S . ESL Teaching

(bunting - activity. Examples from kids 4, 6, 10, 11 yo) When I do my teacher training, I often come across new teachers who have never written a lesson plan in their lives. Especially when teaching small children they are often a bit lost and don't know what kind of activities to do with children or how long an activity should last (please, don't plan an activity that takes 40 minutes ....) among many other things . So here is an idea on how you could start (see at the bottom of the post). It can easily be adapted for different ages. For beginner teachers, I often advise them to do a detailed plan. It takes a loooot of time and you may feel like it's nor worth it. After all the goal is not to plan for 4 hours just to teach 1 hour (and only get paid for that one hour!). Been there, done that! But believe me, at the beginning it is really worth it (I will write another blogpost about why you should have lesson plans), with time it will get easier and you will teach more...

I still remember the first time I taught a kids class, 15 years ago. The fact that I still remember it so well should give you hint about how traumatic it was for me. I still feel sorry for the poor little guys!! Just kidding. Well no, I DO still feel sorry for them. And quite frankly I did everything in my power to not have to teach them. I started out teaching teenagers, so dealing with 3 year olds was really not on my radar until my boss told me to teach her new group. I thought she was kidding and was literally begging not to get this group. I told her that I have no idea how to deal with small children, that actually, I have never even SEEN a child in my life (well, yea, this exaggeration did not help much, but hey, it was worth a try). For some reason, she really believed in me (what I’m thankful for today) and basically made me understand that I have no option and that I should not worry too much, she would show me how to teach them (you don’t even want to know how that...

We often think that greeting is something that the children do automatically, when they enter the classroom.  But this is not necessarily the case, especially when you are teaching very small children.  You will find kids that might just walk past you, as if you are not even there, staring blankly and running towards the toys they want to get to as soon as they can (who wouldn’t run to the cool stuff!!). If you are lucky, you will see some children smile at you. If you are very lucky they may say good morning. And if you are very very lucky, they may even shake your hand, look you in the eyes and say good morning. But those are usually very few (ok, reeeaaalllyy few). So it is on you to teach them. First of all, you should always stand in the door and greet the children with a big smile on your face.  Don’t do the mistake being busy with something in the classroom, preparing some last minute things  and waiting for everybody to come in and sit down. Help th...

On the first day of an ESL class (or any class ;) ), the kids may be pretty nervous and shy, since it is a new setting with new people they may not know. So I always take things easy during the first lesson and put more emphasis on getting to know each other rather than teaching any vocabulary consciously - this will come naturally by imitating you etc anyways. Sitting in a circle is always a good idea. There are different ways that I use to start a lesson. One of them is that I have a box in which I hide a hand puppet (I have a zebra called Marty, like the one from the movie Madagascar). I put the box in the middle of the circle and ask the kids what they think is inside. Then I have Marty appear and have a little dialogue with him. I'm asking him what his name is and he asks me about my name and who I am. Then Marty asks the children what their names are. Another method I use is the microphone. I used an empty kitchen paper role an formed a ball with aluminium foil ...