Characteristics of Teacher for young learners

A teacher is related to a person who delivers educational program, asses student participation and provides consistent and substantial leadership to educational program in order to help students to acquire knowledge, competences, and values. Because of the complexity of teaching and individual variation among students especially young learner, to become a teacher, someone should have some characteristics so that their teaching process can be effective and positively contribute to children’s’ future. Here are some characteristics to be effective teacher according to Moreno (2011).  
1. Professional knowledge and skills.
Effective teachers have a good command of their subject matter and teaching skills. They know when they use the instructional strategies and method to support their teaching process in managing classroom, and planning learning and teaching goal. They are aware that not all methods can fix for all the subject or material and classroom condition. In addition, they understand how to motivate students and how to communicate and work effectively with those of varying skill levels and culturally diverse background. Effective teachers also employ appropriate levels of technology in the classroom.

• Subject-matter competence. Having a thoughtful, flexible, conceptual understanding of subject matter is indispensable for being an effective teacher. Of course, knowledge of subject matter includes more than just facts, terms, and general concept. It also includes knowledge about organizing ideas, connecting among ideas, ways of thinking and arguing, pattern of change within discipline.
•  Instructional strategies. There are two approaches to characterize how the teachers teach: constructivist and direct instruction. The constructivist approach is a learner-centered approach that emphasizes the importance of individual actively constructing their knowledge and understanding with guidance form the teacher. By contrast, the direct instruction approach is a structured, teacher-centered approach characterized by teacher direction and control, high teacher expectations for students’ progress, maximum time spent by students’ academic tasks, and efforts by the teacher to keep negative affect to a minimum. 
• Thinking skill. Effective teacher model and communicate good thinking skills, especially thinking skill, which involves thinking reflectively and productively and evaluating the evidence. It also means being open-minded and curious on the one hand, yet being careful to avoid key mistakes in interpretation on the other. Getting young learner to think critically is not easy, so a teacher need to have thinking skill in order that students are not to be passive learner in the classroom
• Goal setting and instructional planning.The teacher should set high goals for their teaching and organize plans for reaching goals (Anderman & Dawson, 2011). Good planning requires consideration of kinds of information, demonstration, models, inquiry opportunities, discussion, and practice learner need over time to understand particular concepts and develop particular skills. 
• Developmentally appropriate teaching practice. Competent teachers have a good understanding of children’s development and know how to create instruction materials appropriate for their developmental levels or their age so the teachers can know what their students need in teaching and learning process. 
• Classroom management skills. An important aspect of being an effective teacher is keeping the class as whole working together and oriented toward classroom task in which learning can occur.
• Motivation skills. Effective teachers have a good strategies for helping students become self-motivated and take responsibility for their learning (Anderman & Dawson, 2011). Young learners are motivated when they can make choices in line with their interests. Effective teachers give them the opportunity to think creatively and deeply about projects.
• Communication skill. Effective teachers use good communication skill when they talk “with” rather than “to” students, parents administrators, and others; keep criticism at a minimum; and have an assertive rather than aggressive, manipulative, and passive communication style. Effective teachers work to improve students’ communication skills as well. 
• Paying more than lip service to individual variation. In the classroom, the students have diverse characteristic so they need much though and effort to teach. Differented instruction addresses this challenge by recognizing individual variations in students’ knowledge readiness, interest, and other characteristic. It makes a teacher pay attention to each their learners in taking every subject and how to solve classroom problems. 
• Working effectively with students from culturally diverse background. Effective teachers must be knowledgeable and understandable about young learners from different cultural backgrounds and sensitive to their needs because they will guide the learners in thinking critically about cultural and ethnic issues.  
• Assessment knowledge skills. Competent teachers also have a good assessment knowledge and skills. The teachers will need to decide what type of assessments you want to use document your students’ performance after instruction.
• Technological skill.Technology itself does not necessarily improve students’ ability to learn, but it can support learning (Lever-Duffy & McDonald. 2011). Nowadays, teacher should be able to operate the computer or other technology tools. This will help them to make their teaching more joyful and interesting.  Young learner likes visual realia, video, and colorful material and it will not make them boring in your classroom.

