Teaching Grammar Chunks to Younger Learners

In general children under ten years old cannot learn grammar through a focus on rules. We can see this through observation and we know this through our reading of Piaget et al. The logical thinking, reasoning and generalization needed to be able to work from grammar rules is something that only really starts developing from the age of eight or nine onwards.

So children can’t learn grammar? Of course, they can. They learn the grammar of their first (home, mother) language incredibly successfully. They do so through a great deal of exposure to it from everyone around them: hearing songs and stories, listening to caregivers and siblings, having access to media like TV and radio. They spend a great deal of every day of their early lives just listening and trying to make sense of what they hear. Then they use it when they need to communicate.

What we as teachers of children learning English as a second, additional or foreign language must ensure for them to be able to make sense of this new language is to:

·         

      Provide plenty of exposure to English, by using it as much as possible ourselves in the class room, telling stories, singing songs and just chatting to the learners in English

·         Ensure that the language input they get is supported by plenty of meaningful clues to meaning like body language, gestures, facial expressions, visuals

·         Allow children to play with the sound and rhythm of language

·         Encourage children to communicate with whatever English they have

·         Give positive feedback and praise them so they keep trying and having fun

·         Give children tasks that help them notice the patterns of language they have been exposed to like the two tasks below which should be copied and cut up. Make them nice and big so that children can work in small groups at their tables or on the floor. And be careful to cut them in such a way that it's not possible to match them just by putting two pieces together and see where they have been cut!!!

A.    Match the questions to the answers:

What time is it?	It’s half past two.
What’s her name?	It’s Jenny.
What colour are Caroline’s eyes?	They are brown.
Whose book is this?	It’s John’s.
How many desks are there in the classroom?	There are twenty.
Where is my school bag?	It’s in the kitchen.
How old is Mr Jones.	He’s forty-one.
Why is Tommy happy?	Because it’s his birthday today.
Who is he?	He’s our English teacher.
When are we going to visit granny?	On Sunday.

B.    Match the two halves of the sentence:

She	is a woman.
They are	grey elephants.
It is	a cat.
He	is eight.
He is	happy.
It is a	book.
She is	a tall girl.
She is a	teacher.
They	are big boys.
He is a	funny boy.

TOP Books for EFL Teachers of Children and Teens

I was asked recently to produce a list of books that should be on the shelf of a staff room for teachers of YLs and Teens. This is what I have produced so far. It is by no means a definitive list and I hope to add to it regularly. If you have any suggestions please let me know. 

Some great methodology books:

Pinter, Anna Maria, 2006, Teaching Young Language Learners, Oxford University Press

Moon, Jayne, 2000, Children Learning English, Macmillan

Blakemore, Sarah-Jayne & Frith, Uta, 2005, The Learning Brain, Blackwell

Holt, John, 1967, How Children Learn, Penguin

Fontana, David, 1981, Psychology for Teachers, BPS Books

Wood, David, 1988, How Children Think and Learn, Blackwell

Fisher, Robert, 1990, Teaching Children to Think, Nelson Thornes

Jenson, Frances E, 2015, The Teenage Brain, Thorsons

Edie Garvie, 1990, Story as Vehicle, Multilingual Matters

Kieran Egan, 1989, Teaching as Storytelling, University of Chicago Press

Brewster, Ellis & Girard, 1992, The Primary English Teacher’s Guide, Penguin

Ellis & Brewster, 1991, The Storytelling Handbook for Primary Teachers, Penguin

Teens/ Young Adults:

Cambridge University Press Teen Copy Collection has three titles:

Film, TV & Music by Olha Madylus

Teen World by Joanna Budden

Pairwork & Groupwork by Meredith Levy & Nicholas Murgatroyd

Plus:

Pronunciation Games, CUP Mark Hancock

A Multiple Intelligences Road to an ELT Classroom, Crown House Publishing, Michael Berman

Games for Vocabulary Practice, CUP, O’Dell & Head

Games for Grammar Practice, CUP, Zaorob & Chin

700 Classroom Activities, Macmillan, D Seymour

Challenge to Think, OUP, Frank, Rinvolucri & Berer

Language Activities for Teenagers, CUP, Seth Lindstromberg ed.

