which it did for a while, e.g. we also used it to later practice 'go left' 'go right' 'go straight' and 'go fast/slow' with dinky car driving. I observed that with a little bit (a little bit mind you) of detail on the inside/outside of the boxes, they would want to come back again and again to do something with them. In fact they would run to the shelf where the 'houses' were stored and gaze up at them and say stuff like "when this is finished I want the fire station/garage/..." which of course got them saying the words.
Another time I was asked to teach about how Christmas is celebrated in the West so we made the city of Bethlehem on one window-wall and the kids made angels which I later taped up and they coloured three wise men and camels I made. Then everyday in December the caravan would march a little bit across the wall-top alphabet en route to Bethlehem and on the last December schoolday they arrived at the 'stable', also placed in the last week.
I have some other examples but basically, no matter what you do, from really simple stuff like painting on a theme to roleplays to bigger end-of-week projects, if you're doing things like this they are saying the words and associating the words with your picture-activities, dramatizations, models.
Anyhow, that was some of my experience with that age group and we all had a blast learning English vocabulary. Hopefully that gets you thinking...
I taught 2 children aged 4 and 12 aged 5 and *loved* it. Consequently I was really passionate about developing stuff they enjoyed doing. I thought I'd share some of the keepers from my repertory.
In general terms I used arts activities like painting and crafts as a stimulating way for them to repeat what they learned after our more language-intense games, songs and exercises. I found that crafts models or group murals generally proved a good way to keep them talking about your theme vocabulary (if you help out and provide a bit -a bit, mind you- of detail here and there) long after the introductory exercises, songs, games and review. Also art makes a good evolutionary step past the review point, which for me was a challenge to keep interesting. Arts and crafts was not my only trick, but it did save me many times. The first project took up two sessions and got a lot of mileage once completed, mainly because the kids wanted to keep interacting with it and it had just the right balance of detail and open space to foster a lot of imagination. Feel free to modify any of this to include your youngest.
Koreaville - one time we were covering community place vocabulary and so after a few days of covering the jobs like firefighter, police officer, etc and after a day or two of doing various recall games and activities I built a little Koreaville from five small boxes (I taped one box flap up to use as a shingle) and they'd help me suggest stuff to draw on the inside walls (e.g. fire station - fire pole, jackets and a dog- I added three little bays for the fire engines)(my police station had a picture of a jail in the back with an angry prisoner face)(my hospital was a vertical box with a glued paper of kid-drawn windows with happy and sad faces looking out) and then once labelled and completed, and all the 'teacher, why is this' questions answered, I laid them out on our playmat with strips of paper for roads and they would play with dinky cars going from one place to the next for different activities. Getting enough with Korea-ville came quickly so I made sure to alternate activities and revisit it so it stayed interesting, which it did for a while, e.g. we also used it to later practice 'go left' 'go right' 'go straight' and 'go fast/slow' with dinky car driving. I observed that with a little bit (a little bit mind you) of detail on the inside/outside of the boxes, they would want to come back again and again to do something with them. In fact they would run to the shelf where the 'houses' were stored and gaze up at them and say stuff like "when this is finished I want the fire station/garage/..." which of course got them saying the words.
Another time I was asked to teach about how Christmas is celebrated in the West so we made the city of Bethlehem on one window-wall and the kids made angels which I later taped up and they coloured three wise men and camels I made. Then everyday in December the caravan would march a little bit across the wall-top alphabet en route to Bethlehem and on the last December schoolday they arrived at the 'stable', also placed in the last week.
I have some other examples but basically, no matter what you do, from really simple stuff like painting on a theme to roleplays to bigger end-of-week projects, if you're doing things like this they are saying the words and associating the words with your picture-activities, dramatizations, models.
Anyhow, that was some of my experience with that age group and we all had a blast learning English vocabulary. Hopefully that gets you thinking...
Replying
Hi There!! 
To make your lesson successful, you must know the crux of you lesson. Like you said you want to teach them new words, but children get passionate about painting... well yes they are.
I taught aged 3-6 before. So first of all you must make you lesson planning. New words, eg. bird, fish and elephant with pictures on top...
1)you introduce the English words to them and make them repeat what you say....
2)then you can ask them what is the color, what do they do, are they big or small, where can you find them... Question arouse their thinking to their surrondings.
3)Once they understood the words to the picture, ask few student to attach the words to the picture. If they're correct, they understood the words.