2.    Commitment, motivation, and caring
Being effective teacher requires commitment, motivation, and caring, qualities that include have a good attitude. Teachers are sometimes easy to get frustrated or to get into a rut and develop negative attitude. Commitment and motivation help get effective teachers through the tough moments of teaching so that you will be aware with your students or care with what they need.
Therefore the better teacher you become, the more rewarding your work will be, and the more respect and success you achieve in the eyes of your students, the better you will feel about your commitment to teaching.
See the next post about the Challenges in Teaching English for Young Learner and The Role of Teacher Talk for Young Learner in The Classroom 
Reference
Anderman, E. M., & Dawson, H. (2011). Learning and motivation. In P. A. Alexander & R. E. Mayer (Eds.), Handbook of research on learning and instruction . New York: Routledge.
Lever-Duffy, J., McDonald, J., & Mizell, A. (2003). Teaching and learning with technology. Boston:  Allyn & Bacon.
Moreno, R. (2010). Educational Psychology. The United State of America: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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Simon Says

Age: 7++
Material: learning about Verb
Organization: Whole Class
Time: 20-25 minutes
Aim: To practice or revise a new vocabulary set
Description: Children stand in front of the classroom. They learn a new vocabulary set
Preparation: You will need to prepare the words or verb vocabularies you want the children to learn
Procedures 

1. Stand in front of the class (you are Simon for the duration of this game).
2. Do an action and say Simon Says [action]. The students must copy what you do.
3. Repeat this process choosing different actions - you can be as silly as you like and the sillier you are the more the children will love you for it.
4. Then do an action but this time say only the action and omit 'Simon Says'. Whoever does the action this time is out and must sit down.
5. The winner is the last student standing.
6. To make it harder, speed up the actions. Reward children for good behavior by allowing them to play the part of Simon.

Note:
The danger of this games sometimes children does not want to stop playing this games

Reference
10 Best Games for ESL Teacher Abroad Link

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Swap the Dot

Antonella—Italy
Age: 8-9
Times: 15 minutes
Materials: Circles of card. Each circle has either a color or a number on it. Use actual colors and write numbers (e.g. 5), rather than writing the words.
Organization: Whole class.
Aim: To practice recognizing and saying number words and colors.
Description: Each child has a card with either a color or a number. The teacher calls out a number and a color. The children with these cards must stand up, shout out their colors or numbers, and swap cards.
Preparation: You will need to prepare the card circles, depending on the number of children in the class. For 20 children, you will need 10 color cards and 10 number cards. The colors can be red, yellow, pink, blue, green, black, white, grey, orange, brown, for example.
Procedures

1. Ask the children to stand in a circle and give each one a card.
2. Practice the vocabulary. You can do this by pointing to each card, saying the word and asking the children to repeat; by saying a word and asking the child with the card to hold it up; by going round the circle and asking each child to say their word, and so on. 
3. Now play the game. Call out a number and a color, for example, five and orange. The children with these cards must come to the center, shout out their words and then swap their cards.
4. Repeat until all the children have swapped cards. 
5. Now ask each child to say what is on their new card.

Notes:
Once you have made the cards, you can use them to revise colors and numbers. You can also write the color or number on the back of the cards and use these to teach the written form.
Alternatives

1. If you have a larger class, you can add another group to the numbers and colors, for example, animals. The teacher then calls out three words – for example, ‘5, blue, tiger’ – and the children swap three cards.
2. When the children have all swapped cards, they can put them face down and the class can try to remember which child has which card.
3. Put all the cards face down on the floor (with the number/colour facing the floor). Children take it in turns to turn up two cards. If they can say the names correctly, they keep the cards. If not, the cards are put back in the same place.