Using Folktales, CUP, Eric K Taylor

Writing Simple Poems, CUP, Holmes & Moulton

Once Upon a Time, CUP, Morgan & Rinvolucri

Dictation, CUP, Davis & Rinvolucri

Stories, CUP, Ruth Wajnryb

Teaching Grammar Creatively, CUP, Gerngross, Puchta & Thornbury

Global Issues, OUP Resource Books for Teachers, Sampedro & Hillyard

Drama, OUP Resource Books for Teachers, Charlyn Wessels

Drama & Improvisation, OUP Resource Books for Teachers, Ken Wilson

Storybuilding, OUP Resource Books for Teachers, Jane Spiro

Creative Poetry Writing, OUP Resource Books for Teachers, Jane Spiro

Teenagers, OUP Resource Books for Teachers, Gordon Lewis

Images, OUP Resource Books for Teachers, Jamie Keddie

Exam Classes, OUP Resource Books for Teachers, Peter May

Primary:

Cambridge University Press Primary Box Series:

Primary Curriculum Box

Primary Grammar Box

Primary Vocabulary Box

Primary Pronunciation Box

Primary Reading Box

Primary Communication Box

Primary Music Box

Oxford University Press Resource Books for Teachers

Very Young Learners, Reilly & Ward

Young Learners, Sarah Phillips

Storytelling with Children, Andrew Wright

Creating Stories with Children, Andrew Wright

Projects with Young Learners, Andrew Wright

Assessing Young Learners, Ioannou-Georgiou & Pavlou

Writing with Children, Reilly & Reilly

Drama with Children, Sarah Phillips

Games for Children, Lewis & Bedson

The Internet and Young Learners, Gordon Lewis

Teaching Children how to Learn, DELTA publishing, Ellis & Ibrahim

Teaching Young Learners to Think, Helbling Languages, Puchta & Williams

Tell it Again, Penguin, Ellis & Brewster

Telling Tales in English, DELTA Publishing, Superfine & James

Get on Stage, Helbling Languages, Puchta, Gerngross & Devitt

Do and Understand, Longman, Gerngross & Puchta

Cross-Curricular Resources for YLs, OUP, Calabrese & Rampone

Jazz Chants for Children / Fairy Tale Chants etc, OUP, Carolyn Graham (Plus Jazz Chants = great for Teens)

CLIL Activities, CUP, Liz Dale

100 Great EFL Games, Crazy Chopstick Publications, Adrian Bozon

Mind Maps for Children, Thorsons, Tony Buzan

Plus of course, books we make for and with our learners!!

Visuals in language learning

The Power of Visuals

 

Who is this man? Where is he? What’s he feeling why?

 

Did you search for descriptive words? Did you think of situations occurring in the world today, like the refugee crisis in Europe? Did your feel for the man?

 

Images are incredible effective in language teaching:

A picture paints a thousand words

 

Visuals stimulate the brain directly, so there’s no need to use words to get a message across. Even in Mixed classes all students will be able to start thinking about topics that pictures inspire.

 

Visual literacy is something we already have. Children read what they see around them from birth, soon recognising symbols. In pre-literate societies pictures were used to tell stories and allow a quick key to who was being portrayed, so the man with all the arrows in his body was easily recognised as Saint Sebastian

 

and the smallest child in Western society easily recognises these

 

 

There are billions of pictures – something for everyone. Even if teachers don’t have access to clip art and all the wonderful tools of the internet, newspapers, magazines, leaflets all provide great images.

 

They encourage use of language in a meaningful way by encouraging students to imagine, make connections and express their own ideas, allowing for personalisation.

 

They arouse curiosity.

 

BUT as teachers we have to ensure we ask the right questions. We can begin by asking students what they see, but it’s important to tap into higher order thinking skills by asking questions that allow students to do more than name things they see.

 

e.g. Look at the picture.

 

1. What fruits and vegetables can you see?

2. Which ones do you like?

3. Which are good for you, and why?

4. What can you cook with them?

5. Which grow in your country?

 

We already ask students to use high order thinking when we ask them to rank (e.g. look at these 10 jobs, which are the most/least dangerous, which are the best/worst paid, which would you most/least want to have) and predict (Look at the pictures. What do you think the text/story will be about?)

