The whole range of workshops is aimed to
teachers of English to refresh, inspire and enliven their teaching practices. Various
techniques can help improve the quality of their teaching approach to make it
more attractive for all their pupils. The activities have been designed to
raise the children’s interest, keep their concentration, to broaden their
knowledge of the English language and the ability to use it with comfort
(thinking in the target language, not learning about it!).
All of them have been applied in various children’s groups and tuned in to
learners’ needs.
The workshops are specified for children
aged 4 – 15. The particular age group is indicated in the description as well
as space and material requirements. Each part is designed to last 90 minutes, however, it is possible to expand the time of each
block and/or, to combine particular workshops in a complex course.
The number of participants is between 20 – 25 (it very much depends on space –
mostly sitting around the tables in groups and sometimes moving in a free space
is necessary)
Table of Contents
1. Strategies
for English lessons with young learners (ages 4 – 9)
2. English in kindergarden (ages 4 – 10)
3.
English from the start (ages 4 –
10)
4. Listening skills (ages 6 – 10, 11 -
15)
5. Speaking skills (ages 6 – 10, 11 -
15)
6. Reading skills (ages 9 – 10, 11
- 15)
7. Writing skills (ages 9 –
10, 11 - 15)
8.
Pronunciation with young learners –
individual sounds (almost any age group)
9.
Pronunciation with young learners -
stress and rhythm (almost any age group)
10. Topic (project) books – powerful tool to keep knowledge (certainly
suitable for any age group)
11. Communication skills (ages 4 – 7, 8 – 10, 11 - 15)
12. Project games (ages 4 – 10)
13. Using songs in lessons (ages 6 – 11, 12 – 15)
14. TPR and action games for teaching English (primary)
15. Fingerplays and other little games for young learners (ages 4 – 8)
16. Can we “teach” grammar? Why not…? (ages 4 – 10)
17. Grammar games for young teenagers (ages 11 – 15)
19. Attract, engage, captivate - activities for young teenagers (ages
11 – 15)
20. CLIL - English in various areas of knowledge
21. Story-Based CLIL (ages 4 – 10) 9
22. Storytelling (ages 6 – 10)
23. Classroom management and classroom language, transitions (ages 4 –
10)
24. Teaching English in mixed classes
25. Teaching English to dyslexic children
Workshop details:
The course will deal with teaching English to children
aged 4-9, the beginners.
The participants will be introduced to a wide range of
teaching ideas on listening and speaking base. A certain focus will be placed
on “activities-never-to-do“ with little kids –
activities that many a teacher practises without realising they might be
confusing or even bad for children. All activities work in accordance with
demands of individual age and level groups. The course is aimed at offering a
lot of practical ideas to those who have few opportunities to work with little
children or just want to refresh their teaching approach.
The course can be offered as one
90-minute-session or a series of 15 sessions with detailed training.
It is aimed at helping teachers of English to children
in kindergardens and playgroups with designing their lessons in a more
attractive and appealing way. The participants will be shown a few/many
new techniques. The course offers a large scale of procedures and various
activities combined into a meaningful content, which enables the little
children to adopt a foreign language naturally and effectively.
The extensive course provides an overall approach to
teaching very young learners in a few themes. The participants will be taught
to plan their activities on their own topics with respect
to the children‘s needs and abilities.
The main purpose of the course is to teach
participants to think about their potentialities so that they are able to
continue without any assistance in the future.
This course can be extended up to 20 – 30 lessons!!!
Info on the complex course here
English from the first word, first phrase, first sentence, first
lesson to first knowledge
Teachers often look for the answer to the question
“How do I start teaching very young children?” No wonder, they are rarely given
it, not even at universities which are supposed to prepare them for this job.
Our workshop offers one possibility of teaching a foreign language naturally in
a mother tongue environment, of making do without translating all the words,
while making sure the children understand as much as possible – in short a
guideline for teaching from the very first word, first phrase, first sentence,
first lesson, first week to the first months of English in the lives of very
young beginners.
Activities presented in this workshop will show
various ways to use effective strategies to get children used to listening.
Some activities were chosen to show the way to simply use any course book to
liven up the listening part, others offer profound
procedures to fulfil the task focused on listening.
Activities presented in this workshop will show
various ways to use effective strategies to get children used to listening.
Some activities were chosen to show the way to simply use any course book to
liven up the listening part, others offer profound
procedures to fulfil the task focused on listening.
Many teachers simply do not know how to make their
lessons more communicative. They wait till the children absorb more language.
However, we lose the most suitable time to start – the very beginning. The
workshop will deal with activities motivating the students to use English based
on simple situations using simple pieces of text but, being perfectly
meaningful – to exchange messages and convey the meaning.