Reference 
Crazy Animals and Other Activities for Teaching English to Young Learners Download PDF 

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I Have It in My Name

By Issoofu Kanda Ibrahim—Niger
Age: All age
Times: 15-20 minutes
Materials: None.
Organization: Group work and whole class.
Aim: To practise/revise the alphabet and numbers. To practise listening for specific information, pronunciation of numbers and letters.
Description: This activity is a simple and fun way to revise the alphabet and numbers and is also quite cognitively challenging for children as they have to associate letters and numbers.
Preparation: No preparation is needed for this activity.
Procedures:
The teacher
Say a number and a letter, for example, ‘three, M’. Tell the children that if they have an ‘M’ as the third letter in their name, they should raise their hand. All the children who have M as the third letter in their name raise their hands and then take it in turns to spell out their name together with the numbers corresponding to the position of each letter.
For example:
Teacher: Three M Child: My name is Asma, one A, two S, three M, four A
Notes:
You might want to explain the activity in the children’s first language as the instructions are quite complicated!
Alternative

1. The children can take it in turns to choose the letter and the number.
2. The game can be made easier by calling out just a letter and asking the children whose name begins with that letter to spell their names, along with the numbers.For example: Teacher: OChild: My name is Oscar. One O, two S, three C, four A, five R.
3. Spelling games can be popular with children. A simple spelling game is to split the class into groups. Give Group A a word to spell. One child in the group starts to spell the word. If they get it right, award a point. If wrong, stop the child (perhaps with a buzzer sound) as soon as the wrong letter is given. The turn passes to Team B, who now knows where the mistake has been made. A child from Team B now tries to spell the word. If correct, award a point. If not, stop at the wrong letter in the same way and the turn moves to Team C. For example: Teacher: Team A: AustraliaTeam A: A–STeacher: BUZZ! Team BTeam B: A-U-S-T-R-E Teacher: BUZZ. Team CTeam C: A-U-S-T-R-A-L-I-A Teacher: Well done! Team C one point.

Reference
Crazy Animals and Other Activities for Teaching English to Young Learners Download PDF

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Hammer Buttles

Weronika Poland
Age: 5-9
Times: 10-15 minutes
Materials: Flashcards and two plastic hammers.
Organization: Whole class.
Aim: To practise or revise vocabulary.
Description: After practising vocabulary items on flashcards, children show what they have remembered by locating the correct flashcard and hitting it with a plastic hammer.
Preparation: You need to prepare flashcards with all the words you want to practise/revise. You will need around 10 to 12 cards and two plastic hammers!
Procedures:

1. Ask the children to sit in a circle on the floor. Spread all the flashcards face up on the floor in front of the children.
2. Revise the words and the correct pronunciation of the items on the flashcards. The children can all point to the correct word first, then repeat the word, then individual children can say the word. 
3. After all the words have been revised, give two children a plastic hammer each. Say one of the words on the flashcards. The children locate the flashcard and hit it with the hammer. The first to hit is the winner. 
4. The children pass the hammer to the child on their left and the game continues. 
5. When the children know the words from the flashcards quite well, ask one of them to take over your role and shout out the words.

Notes:
This is a lot of fun and as long as you only have two hammers, it should be fairly easy to control!
Alternatives

1. If there is not enough space on the floor, the flashcards can be attached to the board.
2. If you do not like the idea of hitting the cards, children can stand on the cards or grab the cards (but this can cause arguments). 
3. In larger classes you can do steps one and two using the board, with the children sitting in their seats. You can then divide the class into two circles to play the game. In this case, you will need two sets of cards. 
4. If you do not have hammers, you can play an alternative version. Carry out steps one and two as explained. Then start to turn the cards over by asking the children in turn to identify a word and then turn it face down. When all the flashcards are face down, repeat the process. This time it is more difficult as children have to remember where the flashcard was!

Reference 
Crazy Animals and Other Activities for Teaching English to Young Learners Download PDF

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Fly the Airplane, Pilot!