 

We can also encourage students to use other high order thinking skills like

 

·         applying         

·         analysing

·         seeking information

·         recognising similarities & differences

·         transferring knowledge

·         comparing

·         sequencing

·         making decisions

·         solving problems

·         creative thinking

 

It’s interesting to see that the UK National Curriculum Report, 1988, lists the following attitudes as ‘important at all stages of education’:

 

Curiosity, Respect for evidence, Willingness to tolerate uncertainty, Critical reflection

Creativity and inventiveness, Open-mindedness, Co-operation with others

It would be great to see these attitudes constantly encouraged and developed in all classrooms around the world.

 

So back to food. Here are some examples of other questions we could ask the students to get them thinking. Notice that the range of answers they could give is huge. They just need to be able to explain what they say.

·         You are inviting a famous sports star to dinner. What would you serve?

·         Why are fruits and vegetables good for you?

·         Make a list of what your group has eaten today. How would you rank it in terms of healthiness (from 1 to 10)? Why?

·         Imagine you live in the year 2115. Describe a typical meal.

·         Peter has decided to only eat only fast food three times a day. What do you think will happen to his health?

The more challenging the question, the more it stimulates thought and requires more sophisticated language to answer it.

 

Video is the next step on from pictures

Many course books now come with videos and YouTube and other websites have a huge range of short effective videos on many topics and it is another powerful tool in the language classroom as

·         Teens are used to it

·         Visual literacy is paramount

·         Listening without seeing is very hard and unnatural

·         It’s a catalyst to other language work

·         There’s an opportunity to challenge stereotypes and learn about the world

·         As children grow their curiosity about the world increases

 

After watching and doing tasks based on videos in class, students can do further work (alone or in groups) in class or for homework. Homework is great for extension work as students don’t all have to be doing the same thing.

·         Students can make own videos (use smart phones)

·         Research topics they find of interest to them

·         Look at other videos online as homework

·         Read about the topics

·         Discuss themes

·         Do projects

·         Give presentations

 

We must remember as our learners move from being children to teenagers…

Students’ attention shifts to content areas such as philosophy, sociology, politics and psychology, at least as far as their more general questions are concerned.

Meta-cognition becomes an important focus of students’ attention.

Their language becomes more intellectual.

Kieran Egan

 

Photos from East London

Micro-training tasks

As promised - the tasks from the East London training!

Micro-training 2 - Giving Instructions

A.    Running Dictation

TEXT:

Running dictations are a great way to energise a class, involve learners in all four skills: reading, writing, listening and speaking, as well as team work. When organised well they are an effective learning tool. Unfortunately if instructions are not given well, chaos may ensue and there could even be accidents.

TEXT:

Running dictations are a great way to energise a class, involve learners in all four skills: reading, writing, listening and speaking, as well as team work. When organised well they are an effective learning tool. Unfortunately if instructions are not given well, chaos may ensue and there could even be accidents.

TEXT:

Running dictations are a great way to energise a class, involve learners in all four skills: reading, writing, listening and speaking, as well as team work. When organised well they are an effective learning tool. Unfortunately if instructions are not given well, chaos may ensue and there could even be accidents.

Micro-training 2 - Giving Instructions

A.    Running Dictation

Instructions

Prepare one piece of paper with the text for each team and pin up either outside the classroom or at an extreme end of the room so it is not visible from the tables.

Organise students into groups of 4, tell them who is 1,2,3,4

Number 1 from each team goes to their (how will they know which is theirs?) paper and tries to remember as much as possible – a few words, a phrase or a short sentence. They do not remove the paper.

Number 1 returns to their group and dictates the sentence while number 2 writes it down. The others listen and help.

Only one representative from each group should be looking at the paper at one time.

Now number 2 goes to the paper and continues the process trying to remember as much of the text as possible, returning to the table and dictating it to Number 3.

The process continues round the table until all the text has been written. One of the team can then fetch the text and the whole team compares their version to the original and see if they have made any mistakes.

Micro-training 2 - Giving Instructions

2. Find someone who…

1.       ……………………………… has never done teacher training before.

2.       ………………………………. has problems giving clear instructions.