Pupils
aim to fulfill the task and do not realise they are in fact drilling the
structures and vocabulary. By using direct instructions, visual stimuli,
reading the text and manipulation with cards and react with the movement they
are exposed to all aspects of learning styles
All activities presented here serve as examples of the
various activising techniques and they can be further adjusted for different
levels of English by simply choosing other texts. It means all the techniques
can help us teach school children throughout their school attendance, thus
being highly inspiring for all the teachers.
Reading
activities provide space for practising flouent reading, vocabulary and grammar
structures in a relatively natural and safe environment. Children read tasks
and either answer the questions, or spontaneously react to what is required
from them.
Writing is definitely the last skill to be practised in
the process of teaching English with primary children. First we start on the
base of words, then sentences and finally creative writing. We will go through
the whole process, looking for different procedures so that children can enjoy
various techniques while working on the tasks.
We will explore the whole process of learning to write
from simple tasks, requiring to fill in a certain
information to free, creative writing, looking for different procedures so that
children can enjoy various techniques while working on the tasks.
Pronunciation seems to be quite an easy matter in
teaching English to young learners. Some teachers say that as the little kids
are very talented in imitating and miming, it is not a difficult deal. However,
the easier they master the sound, the faster they forget to apply it in their
oral production. The teacher must know a lot of tricks to eliminate making the
incorrect sounds and keeping the pronunciation routine. You will be surprised
over the variety of activities to be practised with quite little kids.
Pronunciation is a basis for learning English. We
teachers have to provide the pupils with correct model of it not only in terms
of sounds but also regarding stress and intonation. In this section we will
focus our attention on practising word as well as sentence stress, intonation,
linking sounds. We will learn how to make pronunciation interesting for the children,
and we’ll try how important is to visualise all the teaching materials - how to
make our own games, activities and worksheets.
Topic (project) books enormously increase children’s
interest in working with (not only) foreign language and facts. It is a
wonderful way of attracting your students for new forms of work with
information, facts, knowledge and manual skills. Any topic can be covered in
topic books, which suits many ideas of CLIL, namely science, history,
literature, storytelling etc.
Some art techniques enable students to deal with vocabulary, structures,
functions and grammar together with attributes such as co-operation,
organization, multiple intelligences, presentation skills and many others. You
will see a few examples of those project books. First, the idea and strategies
of topic books will be described and introduced.
With a project (topic) book, all the knowledge will be
stored in a meaningful and appealing format. We will learn how to make these
little minibooks with our own hands. Do not forget, there isn’t any person in
the world who would not be able to fold, cut and form
any format of the minibook.
The manual skills support the development of the left hemisphere and thus
creative thinking. While working on the minibooks, the creators will develop
not only their knowledge but also analytic and synthetic thinking, organization
and presentation skills, some mathematical operations, precise and accurate
writing and a proper sense of the layout, and last but not least, the pride
over their achievement as well as the means of revising and recycling.
This is best done in a series of at least three blocks
to cover all formats and techniques !
Some small communication games enable little kids to
use communicative structures in a natural, lively context. Children solve
various tasks in various situations that provoke a certain kind of oral
involvement from them. They practise using messages without realising they are
exchanging ideas in a foreign language. The sub-consciousness of this procedure
is very beneficial in the learning environment as the children do not need to
think about the language much.
Some small communication games enable little kids to
use communicative structures in a natural, lively context. Children solve
various tasks in various situations that provoke a certain kind of oral
involvement from them. They practise using messages without realising they are
exchanging ideas in a foreign language. The sub-consciousness of this procedure
is very beneficial in the learning environment as the children do not need to
think about the language much.
Some small communication games enable little kids to
use communicative structures in a natural, lively context. Children solve
various tasks in various situations that provoke a certain kind of oral
involvement from them. They practise using messages without realising they are
exchanging ideas in a foreign language. The sub-consciousness of this procedure
is very beneficial in the learning environment as the children do not need to
think about the language much.
Project games are beneficial for young learners; they
provide a meaningful context for a range of activities that can be considered
revising, reinforcing, or even drilling. Children can understand quite easily
because all the exercises are bound to one learning environment and thus we can
develop a more profound knowledge of vocabulary and structures.
This workshop introduces a lot of various activities
for (very) young children. The activities offer many different ways not only to
learn some vocabulary and sentence structures but they also include games,
music and action activities and a bit of art. Children would be involved in
learning in quite an entertaining way.
Nobody is going to kick their heels!
Laughter is free of charge.
Songs are considered a very useful tool in EFL
teaching. They not only provide a natural text in a meaningful context but also
keep the text together, which means children can remember all the structures
and vocabulary from them. There is also a psychological effect – those who sing
can never frown at the same time. Songs thus contribute to a pleasant,
stress-free atmosphere in classrooms, they support mutual understanding.
Teenager can identify with the singers quite easily, they are keen to listening to music with the help of
multimedia. However, teaching through songs has been often limited to
“fill-in-the-gap“ activities only. This workshop will
show how we can avoid this stereotypical mechanism and will offer a wide range
of appealing actions instead.