4) then you can ask them to paint!
That's all. Thanks!
Charmayne
To make your lesson successful, you must know the crux of you lesson. Like you said you want to teach them new words, but children get passionate about painting... well yes they are.
I taught aged 3-6 before. So first of all you must make you lesson planning. New words, eg. bird, fish and elephant with pictures on top...
1)you introduce the English words to them and make them repeat what you say....
2)then you can ask them what is the color, what do they do, are they big or small, where can you find them... Question arouse their thinking to their surrondings.
3)Once they understood the words to the picture, ask few student to attach the words to the picture. If they're correct, they understood the words.
4) then you can ask them to paint!
That's all. Thanks!
Charmayne
Hello.
I know how u feel! I teach that age group now and if u are not careful things can get out of control.
1. Lesson planning and preparation is key here.
You have to know what you want to teach and how - and follow a plan step by step. There are good language course books for young learners (Longman, etc.) which can give you ideas about how things are organized.
2. Always introduce new items connected to your central topic (clothes/body/animals, etc) - but a few at a time. Do not overwhelm the kids with too much info.
3. Always begin the lesson with a routine (hello ritual/ knock-knock - come in, etc) - and follow a pattern - kids like organization and familiar patterns.
4. Always revise what you did last time - song, poem, whatever needs repeating.
5. In order to keep their attention and good discipline, you need to vary activities (they get bored or tired easily). Whatever the topic, leave coloring or painting for last (like a reward), and do your "serious" work first. But vary the things - tell a story, or recite poen with them, play cards (excellent way for memorizing new words!!), play action TPR games/songs, etc, etc , whatever - but always organizing these in such a way that the hardest is done first, and the best left for last.
Above all, however, you need to be strict, but fair. Being positive and kind is very important, but if you are too soft, you will fail to keep their attention. Kids need a firm hand and basic easy rules to follow. Have a pattern, helpers in class, a reward system, etc, etc., and things will run smoothly!
All the best!
Illiana
I know how u feel! I teach that age group now and if u are not careful things can get out of control.
1. Lesson planning and preparation is key here.
You have to know what you want to teach and how - and follow a plan step by step. There are good language course books for young learners (Longman, etc.) which can give you ideas about how things are organized.
2. Always introduce new items connected to your central topic (clothes/body/animals, etc) - but a few at a time. Do not overwhelm the kids with too much info.
3. Always begin the lesson with a routine (hello ritual/ knock-knock - come in, etc) - and follow a pattern - kids like organization and familiar patterns.
4. Always revise what you did last time - song, poem, whatever needs repeating.
5. In order to keep their attention and good discipline, you need to vary activities (they get bored or tired easily). Whatever the topic, leave coloring or painting for last (like a reward), and do your "serious" work first. But vary the things - tell a story, or recite poen with them, play cards (excellent way for memorizing new words!!), play action TPR games/songs, etc, etc , whatever - but always organizing these in such a way that the hardest is done first, and the best left for last.
Above all, however, you need to be strict, but fair. Being positive and kind is very important, but if you are too soft, you will fail to keep their attention. Kids need a firm hand and basic easy rules to follow. Have a pattern, helpers in class, a reward system, etc, etc., and things will run smoothly!
All the best!
Illiana
-
lalalateda
- Posts: 3
- Joined: Wed Nov 23, 2005 2:16 am
- Location: JAPAN
I just started working with kids in this age range. SOme of them really have a hard time sitting still. Luckily the teacher before me set up a routine to follow and the kids take really well to it. I would recommend setting up a routine for your classes like first having a vocab section, listen and repeat, you can make it fun by having them say the new words quiet first then in a normal volume then louder. Then maybe a writing or coloring section and at the end have a game or song (simon says or `if you:re happy and you know it` Once they get used to a routine things go relatively smoothly.
Good luck!
Good luck!
-
moonchild7903
- Posts: 35
- Joined: Sat Dec 10, 2005 2:25 pm
-
Carol Keeney
- Posts: 24
- Joined: Thu Dec 29, 2005 4:23 pm
Early Childhood Teaching Tips
Hi,
Try this great new book called Brand New Teacher. It covers everthing from scheduling to lesson planning and so much else. Good luck to you. Carol Keeney
www.Brandnewteacher.com
Try this great new book called Brand New Teacher. It covers everthing from scheduling to lesson planning and so much else. Good luck to you. Carol Keeney
www.Brandnewteacher.com