Even if you teach in a context without access to many resources, there are lots of ways you can teach engaging, useful and fun lessons.
Using your learners as a resource
It is important to get to know your learners well so that you can better meet their needs in class. Learner-centred, minimal resource teaching is the basis of dogme, an approach...
“All children start their school careers with sparkling imaginations, fertile minds, and a willingness to take risks with what they think.”
Sir Ken Robinson
Elementary school learners generally vary greatly in their learning readiness, their interests, and their learning profiles. Teachers understand the different challenges each learner may need to...
In the current issue of ELT NEWS, we focus on teaching young learners. A teacher of young learners, especially of those aged below 10 years ultimately takes on the role of children’s entertainer. For kid’s classes, you need to have a lot of different activities planned beforehand because if you are left thinking on the spot trying to come up with...
It’s no secret that teaching young learners comes across as an exhausting responsibility which eventually takes its toll on us as years go by. Come every September, we are introduced to our classes which will be bound to us for the foreseeable future. “Good grief! Another junior class? What else have they assigned me? Don’t tell me. Am I to be burdened...
How can we approach teaching vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation to young learners? How can we create a supportive environment that encourages young learners to learn about and reflect on their learning? Simply by considering the use of topic and activity-based teaching; in other words by planning activities across topic areas.
Planning activities...
Teaching junior classes! Some of us love it, others dread it. In the latter case, kindly abstain from ever getting involved with it, lest you discover that it is not the nightmare you feared it would be! No, dear colleagues, I am pulling your leg. Whether you find it is worth your energy or you prefer to teach older students, it is entirely up to you to do...
Learners for Life
The discussion on teaching English to Young Learners (YL) can be fragmentized according to different parameters, with age being the most prevalent in the Greek, English-teaching context.
Below the age of 8 years, preschool children are well-known for their focus on self, concrete ideas, exploratory interactions, and less complex...
What do you do when off-task behaviours and student disruptions occur? Here are some things you can do to establish procedures and avoid disruptions.
Greet students at the door and give them a piece of construction paper in a specific shape and colour. The paper matches the different symbols that are hanging above each group of desks -call them your...
The enormous amount of existing materials for the teaching of English to young learners might lead us to think that everything has been invented and nothing is left to be discovered in EFL. But when you are in a real classroom working with children you realise that not all existing materials are equally successful in the class. Why is that? Why do children...
