Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
You can support children when they are starting to speak English:
By encouraging all the efforts children make to speak, no matter how small.
By listening carefully when they speak and no interrupting to correct small errors.
Ask him/her questions and tell you things they want you to know
Often repeat comments and requests
Can easily learn to repeat the set expressions you use during their English lesson.
When children repeat set phrases it does not necessarily mean language acquisition is taking
place. But they are getting used to saying English sounds; practicing the intonation pattern and
gaining confidence, especially if you praise them or show your approval in other ways.
1
Slattery, M. & Willis, J. (2001).
1
Remember
When children are learning their first language they hear
phrases and understand the general meaning before they
start to understand individual words.
They hear connected sounds before they separate them
into individual words.
Only written language is divided into words and sentences.
Learners who cannot read hear a flow of sound.
They hear intonation patterns, and sounds on words that
are stressed. These are the sounds they will say first.
It is best to introduce useful classroom phrases in the situation in which they are normally
used.
2. Saying rhymes and singing songs to practice pronunciation, stress and intonation
Children love doing actions when they watch and listen to their teacher saying rhymes and
chants. Children soon begin to repeat the words as they do the actions. They are speaking with
the teacher. This builds confidence and a feeling of achievement. Children usually like singing
and performing. It helps them feel at ease with English. They enjoy learning songs and rhymes
they can sing or say to their parents at home.
As children acquire more English, chants, rhymes and songs can form a real part of the learning
process. They could be used:
For enjoyment
As part of the teaching plan
As a change in activity
To revise vocabulary
To connect with new or familiar topics
To practis up-to-date expressions
For drama and to practice punctuation.
When choosing a song or a rhyme, they should suit the pupils age and interests; match their
level of English and have a catchy, easy to remember melody.
Children often sing a song or say a chant or rhyme all together. However, when they are very
familiar with the rhymes, songs and chants they can perform them by singing or saying
different parts in groups. This group performance is very useful with big classes. It helps
develop teamwork but it still allows everyone to take part.
Read this chant about animals. The children can say it in groups as they ask and answer the
questions. The teacher could start by checking to see if everybody is ready:
Ok, are you ready? All the groups are ready? Spiders?
Ok. Beetles? Puppies and sheep?
Ok, now question group, you start one, two, three
2
Question group Whos having fun?
Spider group Spiders in the sun.
Question group Whos having lunch?
Beetle group Beetles in a bunch
Question group Whos chewing socks?
Puppies group Puppies in a box
Question group Whos fast asleep?
Sheep group Three black sheep.
Teaching tips
Songs, rhymes and chants Use songs and rhymes to play with
Start with very short rhymes or chants. sounds: speaking softly shouting
Look for songs and chants that have loudly.
topics the children are learning about. Use simple instruments to add to the
Make sure the children generally rhythm, such as tambourine, bell,
understand what they are saying they drum, cymbal.
do not need to understand every word Encourage your pupils to say them for
but maybe the gist of the lines. family and friends outside school.
Rhymes
On this video you will find suggestions to teach rhymes and poems to young learners.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3LWGFguPjE
On these two websites, you will find lesson plans, printable activities, illustrated rhymes, picture
cards and crafts
http://curry.virginia.edu/go/wil/rimes_and_rhymes.htm
http://www.dltk-teach.com/
3
3. Practicing pronunciation of new sounds
Children acquire pronunciation and intonation naturally by listening to the teacher. When you
talk they absorb the sound of the language. But this does not mean that they will produce
perfect words or phrases when they begin to speak in English. They need:
Young children naturally like playing with language. They can mime the new sounds more
easily than older learners. You can play games to encourage them to practice the sounds of
English.
I spy with my little eye (Veo, veo) is a fun way to get children used to hearing new sounds. You
can play it like this:
Tell the children I spy with my little eye something beginning with sh or //.
The children guess.
The firs child to guess correctly comes to the front.
This child tells you a new word (in their mother tongue or in English).
Then you can say the first sound of the word to the child.
The child waits while the other guess.
Teaching tips
4
Speaking more freely
This unit looks at how you can help children to speak more fluently in English by:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LF7zsz8fi64
Learners need
Speak a lot of English and repeat childrens words or phrases when you are answering
them
React to the meaning of what they are trying to say
Encourage them by showing that what they are saying is more important than your
correction
Wait until they finish speaking before you repeat and rephrase
Show your approval for all your pupils speaking however short if may be.
Provide activities that are fun and that have a purpose or a goal, and that have and
end- product that they can feel proud of.
Set up activities so that children can do them in pairs and groups. Then they will get
opportunities to use English not just to respond to questions, but also to ask questions. They
will also have the satisfaction of completing a task on their own. You can help children by
5
Showing them what to do first
Practicing an activity first with the whole class
Arranging children into groups so that you can easily get around to listen and talk to
them all.
We will look at activities where the teacher guides and supports the children as they speak-
these are teacher-led activities. When children feel confident and happy using English, you can
move to group activities so that they can speak more.
Children generally like to talk about themselves, and to hear their classmates doing the same.