3.       ……………………………….. doesn’t like using technology when training teachers.

4.       ……………………………….. has taught for more than 15 years.

5.       ……………………………….. likes using games and activities like this when teacher training.

6.       ………………………………. is confident they can design training materials.

7.       ……………………………….  is ready for a break!

Micro-training 2 - Giving Instructions

B.    Find someone who…

 Instructions:

Give out one worksheet per person

Ask participants to read them quietly and check they understand them

Explain that the name is missing, they need to find someone whose name can start the sentence and make the sentence true. They must pay attention as some are negative sentences.

Ask students to form one or two questions correctly as an example.

Then explain they are going to ask their classmates these questions.

Students move around the class asking different people, noting down a name if it makes a true sentence

The same name may only appear once on the sheet!

Do some kind of wind up / review.

Micro-training 2 - Giving Instructions

C.      Matching game

When planning training	is not about telling teachers how to teach.
Pair work and group work	but training also involves different skills to teaching.
Building rapport with your participants is important as	it’s important to consider the context teachers work in.
Teacher training	ensure that participants have a chance to share their ideas in a non-threatening way.
Effective trainers have many of the skills which effective teachers have,	teachers need to feel you understand their problems and respect them.

Micro-training 2 - Giving Instructions

C   .Matching game

Instructions

Cut up the cards so you have one per participant

Plan what to do if you have an odd number

Hand out a card to each participant and ask them to keep them secret

Ask them to read their card. It’s half of their sentence. Ask them to write down what they think is the other half of their sentence. They mustn’t share any of this with the others.

They should walk around and read out their halves to each other in order to find their partner – the person who has the other half of their sentence. Once they are sure they have their partner they should sit down together.

When everyone has their partner. Ask each pair to read out the full sentence and say how close it was to how they guessed their sentence was completed.

Do some kind of review / wind up.

Micro-training 2 - Giving Instructions

D.    Pair dictation

A.

An effective trainer __ ____ __ _______ many useful classroom practices to teachers  __ ____ __ ____ ________ _________ __ _________ which focus on particular aspects of teaching ____ __ ________ __________, developing thinking skills ___ __________. By using different class management techniques __ ______ ____________ to answer questions ____ _____ ___ ______ or rolling a dice, ____________ ___ __ ____ ____ __ and appreciate such simple strategies ___ ___ ____ ____ ________ into their classroom.

B.

__ ________ ______ is able to present ____ ______ _________ ________ __ ________ as well as those directly presented in workshops _____ _____ __ __________ _______ __ ________ such as teaching vocabulary, __________ ________ ______ and assessment. __ _____ _________ _____ __________ __________ to choose participants  __ ______ _________ like lolly pop sticks __ _______ _ _____, participants get to take part in ___ __________ ____ ______ __________ and can take them directly ____ ______ __________.

Micro-training 2 - Giving Instructions

D.     Pair Dictation

Instructions

Explain or model the activity with an example.

Arrange the group into pairs facing each other.

Hand out the sheets A to one person and B to the other person in the pair.

Ask them not to look at each others’ paper.

Tell them to take turns reading the segments of the text to each other, while their partner fills in their gaps, until the entire text is completed.

Ask them to reflect back, giving comments of the task and the content of the text.

  

Micro-training 2 - Giving Instructions

E.      Board game

Sorry the snakes and ladders board game won't upload!!

Micro-training 2 - Giving Instructions

F.     Board Game

Instructions

Each player needs a counter

The group need a dice

Each player takes it in turn to roll the dice. They move their counter forward the amount of spaces shown on the dice.

If the counter lands on the head of a snake, the player must slide their counter to the bottom of the snake and begin again from there when it’s their turn

If the counter lands on the bottom of a ladder, they must move their counter to the top of the ladder and start again from there

If a player lands on a square that says Q – they must ask the others a question about Teacher Training e.g. What should we know about the teachers we train?

If a player lands on a square that say I – they must tell the rest of their group something they know or believe about Teacher Training e.g. I think that it’s imprtant to build teachers’ confidence.

If a player lands on a P – they must tell the group something personal about themself e.g. I have never liked brocolli.

The first player to reach the star is the winner.