In this post we’re talking about how to teach English to kids, children or young learners. I’m going to go through the basics of what you need to do as an English teacher when you’re teaching children and if you can successfully put into practice everything I tell you then it’s going to make the classes much more enjoyable for you and your students.
Responsibilities
The first point I want to touch on which is about responsibilities. I know as grown-ups we hate having responsibilities but kids love them, especially in the classroom! If you’re not giving your student’s responsibilities in the classroom then they could feel demotivated because if they’re not involved then they’re not interested. Think about everything that you do as the teacher and think about what you can delegate to your students. It could be something as simple as:
- cleaning the board
- taking attendance
- collecting the students course books
- leading a simple game in the classroom e.g. Bingo
Make a list of everything that you do in the classroom and think about what you can delegate to your students. It’s a win-win, the more things you can delegate to your students the the more motivated your children are going to feel in the classroom. It’s going to free up more time to do the things that you want to do like helping your students.
Student-centered approach
The second point is about teacher talking time or sometimes referred to as TTT. You want less TTT and more STT.
TTT stands for teacher talking time and STT stands for student talking time.
If you think about a graph like this where you have teacher talking time at the top and student talking time at the bottom, ideally you want this line to be dropping towards student talking time more often than not.
This is really tied into the student-centred approach. With this approach you allow the students to lead tasks and to take control. If you’re introducing new vocabulary then instead of doing a flashcard matching game on the board, have the students sitting in groups or in pairs with the flashcards in front of them and matching the vocabulary themselves. Give them an opportunity to learn about the new meanings by themselves. You could even introduce something like a choice board where you give the students a choice of what they would like to do in today’s class. This will help them feel responsible for what they learn in this class and again this will improve motivation.
Routines
When you’re teaching children, routines are crucial in giving your students that grounding they need to feel comfortable in the classroom. Make sure that your classes start and end in the same way when you’re teaching young learners. This is really easy because you can have songs that begin and end the class. YouTube nowadays has so much to offer in terms of songs for young learners. There are songs that really can help you start the class:
There are songs that can help you end the class:
These will form part of your overall routine. Think about routines that you can use at the beginning of the class to practice some target language. I usually ask my students the following questions:
- How are you?
- How was the weekend?
- How was school?
Review vocabulary that you’ve learned in the previous class at the end of the class before you play your end of the class song.
Fast finishers
Something that all English teachers working with children are familiar with is fast finishers.
Fast finisher is a term that describes the student that always finishes first
What usually happens is that you set your students an activity and you sit back thinking “I’ve got all the time in the world now” but there’s that one student who just says:
Teacher, finished!
Those two words that terrify any English teacher! It’s really important to have have some extra tasks to ensure they don’t start distracting the other students. Word searches are not effective learning material but students love them and ti can keep them occupied just long enough to allow the other students to finish their work. Being able to deal with fast finishers is a really important skill to learn so always come to the classroom prepared.
Positive feedback
Students thrive on knowing that the teacher thinks they’re doing well so it’s really important you show this when you’re communicating with them. If the student misbehaves or does something wrong then obviously tell them that too! Look for moments when the students are doing something good and praise them for it.
Star or reward systems
Giving your students a star system or disciplinary system is a way that you can reward students frequently throughout the class for doing things that you want them to do. Teachers will often have a small little booklet and put stickers of stars in every time they do something well. Nowadays with so many options online there are lots of ways to give your students these stars but in a digital way. One platform that I can recommend is Classdojo. I made a tutorial right here about how to use Classdojo with your students.
Parents
There are grown-up versions of those kids too! They hang around outside school to pick up the little versions and take them home. To get the parents on board, make an effort to meet them and stay in touch. If you do need to speak to them about a problem in the class it’s going to be so much easier if you’ve already had contact with them. The worst thing that can happen is that you have to contact a parent for the first time to give them some bad news.
Short and quick
Making activities short in a young learner class is really important. Do not spend anywhere between 40 to 45 minutes on the same task. I would say anywhere between five and fifteen minutes is perfect for any task or activity. If you need help in timing these activities there are lots of great classroom timers online that you can use. Get into the habit of timing all the activities you do in class so you start to get an idea about how long each activity in your young learner classroom takes. It also helps students realise that the task is not going to be forever.
Types of tasks
Keep the activities varied. Make sure you’re getting your young learners to do activities that are not repetitive. Move between writing activities, drawing activities, speaking, listening and reading. Incorporate a physical aspect to the tasks. Have the students stand up and move around the classroom. A good example of this is the ‘find someone who’ activity. Ask the students to move around the class and find another student with a certain characteristic or certain piece of information. It could be something simple like:
- find someone with blue eyes
- find someone with blonde hair
If you’re doing a reading task for example; Why not take the reading out of the course book? Cut it up into pieces and blue tack it around the classroom so the students have to stand up and move around to find the information that the question requires.
Visuals
Young learners need visuals. Have an image or visual that reinforces what they are learning in the classroom. Flashcards are a perfect solution. I made a video on how to use flashcards in the young learner classroom right here. Think about how you can represent new vocabulary or concepts with an image or with a picture. If you’re teaching online I also made a video on how to use flashcard games in the online classroom.
Wrapping up
Those have been 10 things you can do in your young learner classroom that will make it a much more successful learning environment. Your students are going to be so much happier too!
Thank you for reading and I wish you all the best when you’re teaching your next English class with children.