By Juliana Cavalieri Goncales—Brazil
age: 5-10
Times: 10-20 minutes
Materials: A piece of paper for each child.
Organization: Whole class.
Aim: To revise language from previous lessons.
Description: The children make paper airplanes. They then answer questions and if they get the right answers, they have the opportunity to throw their planes at ‘targets’ in the room to score points for their team.
Preparation: You will need to prepare a set of questions based on work you have been doing with the children. This might be some vocabulary, a story, some grammar.
Procedures:

1. Give each child a piece of paper and then show them how to fold a paper airplane. Be prepared to help children who struggle.
2. Let the children play for a short time with their airplanes. 
3. Divide the children into teams. 
4. Now decide with the children which parts of the classroom are going to be ‘targets’. Assign a number to each target. Easy targets will have a low number, for example the table could be worth 5 points. Difficult targets will have a high number, for example the trash can might be worth 20 points. The most difficult target should be worth a good lot, for example, 50 points for the clock. 
5. The children stand in lines in their teams at the front of the class with their airplanes. Ask the first question to the front row of children. The first child to raise their hand has to answer. If the answer is right, they get the chance to throw the airplane at a target of choice. If the airplane hits the target, the child gets the points. If the answer is wrong, another child can try to answer. All the first row must then go to the back of their lines so the next set of children can have a turn. 
6. The team that scores the most points is the winner!

Notes:
Once the airplanes have been made, they can be kept for the next time. You can have any number of teams, depending on the number of children in the class and the space you have. In a mixed ability class, try to make sure that children of similar ability are in the same row so that you can adapt the question to the children.
Alternatives

1. In small classes the children can play individually.
2. The teacher can create a running total over a week, month or term so that the game can be played frequently but for a short time only.
3. The children can decorate their planes or make modifications to make them fly better.
4. Maria Stakhovskya (Russia) offers an alternative to airplanes. She suggests that you bring in soft balls and skittles/objects to knock down. After answering the question, the children can try to knock down the skittles. They score points depending on the number of skittles they knock down. If you use objects, the children can try to hit the objects with the soft balls. If they are successful, they say something about the object they hit.

Reference
Crazy Animals and Other Activities for Teaching English to Young Learners Download PDF

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Creative Chair

By Silvama Rampone—Italy
Age: 6-10
Times: 30 minutes 
Materials: A4 paper, felt tip pens, scissors, glue, dance music and equipment to play it on.
Organisation: Group work and whole class.
Aim: To practice speaking and writing.
Description: In this activity, children co-operate in drawing pictures, developing their creativity through collaborative work and also developing their communicative and thinking skills.
Preparation: You will need a piece of paper and a colored pen for each child.
Procedures

1. Ask the children to place their chairs in a circle. Give one sheet of A4 paper and a felt tip pen to each child. Use as many different colors as possible. Tell the children to write their names on the back of their piece of paper.
2. Tell the children to sit on their chairs and to draw anything they like on the piece of paper.
3. Tell the children that when they hear music, they have to start dancing around the chairs. When the music stops, the children should stop and stand behind the nearest chair and draw another picture on the paper on the chair they are standing behind. 
4. Start the music. 
5. When the music stops, the children go to the nearest chair (not their own) and add a drawing to the paper they find there. Continue this procedure until you see that the papers are quite full of drawings. 
6. Ask the children to go back to the chair they started from and look at the drawings. The children then take it in turns to hold up their pictures and describe what they see to the rest of the class. They can use the chunk ‘I can see...’ to introduce the pictures. You can help them with any new words they need. 
7. After describing their pictures, the children can then write a story, including as many of the pictures on the piece of paper as possible.

Notes
If you have a large class, you can organize the children into two or three circles.
Alternatives

1. You can extend this by asking all the children to hold up their pens. The child describing the picture can identify who did the drawings and say ‘This is Davide’s picture’ or ‘Davide drew this picture’ or ‘This was done by Davide’ or whatever phrase might be useful for your class to practise.
2.  The children hold up their pictures for the class. Play the game ‘I spy’. Children take it in turns to say ‘I spy with my little eye ...’ finishing the sentence with the names of objects in the pictures, for example, ‘I spy with my little eye a flower’. The other children have to find all the pictures with flowers in them and point to them.
3.  The children cut out the objects from their drawings. Place all the cut out pictures on the floor and ask the children to sort them out so that all drawings of the same object are together (flowers, houses, people etc).
4.  Put a large poster-size sheet of paper on the floor or on a desk and ask the children to stick the objects on it to make a display using singular and plural forms. Write on the poster (or ask the children to write) one flower six flowers (depending on how many there are on the poster). Draw the children’s attention to any irregular plurals and how they are formed.
5. Give each group a piece of poster-size paper. The children cut the objects out of their pictures and rearrange them on the poster, leaving some space at the bottom. When they’re happy with the layout, they can glue them onto the paper to make the new picture. The children can then colour the background, give their poster a title and write a short description of it at the bottom.
6. The children make an accordion book of their story by sticking the pictures in the right sequence. They then write short sentences for each stage of the story.