TPR is one of the most effective ways to provide the
children with meaningful text to be carried out and thus show their
understanding the message. However, we can offer more activities to the
children to immerse them in a natural English
surroundings. Fast warm-ups to begin with, some physical
training, action and motoric games to finish the lesson. A lot of
terminology will be offered in this workshop and, of course, some movement.
One of the most important tasks of the ESL teachers is
to draw children’s attention away from the fact that they are speaking in a
different language. It is very beneficial to get the usage of the language into
the subconscious – not to think too much about what the mouth and tongue must
create. Fingerplays and other little games for children are
an ideal tool to gain this asset as they provide a large scale of various
activities, a rhythmical, rhyming text in a natural language in meaningful
context, accompanied by some lively movement.
There used to be a period when the word GRAMMAR was
considered forbidden in teaching young learners. However, how can we achieve
any accuracy when we do not provide our pupils with the confidence in their
speech or writing? And it’s so easy! Let’s try to focus on correct use of
language with good-hearted drilling and a lot of fun.
All learners like to play, even if young teenagers
would never confess that. A little trick works for teachers to manage the
situation. If you ask them not to play a game but to do an activity,
they play anyway with broad smiles on their faces. What is the benefit of
games? They provide learners with a feeling of safety (nobody is going to test
them), action (they have to achieve the goal), and thrill (who is going to
manage?), which are the attributes among the most precious for the teacher’s
success.
Let’s explore a few ways how vocabulary is introduced,
reinforced and revised in a safe environment of various activities that can be
easily adapted to every age and level.
Everywhere in the world we encounter a problem of weak
communication skills in young teenagers. They usually do not express themselves
comfortably in their mother tongue during this difficult phase in life, let
alone in a foreign language; especially when they do not feel quite sure about
their knowledge of it. What they need most is an opportunity to use the
language without much thinking about the grammar, pronunciation, spelling and
vocabulary. All these attributes must go aside when we practise communication
in our activities.
Everybody who teaches young teenagers knows that to
attract them, engage and captivate their attention is a very difficult task
with not such a safe result. Participants will be presented a few activities
that invite this age group to use a foreign language willingly and with
interest.
It is a very natural process to include English in
other school subjects. This workshop will focus on a range of activities
suitable for Maths, History, Geography and Biology. Focusing on a substance of
the topic, children get used to express themselves in a simple, prompt way. Do
we, teachers, realise, how large scale of possibilities this technique provides
for? Can we present them in a proper way?
A special workshop shows how to use a simple story to
cater for all the areas of children’s learning, namely language (both mother
tongue and English), maths, biology, music, art and craft and physical
activities, all of them on the base of a story. Children are immersed into the
story in every activity they do and so they do not need long introductory
activities and motivation at the beginning of each lesson. They build their
content awareness step by step from every possible aspect; construct their
knowledge on the base of understanding the relationship of the topic to the
curriculum.
Please note this can be extended up to 12
90-minute-training blocks with a profound focus on particular learning areas!
Stories are a rich material for children to learn
about the world in the magic terms of poetry, imagination and adventure.
Storytelling has all the benefits of promoting the foreign language in English
lessons; it improves listening skills, speaking, later reading or writing. It
stimulates inventive thinking, enriches vocabulary, knowledge of phrases and
structures, it enables cognitive development of children, comprehension without
understanding all the words, it supports imagination and creativity.
Story-based activities involve children in understanding authentic communication
within a natural, comprehensible context. A wide range of activities will be
presented to be done before a story, during, or after the listening.
It is a well known fact that children of a very early
age, if properly guided, can absorb foreign language easily. Due to their
curiosity they like stories. Are we, teachers, ready
to teach English to little learners this way?
The workshop presents not only telling various stories
to children but some activities for them to listen to, comprehend, retell, and
remember phrases by listening, acting, miming, fingerplays, drama, action
games, songs. The workshop is meant as an inspiration for teachers, as it offers
various ways to succeed.
Participants will be given an opportunity to learn story-games for different
ages.
Welcome to the fascinating world
of children’s imagination!
Teaching a foreign language surely requires some
aspects to be considered; how to manage a group of children accommodating the
communication in a foreign language as naturally as possible, how to organise
the space, time and activities so that the children get the most of the
process. Classroom routines help them get used to the process enormously, can
we, teachers, establish them in our groups?
The
workshop is designed to teach teachers to offer one activity in various ways.
Basic skills – listening, active communication, pre-reading and reading skills
and writing including the creative writing preparation can be offered to
children of different ages and abilities. The teachers will try using the same
topic with activities suitable for different levels, combined in a way to
ensuremake sure the children can work in groups autonomously.
A special workshop shows how to use a range of
activities suitable for children with special needs, especially those that promote better reading and writing skills.