Teaching very young learners. How to start?

Greetings to everyone

You have never taught very young learners and do not know what to start with. Or you already teach them and would like to find out more information? Then, read our today’s newsletter and learn about the peculiarities of very young learners, the basic principles of early language acquisition and what to consider when plan the lessons.

Teaching very young learners. How to start?

Many educators, parents and other specialists are still discussing what age is the best for learning a foreign language. However, the demand for teachers who are trained to teach EFL/ESL to very young learners (VYL) is growing all over the world. This means that many teachers trained to teach adults and teenagers are finding themselves with classes of VYL. In some ways, teaching VYL can be more challenging than teaching adults, but it can also be very fun.

KNOW WHO THEY ARE

If you have never worked with very young learners before, you should know how they are different from other English language learners (ELL). Some educators consider very young learners to be ‘children who have not yet started compulsory schooling and have not yet started to read. This varies according to the country and can mean children up to the age of seven, so we have taken three to six years as a realistic average’ (Very Young Learners, Vanessa Reilly and Sheila M Ward, 1997).

• Background knowledge. Very young learners come with a limited amount of knowledge.  Your students are still learning a lot about their world, which includes learning their native language. Very young learners may have only recently begun to learn to read and write in their native language. 
• How they think. They are learning the vocabulary and grammar rules of their first language.  They are learning other skills and ideas that adults already know. Many of these ideas seem easy for adults. Very young learners learn a second language more like the way they learned their first. 
• Motivation. Most children come to school excited and ready to learn. The challenge is to keep them excited and motivated.
• Curiosity and imagination. Children are naturally curious; they want to know what things are. They like to touch, smell, see and even taste everything they can.  They are also creative and imaginative.
• Attention span. Children generally have short attention spans; they can’t focus too long on one thing. It is very difficult to hold the attention of a whole group of small children and the best way to do it is to change things up often, every five to ten minutes — unless you see that they are all really absorbed in what they are doing, in which case you can let it go on a bit longer.
• Silence. Most young language learners go through a period of silence when they first begin learning a language.  It can last from a short amount of time to months. Do not be surprised or concerned if your students don’t say a lot at first.  They are still learning as long as they are hearing the language they can understand. Some children say nothing at all in class but go home and tell their parents what they have learnt. It is not a good idea to try to force them to speak in the TL as this can create a lot of emotional stress.

THE ROLE OF A TEACHER

The role of the teacher during these pre-school years is to help the child develop in all areas and to prepare the ground for the more formal kind of teaching that will come in primary school. We should help them to rehearse for the real world and give them an opportunity to try out situations in order to learn to cope with them. In addition, we should enable our students to develop conceptual awareness, physical coordination, creativity, and social skills. Here are the principles of early language acquisition for you you follow which will make your lessons more effective:

1. Listening comprehension has priority.

2. Learning has to be fun so all senses are engaged.

3. Tasks need to be action-oriented.

As a teacher, you can stick to these principles in your lessons by using the following classroom methodologies and activity types:

• learning new words
• vocabulary revision
• action stories
• listening activities
• songs and chants
• stories
• rhymes
• tasks that involve drawing, colouring, cutting and sticking
• games and puzzles
• dressing up
• ‘let’s pretend’ etc.

SYLLABUS AND LESSON PLANNING

You will have to take into account that most children of this age cannot yet read and write, or make the kind of abstract deductions that even a child of seven can. They are still gaining basic skills such as holding a crayon or pencil, colouring in, they relate real things to pictures, some of them being able to recognize shapes, sorting and classifying, recognizing similarities and differences, using scissors, glue, etc. It is a good idea to organize the syllabus around their needs and interests or to link what you are teaching to what the children are learning in their pre-school classes in their first language. You will also need to decide the order in which you wish to present language. A typical order might be:

1. Identification—name (verb—am, is, are)

2. Numbers, age (verb—am, is, are)

3. Parts of the body (verb—I've got...)

4. Colours, Description (verbs—am, is are, I've got...)

5. Family (verb—I've got...)

(Taken from ‘Very Young Learners’, Vanessa Reilly and Sheila M Ward, 1997)

This is only a suggestion. If your students have had no contact with English before, it is important to start with simple, basic language and to recycle it in as many ways as possible. You may find it useful to discover what the latest craze is (Lego, spinners, XOXO Friends, Paw Patrol etc.) before planning your course.

Your lesson planning will depend on your students and the amount of time you spend with them. If your lessons are more than fifteen minutes long, it is important to have a variety of activities. A possible lesson plan might look like this:

1. A familiar song

2. New language

3. Craft activity connected with the new language

4. A song, rhyme, or chant connected with the new language

5. A familiar active game or activities with Total Physical Response

6. A familiar story

It is essential to have a balance of lively and calming activities.

(Taken from ‘Very Young Learners’, Vanessa Reilly and Sheila M Ward, 1997)

If you want to make teaching VYL more rewarding and fun for both your students and yourself , we recommend watching a webinar “How to Teach Very Young Learners Successfully” with Herbert Puchta, the author of ‘Super Minds’ and ‘Quick Minds for Ukraine’ and other popular textbooks, where he offers some practical tips to liven up your classes and get your students enjoying learning. 

From Grade Education Centre