Reference
Crazy animals and other activities for teaching English to young learner book Download PDF 

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Journal of Young Learners' Teaching Methods

1. Different Approaches to Teaching English as Foreign Language to Young Learners Download PDF
2. Young Learners' Language Learning Via Computer games Download PDF
3. Contextualizing Young Learners' English Lesson with Cartoons: Focus on Grammar and Vocabulary Download PDF
4. A Model of Using Social Media for Collaborative Learning to Enhance Learners’ Performance on Learning Download PDF 
5. The Effect of application of picture into picture audio- visual aids on vocabulary learning of young Iranian ELF learners Download PDF
6. Teaching English Vocabulary Via Drama Download PDF
7. Teaching English to Very Young Learner Download PDF
8. Applying a biopsychosocial perspective to address hand washing behaviors among young learners in Limpopo, South Africa Download PDF 
9. The Impact of Scaffolding on Content Retention of Iranian Post-elementary EFL Learners’ Summary Writing Download PDF 
10. Research Communiqué on the Use of Animated Cartoons in Teaching English to Children with Disorders and Disabilities Download PDF   
11. Encouraging young learners to learn English through stories Download PDF

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Rewarding Young Learners

Who doesn't like if somebody give reward or appreciation word? Moreover if the reward are given to children, they will naturally be very happy to accept it. As a teacher, Reward is also called teachers’ reinforcement. Teachers’ reinforcement is one of the behavioral approaches to learning based on operant conditioning (also called instrumental conditioning) by B.F. Skinner. According to B. F. Skinner (1938), operant conditioning is a form of learning in which the consequences of behavior, rewards or reinforcement, produce changes in the probability that the behavior will occur. Reinforcement is divided into two kinds, positive and negative reinforcement. In positive reinforcement, the frequency of a response increases because it is followed by rewarding stimulus whereas in negative reinforcement, the frequency of response increases when it is followed by removal of an aversive stimulus. However, rewarding is very beneficial applied by teacher in the classroom in order to increase students’ motivation.

Motivation is a crucial aspect of teaching and learning process. In fact, young learners with higher motivation in learning will achieve the best results in their performances. Motivation to learn can be defined as the psychological processes that direct and sustain students’ behavior toward learning. The arrays of factors that may motivate a learner to learn have led to the traditional distinction between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivation involves doing something to obtain something else. Extrinsic motivation is often influenced by external incentives or rewarding. However, intrinsic motivation arises from internal factors. Thus, a child may be motivated by the enjoyment of the learning process itself or by a desire to make themselves feel better. Therefore, both extrinsic and intrinsic motivations are very essential elements on the learning process, and it is important for a teacher to be truly effective to help their students feel motivated to learn and achieve.

For young learners, intrinsically motivated to study is not easy thing. As a result, they will not be consistently motivated in learning and teaching process. It is related to their characteristic that is ego. This proves that teachers should give reward to their learner, but they do not always and should wisely give them rewards because it can make their intrinsic motivation drop. There are some rewards that teachers can use in the classroom such as praise, score or start, or games. However, before giving rewarding, teacher should know about when the reinforcement is given in order to increase motivation. According to Santrok (2010), they are:

