A couple of ideas for kindergarten

[EFLwithlittleones]

Recently I received an e-mail from a teacher with a kindergarten class asking about ideas for teaching literacy skills. She was having difficulty enabling the children to remember the vocabulary. It was a small class, only 4 female students but the ideas are all adaptable for a larger group:

Children tend to forget the language if they are not interested in it. However there are a number of approaches you can use to stimulate interest. I would begin though first by re-orientating your vocabulary choice. You can come back to the book and its language items (see below). Think about the kinds of words which the children will immediately identify with. These words would include little pronouns like 'me' 'you' 'him' and 'her' 'mum' 'dad' 'house' colours and animals as well as verbs for action. Each child will also have her own likes and dislikes. The lexis of young children is egocentric so reflect that in your vocabulary choice to begin with.

By extension it becomes easier to design lessons because you can draw upon their own world view. Use pictures from your life (be assured, your students are interested in you as well ;-) to stimulate their language identification with their lives.

Children of this age will also cut and stick all day so use this preference when you are designing your lessons. Incorporate photos from magazines and lettering of different fonts to create simple collages, with coloured, shiny paper, glitter, pasta and dry beans. Give the children scissors and simple A4 size wksheets (contrary to popular myth they won't stab each other or themselves!). If you have access to a computer and printer, make a simple template perhaps with a rectangular frame below which the children can create a caption stuck along a couple of rows of dotted lines. This sort of activity will open up their pre-reading letter and word recognition without requiring them to actually write. Put the children at the same table and let them work as a group (don't worry if they talk together in L1). Along the same lines for developing this time, 'listening', but using the same design approach, try making something 'live' as it were in front of them on paper, for example a 'fantastic animal' of some kind like a 'fantastic butterfly'. You can imagine it having x number of wings, eyes and bodies and encourage suggestions from your students. Sit the girls in front of you on the floor. Keep a running commentary and look for words and input from them. You create the picture according to their ideas. If you have a whiteboard note the words on the board and go over them to make sure the children remember. Supply the necessary items (at this point they will be much more able to remember words for colours,'crayon','paper','scissors','glue' etc.) check to make sure and send them off to do their own pictures. You can go round and make comments like 'Anne's butterfly has 3 yellow wings!' etc. Once they have completed their pictures everyone can comment about each other's work. You can also ask children to write down the words by copying from the whiteboard. If you have word cards already made for these items use them in the activity to stimulate recollection...

Other ideas which I particularly like and which are very simple include 'race and slap' and 'spank the monkey' (it's a cheeky name but a fun game ;o) variations on the same theme; For the first 'Race and Slap' you simply write words large onto 4 sheets of A4 and pin them up round the room. Call the words out and have the children run to the word and slap it. You can make it a race. For 'Spank the Monkey' give the children a plastic fly swat (or spatula) each. They sit in a circle and have cards with pictures (eg. animals, name on the back) spread out in front of them. Call out the words and the children must 'spank' the card. The quickest child gets the card. Again you can either follow this up with writing and reading or play the game to finish off a task.

Finally, why not try using the same numbered sheet idea and split the children into two pairs? Using word lists or again, words around the room (I have numbered lists arranged in simple black paper frames round my classroom with Thai translations) elect one child to write and one to run in each pair. They can swap after each turn of running and writing. You call out a word, the runner from each pair goes to the word list, finds the word and runs back to the writer and spells it for the writer who then writes it down. This game requires children very neatly to use all 4 skills.

I might add that children of this age are not adverse to a little testing. You can pretend it's an exam by seperating out desks if you have them or isolating the children on the floor and giving them a sheet numbered from 1-10. Call out the words and they write. If this is too difficult for them use words that you have for pictures (with captions) round the room. They can use these as cues to remember and therefore copy the words onto their 'exam papers'...

Hope these ideas are of some help to you.

Best regards

Peter