PRACTICE 1

PRACTICE 1. Teaching English to young learners: relevant aspects


a) Remember the three fundamental principles for teaching very young learners (video on the platform) and write them down.

The three fundamental principles for teaching very young learners are:
1. Listening comprehension has prioty
2. Listening needs to be fun so all senses are engaged
3. Taks need to be action - oriented


b) Read the two articles that are on the platform (Juhana, 2014) and (Muñoz Redondo and López-Bautista, 2003) and follow the instructions.

1. Give ten essential principles of good learning materials for children and cite relevant authors who have affirmed them.

• Young learners have a great curiosity to try new things and to explore concrete to abstract things
• Young learners actively construct meaning from their experiences. They learn through hands-on experiences and through manipulation of objects in the environment
• Young learners focus on the immediate here and now context situation.
• Young learners have a quite short attention span and are easy to get bored.
• Young learners learn through their own individual actions and exploration
• Young learners are keen to talk about themselves, and respond well to learning that uses themselves and their own lives as main topics in the classroom.
• Young learners often learn indirectly rather than directly
• Young learners learn best when learning is kept whole, meaningful, interesting and functional
• Young learners learn by thinking in term of theme
• Young learners learn best as a community of learners in non-competitive environment.
(Nicholls, 2002); (Pinter, 2006); (Brown, 2001)


2. What materials do you need in your classroom to follow these principles? Please, watch the video tour you have on the platform entitled “The classroom” to help you to answer this question.

We need a lot of materials to follow these principles. Some of them are:

- A digital board
- Some attractive murals
- A white board
- Some literary books
- Some computers
- A personal book bins
- Different objects to learn maths and letters
- A drama center
- An artwork space


3. What are the main topics to be taught? They are on the platform. Don’t forget you have to write them in English 

Ropa: clothes               Números: numbers

Colores: colours           Animales: animals             
Cuerpo: body               Familia: family
Comida: food
Estaciones/clima: seasons/weather                    

4. Select an activity related to one of the topics from “Topics and resources” (on the platform). In class, you will have to explain your selection (sure, in English, again).

We've chosen the next topic: BODY

The activity will consist on:
Teacher says: “Simon says…” (some part of the body) and then, the children must touch this part of their body. Furthermore, one of the students is going to put a stick with the name of the part mentioned in a mural situated in the class. In the mural, there is a big person drawn.

Well, we have chosen this activity for two reasons.
Firstly, because we think that body’s knowledge is really important and it's a basic topic for young learners education. This activity has also chosen because is a dinamic play and children will learn throught movements.


5. On the slides  “Teaching English to young learners” you may find information about the different routines (slides 63 to 80). Please,  classify “Classroom language: a list of expressions” into these routines following the examples on the slides.

Start of class or activity:
• Good morning, class! /Good morning, teacher!
• How is everyone today? / Great! How are you?
• How are you? / I’m fine thank you, and you?
• What’s the weather like today? The weather is…

Attention getters:
• 1,2,3 eyes on me! / 1,2,3 eyes on you!
• Oh watch me, watch me! / Oh watch you, watch you!

Brain breaks:
• Seat Running: seat and run
• Shake shake: shake one hand (or foot) for 3 seconds then the other. Repeat 5x
• Close your eyes and breathe in, breathe out (5x)
• Nosey Ear- get your left hand to touch your right ear lobe and then get your right hand to touch the tip of your nose. Then swap positions. Repeat 5x.

End of class or activity:
• See you tomorrow
• You were wonderful! You were great! See you next class! Don’t be late!
• Have a good weekend!
• Bye bye, butterfly!