1. Choose effective reinforcement. Not all reinforcers or rewards are the same for every child. Applied behavior analysis recommend that teachers find out what reinforcers work best with which children—that is, individualize the use of particular reinforcers (Scarlett, Pontem &Singh, 2009)
2. Make reinforcers contigent and timely. For a reinforcer to be effective, the teacher must give it only after the child performs the particular behavior. Reinforcers are more effective when they are given in a timely way, as soon as possible aft er the child performs the target behavior (Umbreit & others, 2007). Th is helps children see the contingency connection between the reward and their behavior. If the child completes the target behavior (such as doing 10 math problems by mid morning) and the teacher doesn’t give the child playtime until late afternoon, he might have trouble making the contingency connection.
3. Select the best schedule of reinforcement. Most of the examples given so far assume continuous reinforcement—that is, the child is reinforced every time he or she makes a response. The teachers can also use partial reinforcement. Partial reinforcement involves reinforcing a response only part of the time. Skinner developed the concept of schedules of reinforcement, which are partial reinforcement timetables that determine when a response will be reinforced.
4. Considering contracting. In contracting, reinforcement contingencies are put in writing

In Conclusion, rewarding can be use to increase frequency of good response of young learner.  This will also help to motivate young learner to study English. As a result, they engage themselves in every activities on learning and teaching process in the classroom.

References
Santrok, J.W., (2011). Educational Psychology (5th ed). New York: McGraw-Hill
Skinner, B. F. (1938). The behavior of organisms. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
Scarlett, W. G., Ponte, I. C., & Singh, J. P. (2009). Approaches to behavior and classroommanagement. Th ousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

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Book Review of Five Minutes Activities for Young Learner

This book is designed to provide short, tropical, and achievable teaching ideas for teachers of English  to young learner, whether they are following a required syllabus or textbook,  or preparing a curriculum that is targeted at their own group of learners. The particular value of the book is that provides teachers  with a store of activities that they can use, at long or short notice, to meet a specific learning objectives, or to fill a gap ( or reinforce a learning point) that becomes apparent as children study the scheduled curriculum or textbook.
The structure of this book
This book is organized by six themes, and each themes contains activity which have been divided into there level of difficulty: one start (*) represents the lowest level of difficult, while three starts (***) represent the most challenging activities. The themes of this book are

1. Animals
2. Journeys
3. Fantasy and adventure
4. The world around us
5. Healthy bodies
6. About me

The content of the activities
The activities focus on the four macro skills, listening, speaking, reading and writing, and the ‘building blocks’ of language, vocabulary, pronunciation and grammar.
⬇
Download Book

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Toothpick Game

By Weronika Salandyk—Poland
Age: 8+
Times: maximum 20 minutes
Materials: Toothpicks and pictures of people doing things.
Organization: Group work.
Aim: To practice making sentences describing the pictures.
Description: Children work in pairs or groups. They take it in turns to make sentences about the pictures, and use the toothpicks to show which part of the picture they are describing.
Preparation: You will need to find suitable pictures of people doing things. These can be pictures from your course book, pictures from magazines, a photocopied picture or a flashcard. The important thing is that there is a lot of activity in the picture. Make sure you have enough toothpicks to bring to class.
Procedures

1. Divide the class into pairs or groups of no more than four. Give each pair/group a set of about 12–20 toothpicks.
2. Give each pair or group a picture. 
3. Tell the children that they have to take it in turns to make sentences about the pictures. Elicit some examples using one of the pictures, or a picture you put on the board. 
4. Here is the fun part. As the children make a sentence, they must put a toothpick on to the picture, so that the point of the toothpick touches the part of the picture that the child is describing. The next child then makes a sentence, following the same procedure. However, this child’s toothpick must touch the picture and also the previous toothpick, like in a dominos game. 
5. The children get one point for each toothpick they manage to lay down. The child who places all their toothpicks first is the winner.

Note
You might need to cut the toothpicks in half if the pictures are small.
Alternatives

1. If you have children of different levels, you can differentiate the kind of sentences they must make. For example, lower level children can make sentences with adjectives while higher level children can make sentences with particular tense patterns.
2. You can add a level of challenge by insisting that the children cannot move existing toothpicks when they lay down their toothpick, or they lose a point.