They enjoy talking about their favourite things, their hobbies, sports, families, and so on.
The context is real and the children are thinking about the
meaning, not just repeating words to practice pronunciation.
The communication is controlled because of the limitations
of the language used and more than a language exercise.
6
Extension ideas
Teaching tips
3. Speaking games
To play this game you need a CD recorder, a music CD, and a ball. This is how you play it.
7
Extension ideas
After playing this game you could play a memory game. The children could
Teaching tips
Use any set of words or phrases from a topic the children are familiar with.
Use a story the children know well, and:
Ask questions about characters
Ask what happens next
To play Guess the mime you need some pictures of people doing different things. Put the
pictures on the board. The children can:
Work in pairs
Choose any picture they like
Become the person in the picture and behave like this person
Perform the mime together
The rest of the class watch and try to guess which activity they are miming. They can ask
questions Are you swimming? or just call out the names of the actions, for example,
swimming.
Teaching Tip
Mimes
After mimes ask children to remember what different pupils were doing, e.g. What
were Kevin and David doing? Were they swimming or playing football?
8
4. Children speaking in groups
Personal presentations
Teachers can start by asking children about themselves: their name-where they live, their
phone number, what they like. Pupils can extend this later to personal presentations.
Then the children will be familiar with phrases they can use to describe their animal for the
guessing game.
Teaching tips
Make your instructions very clear Give children planning time to think of
Show the children first what you want what to say
them to do Let them rehearse if they are going to
Help them to acquire phrases to use when speak to all the class.
talking to each other
9
Some common communicative
activities
Here are examples of some popular types of communicative activities. Note that the main
focus is on encouraging communication, rather than controlled use of particular items of
language or with accuracy2.
Ranking tasks
Prepare a list of items that learners can discuss and place in a particular order according to
their opinions.
Pyramid discussion
It is an organizational technique that works particularly well with simple problem- based
discussion and especially with item-selection tasks, eg What are the four most useful things to
have with you if you are shipwrecked on a desert island?, or list sequencing tasks, eg Put these
items in order of importance. Here is how to do it:
2
Teaching Speaking (n.d.) and Scrivener, 2011.
10
6. When the whole class comes together, see if you can reach one class solution.
Whats the point of doing a discussion in this way? The technique gives students time to
practice speaking in smaller groups before facing the whole class. Even the weaker speakers
tend to find their confidence grows as the activity proceeds and they are able to rehearse and
repeat arguments that they have already tested on others. Learners who are shy will still get a
number of chances to speak, and because they have practiced a little, may even get up the
courage to say them again to everyone. It also tends to lead to a much more exciting and well
argued whole- class discussion. The smaller groups are seedbeds for a variety of ideas and
opinions; if we jumped in the deep end with the whole- class stage, we would probably get
silence or possibly just one or two students dominating.
Information-gap activities
Students have different information and they need to obtain information from each other in
order to finish a task.
There are many different information-gap activities that can be designed around pictures. One
common type is to use two pictures which look identical to each other at first glance, but
actually have several differences. One student gets one picture and a second student gets the
other picture. Their task is to discover all the differences between the two pictures without
looking at each others pictures. In this way, they must describe the pictures in detail. The
language used for such a task can be somewhat controlled by the vocabulary for the items in
the picture. The level of difficulty of this task can be changed depending on how obvious the
distinguishing characteristics of each picture are.
There are many variations on this theme. One variation is to give Student A a set of 4-6 pictures
that are similar to each other, while Student B has only one of those pictures. Student A must
find out which picture Student B has by asking questions.
Another variation is instead of giving one learner the complete set of pictures, the teacher can
give four members of a group each a different picture and give the fifth member a duplicate
picture of one of the first four members. The task is that the fifth member must ask question
the first four to find out who has the identical picture.
A third slightly more challenging variation is to give Student A a set of pictures that tell a story
in correct order and Student B the same set of pictures in jumbled order. Student A must
describe the story in sequence so that Student B can put the pictures in the correct order
without letting Student B look at Student As set of pictures.
Many kinds of activities can be designed around the theme of exchange personal information.
Even when you have a class of students that know each other quite well, you can still design
activities where the task is for them to find out some details about each other that they do not
already know. One good activity that can have a game element to it is called Find someone
who It is best if the teacher designs the activity with the knowledge of something about the
students. It can be designed around a theme after students have learned vocabulary for it such
as sports. Below are some examples.
Find someone who: Stand up and walk around the room. Ask your classmates what
11
they like to do. Once you find someone who likes something, write down his/her name
in the blank next to the activity. Continue asking until you have a different name
written down for each activity. The first person to fill in all the blanks is the winner.
Bingo Activities
Bingo is an easy game to set up and can be used to practice many language areas. Give the
students a game card with 16 boxes on it (or have them make their own). Decide what category
of words you want to work ona common one is numbers. For example, tell the students to
write down one number in each box in random order from 1 to 30. This way each student will
have different numbers and in different boxes, o they cannot simply look at their neighbor for
the answers. The teacher calls out the numbers in random order and writes down the numbers
as she/he says them. The students draw an X through the numbers as they hear them. Once a
student gets four Xs in a row either horizontally, vertically, or diagonally, he/she can call out
BINGO! The student reads out the numbers in that line so that the teacher can check if she/he
actually called out those four numbers.
