LET´S PLAY THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE GAME Workshop for Teachers of English Level: Elementary school A1

Ezequiel Alvarez Cuesta Teacher of English Language and Culture Universidad del Atlántico Facultad de Ciencias de la Educación Idiomas Extranjeros

LET´S PLAY THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE GAME Goals:  To acquire principles to teach English to Children  To practice strategies to teach English in a funny way. Target: Elementary school Teachers of English

Teaching Children Intellectual Development: According to Piaget, children from 6 to 11 are in the “concrete operation” stage. Therefore, they can not understand “grammar rules”.

How do children learn a foreign language? Children learn a language as a whole, as part of a whole learning experience. It is the responsibility of teachers to provide this whole language learning experience. Many children go through a silent period during which they a re processing their language environment. Children should be allowed to learn at their wn pace...

How do children learn a language? Vale and Feunteun It is very important for children to have the opportunity to use their hands and their bodies to express and experience language. In an dveryday context in an English – speaking country, children are normally exposed to a variety of physical and intellectual experiences of language. In the foreing learning situation where chidlren may have as little as one hour per week of English, it is vital to include physical activities where the main focus is on the physical response or phyisical activity, and not the spoken word.

Intellectual Development H. Douglas Brown recommends: Don´t explain grammar using terms like:”present progressive” or “adverb clause”. To explain grammar, show learners patterns and examples: He is brushing his teeth. She is putting on her coat. Certain difficult concepts or patterns need more repetition. Repetition help the ear and the brain to acquire the patterns.

Attention Span H. Douglas Brown thinks children do not have short attention spans. But they get bored easily. What can we do as teachers? We can make lessons interesting, live and fun.

Here and now Curiosity Sense of humor Interest

Sensory Input: Stimulate all five senses H. Douglas Brown recommends: Physical activities: Role play, play games and Total Physical Response activities. Project work Sensory aids, such as: smelling, touching... Audiovisual aids: videos, pictures, tapes, songs, Mimic: Children can learn by gestures.

Affective factors Douglas Brown considers children are often innovative in language forms but still have lots of inhibitions. Therefore, he recommends: Help your students to laugh with each other at various mistkes they make. Be patient and supportive to build self – esteem. Yet at the same time be firm in your expectations of students. Elicit as much oral participation as possible form students, especially the quieter ones, to give them plenty of oportunities for practicing.

Affectivity In any learning situation, where individuals need to interact with others, there are many social and affective constraints and pressures that can interfere with effective learning: A highly succesful business person may be embarrassed at his/her poor performance in English... A teenager may be reluctant to speak in a foreign language in front of his/her classmates. A shy eight year old may be unable to say a word for fear of making a mistake in front of a strict teacher and laughing classmates.

T.P.R.

T.P.R. Teacher´s voice And gestures Are key resources. Use of commands By listening Children give A physical response To learn a language We listen first Affectivity: How you feel is Very important Influence of Right brain Influence of 1st Language acquisition process

Web sites The elephant song BIhL9c

Listening Skill Listening is a complex ability. It involves more than just hearing language. Listening is the ability to receive, attend to, interpret and respond emotionally to verbal messages. Jack C Richards.

Listening Skill When we listen, we use more than language, we also use non-verbal clues like body language, to background knowledge about the situations, the speakers, their goals, the topic or activity... And when we listen, we process language quickly “in real time”. This is why listening can be challenging for learners. Jack C. Richards

Non-verbal language Oral language Schemata Knowledge About the speaker Knowledge about The context

Listening Strategies Pre-listening activities: Pre-teach vocabulary Discuss pictures, photos or cartoons. Discuss what students know about the topic. While listening activities: Complete a gap fill. Answer multiple choice questions. Answer true/false questions. Take notes.

Listening Strategies Post- listenig activities: Discuss interpretations and opinions. Link listening with another skill. Review pre-listening vocabulary adn teach new vocabulary.