Reference
Crazy animals and other activities for teaching English to young learner book  Download PDF

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The Snake Game

By Marina Kolar—Croatia
Age: 7+
Times: 10-20 minutes
Materials: board and markers (either magnets or some sort of sticker, such as a sticky note), a dice.
Organization: Whole class.
Aim: To practice or revise vocabulary and structures.
Description: Children in the class are divided into two teams. Individuals from each team must answer questions dictated by a square on the board snake.
Preparation: You will need to prepare a series of questions based on the categories in your snake (see Step 1 below).
Procedures

1. Draw a large snake on the board and divide its body into a number of squares (at least 15). In each square write a letter as a prompt to the category of question. For example, V might be a ‘vocabulary’ question; C might be ‘correct the sentence’, while O might be ‘odd man out.’
2. Divide the class into two teams. Explain the rules of the game. A member from each team comes to the front and shakes a dice. According to the number on the dice, they move forward up the snake’s body. On reaching the number, the child places the marker on the square and has to answer a question, according to the letter. If the child is not sure of the answer, they can ask the rest of the team.  
3. If the child answers correctly, the marker remains on the square. If the question is answered incorrectly, the child moves the marker three squares down the snake. The winning team is the first to reach the snake’s tongue.

Notes
Other categories you might consider are ‘translation’, ‘spelling’ and ‘pronunciation’. Larger classes will need more teams.
Alternatives

1. The children could prepare questions for each other based on the categories.
2. Children from the opposing team could read out the questions in a ‘snakey’ voice. They could also decide if the answer is right or wrong (if they get it wrong, they move down the snake two spaces).

Reference
Crazy animals and other activities for teaching English to young learner book  Download PDF

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Memory Game

Ester Biancy—Itali
Age          : 6-10
Times      : 30 minutes
Materials: Sets of cards with words and drawings/pictures of fruit (or other vocabulary group), one    set for each group of four.
Organization: Group work, whole class.
Aim: To introduce and practice vocabulary, to practice pronunciation.
Description: This is an adaption of the classic card-matching game sometimes called Pelmanism. In this version the children have to find picture/word combinations, but there are a number of variations.
Preparation: You will need to create sets of cards – at least 14 cards in each set. To explain the activity we are using fruit as the vocabulary set, but you can choose whichever vocabulary you like. On seven cards draw/stick pictures of fruit and on the other seven, write the names of the fruit.
Procedure

1. Show the pictures cards to the children and repeat the words all together.
2. Show the children the word cards with the picture cards and repeat again. 
3. Divide the class into groups of four and give each group a set of cards. One child in each group shuffles the cards and lays them face down on the desk. 
4. The children take it in turns to turn over two cards to try and find a picture-word pair. If the child is successful, they say the name of the fruit and take the card and turns over two more cards. If they are not successful, the cards are turned face down again and the next child has a turn. The child with the most cards at the end is the winner.

Notes
In activities where the children are working in groups, especially in competitive games such as this one, it can useful to nominate one child in each group as the group leader and give them responsibility for leading the activity and monitoring it.
Alternatives

1. This game can be played with any vocabulary set. It can be played with sound/ letter pairs, such as the letter “C” and a picture of a car.
2. The same game could be played with question/ answer pairs or with matching sentence halves to practice grammar points. For example, matching tenses and adverbs: one set cards has time adverbs such as yesterday, twice a day, since 2000, next week. The other set has phrases such as I went to the doctors’, I’m not feeling well, I brush my teeth, I’ve been at this school, I’m going to the USA. 
3. The children can draw the pictures on pieces of paper/card in preparation for the game.
4.  Gulanara Janova (Georgia) suggests another game with cards which she calls ‘Fishing’. Put the prepared vocabulary picture cards, or objects into a box or bag. Ask the children to come to the front one at a time to pick a picture/object out of the bag/box – tell them they are ‘catching a fish’. The child who has caught a fish has to name it. If they name it correctly, they take it back to their seat. If they cannot name it, they have to put it back in the bag/box. The child with the most ‘fish’ at the end is the winner. This activity can also be used to revise/practise grammar, for example, children can describe their picture (e.g. ‘It’s a big, black cat’) or say what their classmates have caught (e.g. ‘I have a cat, Dana has a horse, Ivan has a duck and Josi has a lion.’).