This game can also be played with vocabulary. Students write down 16 vocabulary words from
a list of 25 or so words in random order. Then the teacher can read definitions of the words
instead of the words themselves, so the students need to know the meaning of the words in
order to mark an X through the correct words.
A story game is called Change the story. Students work in small groups of 3-5. Each student
writes a short story or description and then underlines all the verbs in the story. The group
together then makes a list of about 20 random verbs. Each group member reads his/her story
but pauses at every verb. The group then supplies one of the random verbs into that slot. The
results can be very funny.
No specific responses
A very lively game that helps students practice spelling is called Human Scrabble. Make two
sets of alphabet cards. Use thick paper. Write one letter in thick ink on each card. Make two
cards of each vowel and leave one card blank. Have two teams of 5 or 6 people each come to
the front of the room and face the class. Give each person 4 or 5 letters. The teacher then calls
out a word in English while both teams must rush to hold up their cards in the proper order to
spell the word. Whichever team spells the word correctly gets a point. The rest of the class can
help judge which team is quicker. The teacher then calls out another word and the play
continues. In the end, the team with the most points wins the game.
12
Role-play3
Introduction
Incorporating role-play into the classroom adds variety, a change of pace and opportunities for
a lot of language production and also a lot of fun. If the teacher believes that the activity will
work and the necessary support is provided, it can be very successful. However, if the teacher
isn't convinced about the validity of using role-play the activity will be a failure.
What is role-play?
Role-play is any speaking activity when you either put yourself into somebody else's shoes, or
when you stay in your own shoes but put yourself into an imaginary situation.
Imaginary people - The joy of role-play is that students can 'become' anyone they like for a
short time: the President, the Queen, a millionaire, a pop star .. Students can also take on
the opinions of someone else. 'For and Against' debates can be used and the class can be split
into those who are expressing views in favour and those who are against the theme.
Imaginary situations - Functional language for a multitude of scenarios can be activated and
practised through role-play. 'At the restaurant', 'Checking in at the airport', shopping' are all
possible role-plays.
In addition to these reasons, students who will at some point travel to an English-speaking
country are given a chance to rehearse their English in a safe environment. Real situations can
be created and students can benefit from the practice. Mistakes can be made with no drastic
consequences.
Facilitator - students may need new language to be 'fed' in by the teacher. If rehearsal time is
appropriate the feeding in of new language should take place at this stage.
Spectator - The teacher watches the role-play and offers comments and advice at the end.
3
Budden, 6 January, 2004.
13
Participant - It is sometimes appropriate to get involved and take part in the role-play yourself.
Error Correction
There are many ways to correct mistakes when using role-play. It is rarely appropriate for the
teacher to jump in and correct every mistake. This could be incredibly demotivating. Some
students do like to be corrected straight after a role-play activity, while the language is still
fresh in their minds. Sentences with errors can be written on the board for the group to
correct together.
Self-correction - If you have the equipment to record the role-plays either on audiocassette or
on video, students can be given the opportunity to listen to the dialogue again and reflect on
the language used. They may find it easy to spot their own mistakes.
Peer-correction - Fellow students may be able to correct some mistakes made by their peers.
Students could be asked to listen out for both great bits of language they'd like to use
themselves, and some mistakes they hear. Be careful to keep peer-correction a positive and
profitable experience for all involved.
Making a note of common mistakes yourself and dealing with them in future classes ensures
that the students don't lose motivation by being corrected on the spot or straight after the
role-play. Negotiate with students and ask them how they would like to be corrected.
http://www.eslkidsworld.com/worksheets/role%20plays/
Ideas for correction work after a fluency activity (Scrivener, 2011, p.226)
Write up a number of sentences used during the activity and discuss them with the
students.
Write a number of sentences on the board. Ask the students to come up to the board
to correct the sentences.
Invent and write out a story that includes a number of errors you overhead during the
activity. Hand out the story next day and the students, in pairs or as a whole group,
find the errors and correct them.
14
Write out two lists headed A and B. on each list, write the same ten sentences from
the activity. On one list, write the sentence with an error; on the other, write the
corrected version. Thus the correct version of sentence 3 might be on either list A or
list B (the other list has the incorrect version). You divide the students into two groups,
A and B and hand out the appropriate list to each group. The groups discuss their own
list (without sight of the other list) and try to decide if their version of each sentence is
correct or not. If it is wrong, they correct it. When they have discussed all the
sentences, the groups can then compare the two sheets (and perhaps come to some
new conclusions).
15
REFERENCES
Scrivener, J. (2011). Learning Teaching. The Essential Guide to English Language Teaching.
Oxford: MacMillan.
Slattery, M. & Willis, J. (2001). English for Primary Teachers. Oxford: O.U.P.
16