Play with the language Let the pupils talk to themselves. Make up rhymes, sing songs, tell stories. Play with the language –let them talk nonsense, experiment with words sounds: “Let´s go – pets go”... Playing with the language in this way is very common in first language development and is a very natural stage in the first stages of foreign language learning too. Wendy Scott and Lisbeth Ytreberg.

Reading Skill knowledge of the world Knowledge of the topic -schema- Knowledge Of the format

Reading Strategies Depending on the text we are reading, we generally use one of these strategies: identify the topic predict and guess read for general understanding read for specific information read for details interpret or make inferences

SPEAKING Grammar Vocabulary Social language Register Pronuntiation Listening Body language Fluency

Speaking Strategies Using a mascot: This is a succesful way to present language to children: Teddy, can you swim? No, I can´t, but I can sing. Teddy, do you like carrots? Ugh, no! What about bananas? Yes, I love them.

Speaking strategies Role plays: Beginners of all ages can start on role play dialogues by learning a simple one by heart and then acting it out on pairs.

Writing Skill Culture Language Schema Intentionality

Writing Activities Copying Matching Organising and copying Dictation Fill in exercises Letters cards

Integrating the 4 skills H. Douglas Borown recommends to follow a whole language approach. This way, as teachers, we can integrate the four skills, during the lesson. A lesson plan, according to this model, should include: Pre-reading discussion of the topic to activate schemata. Listening to a text about the topic Practice reading strategies: skimming, scanning, inferring... Writing about the text.

Constructive and creative comprehension

According to Vale and Feunteun, when children read or listen to a story, there are four main types of mental processes involved:

Constructive and creative comprehension Picturing and imaging. Children create a mental picture of what they are reading or listening to. Predicting and recalling. Children imagine or predict what is going to happen next...

Constructive and creative comprehension Identification and pesonalising. Children identify with the characters and situations in the story according to their own personal experiences. Making value judgements. Children apply their own values to those encontered in the story.

Pictures and Visual Aids We live in a world dominated by visual messages. Young children learn much a bout the written word long before they have formal reading and writing activities at school. Information in the form of words and pictures clues are displayed in most public places, in the home, and on television, and children soon realise that there is a close association between visual information and the spoken word. David Vale and Ann Feunteun.

Communicative Competence

Communicative approach Classrooms goals are focused on all of the components of communicative competence: Grammatical, functional, sociolinguistic, and strategic.

Communicative approach Learners must get involved in the use of authentic and meaningful language. Fluency and accuracy are complementary. However, fluency is preferred, specially with children.

Communicative approach The goal of the communicative classroom is that children use the language inside and outside the classroom. Students are given opportunities to understand their own learning styles and to develop strategies for autonomous learning.

Communicative approach The role of the teacher is that of facilitatior and guide. Students are encouraged to construct meaning through interaction with others.

Communicative Skills

Task Based Approach Peter Skehan (Brown, 2000) defines task as an activity in which Meaning is primary. There is some communication problem to solve. The task is comparable to real –world activities. The assessment of the task is in terms of outcome.

Task Based Approach : Target Tasks and Pedagogical Tasks Target tasks: The learners must accomplish this activities beyond (outside) the classroom. Pedagogical tasks: They are the nucleous of the classroom activities. They include a series of techniques that help learners to perform the target task.

Project Work In project work, children can learn by doing and researching. STEPS: Children choose a topic of interest They gather information about the topic In project work, children can integrate the 4 communicative skills. They learn to work collaboratively At the end they show a product.

Project Work

Bibliography Brown, Douglas H. Teaching by Principles. New York: Longman, Reilly, Vanessa & Ward Sheyla M. Very young learners. New York: Oxford, Scott, Wendy A. And Ytreberg, Lisbeth H. Teaching English to Children. New York: Longman, Vale, David with Feuteun, Anne. Teaching children English. Melbourne: Cambridge, 1996.