How do you teach a foreign language to children?
When you work with a child, you get a piece of paper, an absolutely blank one, the one you can fill in with your experiences, knowledge and ideas. But on the other side of that piece of paper there is already so much information that you couldn't imagine! Generation Z helps to stay on track.
It's important to consider physiology when working with kids. A child who is tired to sit or wants to pee is not capable of thinking. Therefore, the teacher of English (and any other subject) should include in the lesson plan some warm-up activities, exercises that involve movement. In addition, physical comfort is important for a child to assimilate the learning material: so that there is no noise around and the chair is comfortable to sit on.
Children love to play. You can teach them anything through a game: both pronunciation and grammar. While playing, interacting with toys and pictures, singing songs, memorizing rhymes, participating in role-playing games, the child will memorize more words than just by repeating, looking at pictures, a textbook or writing new words in a vocabulary notebook. In addition, when playing a child is almost never tired (at least they are not aware of the fatigue). Finally, the play companion automatically becomes an object of sympathy and deserves respect.
The teacher needs to be a real actor with children. In classes with children the teacher needs to be more expressive, artistic, not to lose the attention of the babies. Many teachers feel the need to work additionally with voice, facial expressions and gestures.
You've hit the nail on the head. I'm not a kid anymore, but I still love it when we sometimes play games during our classes ( ~*-*)~
ReplyDeleteI think you are spot on. It's true that the teacher needs to be a real actor with children but unfortunately, not all teachers have this skill. If only I had had such a teacher in my childhood, I would supposedly have grasped the language easily:(
ReplyDeleteI would go along with that. Kids are very energetic and restless. So, learning just theory and grammar rules can kill the motivation of children to do anything. It’s very important to interest a kid and try to make a lesson fun but at the same time informative.
ReplyDeleteThat makes a lot of sense!
ReplyDeleteI wish everyone had such teachers
I absolutely agree, the best way to learn children English is playing!! I had some experience in teaxhing children English and it also proves it!
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DeleteI absolutely agree. Even now, I sometimes find it easier to absorb information that is presented as a picture or Story on Instagram.
DeleteI absolutely agree with all your statements, you're spot on there. I really liked your suggestion to include during the lesson various warm-ups and exercises that will help the child not to start yawning. And the presentation of educational material with a game is generally excellent for small children.
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