Reference
Crazy animals and other activities for teaching English to young learner book  Download PDF

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Book Review of Teaching Language to Young Learners (Cambridge Language Teaching Library)

This is a book about teaching that puts learning in the center of the frame, particularly teaching foreign language to young children, which in this book will mean those between five and twelve  years of age.
The organization of the book
Chapter 1 : Children Learning a foreign language
The book starts with a review of learning theories from   Piaget, Vygostky, and Burner.  The book also describes advantages to starting young with foreign language, and summary of key principles
Chapter 2 : Learning language through tasks and activities
This chapter describes about the task as an environment for learning, task demands, task support, balancing demands and support, the importance of language learning goals, defining  ‘task’ for young learner classrooms,  stages in a classroom task, Hani’s Weekend: Possible  Preparation and follow-up activities, task as plan and task-in-action
Chapter 3: Learning in spoken language
This chapter describes about guiding principles of learning the spoken language, discourse and discourse events, meaning first, analysis  of a task-in-action, effective support for children’s foreign language discourse skills, short activities for learning the spoken language, supporting the written language, using dialogues, and summary
Chapter 4: learning Words
This chapter describes about vocabulary development in children's language learning, organization of words in language, learning and teaching vocabulary, children's’ vocabulary learning strategies and summary.
Chapter 5: Learning grammar
This chapter describes about a place for grammar, different meaning of grammar, development of the internal grammar, Development of the internal grammar, A learning-centered approach to teaching grammar background, Principles for learning-centered  grammar teaching, teaching techniques for supporting  grammar learning and summary.
Chapter 6: Learning literacy skills
This chapter describes about literacy skills in English, factors affecting  learning to read in English as a foreign language, starting to read and write in English as foreign language, continuing to learn to read, developing reading and writing as discourse skills, and summary
Chapter 7: Learning through stories
This chapter describes about stories and themes as holistic approaches to language teaching and learning, the discourse organization of stories, language use in stories, Quality in stories, choosing stories to promote language learning, ways of using a story, developing  tasks around a story, developing tasks around a story, and summary
Chapter 8: Theme-based teaching and learning
This chapter describes about issues around theme-based teaching, theme based teaching of a foreign language, planning theme-based teaching, learning  language through theme –based teaching, learning language through theme-based teaching, and summary.
Chapter 9: language choice and language learning
This chapter describes about patterns of first language use in foreign language classrooms,  dynamics of language choice and use, taking responsibility, making choice, and summary
Chapter 10: Assessment and language learning
This chapter describes about issues in assessing children's’ language learning, principles for assessing children's language learning, key concepts in assessment,  teacher assessment of language learning, self-assessment and learner autonomy, use of assessment information, and messages from assessment.
Chapter 11: Issues around teaching children a foreign language
This chapter  describes about reviews of the ideas, the need of the research, the need to develop pedagogy, and teaching foreign languages to children.
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Book Review of Crazy animals and other activities for Teaching English to Young Learners

This book contains the activities for young learner that teachers can use in the primary classroom, and all activities in this book have been tried and tested by teachers. These teachers work in the most diverse context and conditions, sometimes with large classes, sometimes with very small groups, sometimes with every type of resource you could wish for, sometimes with only board to support their teaching. However, they share desire to help their students to learn English.
The Activities
For each activity, the book gives the ages of the children it is suitable for and the time it takes. It also consists of materials that teachers can use in the classroom, organization such as pair work, group work or whole class, aim or indicator, description about the activity, preparation , procedures or activity arrangements, alternatives. In alternatives , this book gives different ideas for using the activity. There is also a section called no resources? which suggests ways of doing the activity even if you do not have access to the resources needed, such as computers, flashcards, or even sufficient colored paper.
Finding activities
The activity are simply presented in alphabetical order. The book has also developed a table which you can use to find activities quickly.  The table gives the list of activities and some useful information
Rewarding children
Some of the activities in this book suggest giving rewards to children who win. Some teachers take sweets or other prizes into the classroom to give to children who complete an activity first
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Chain Games

By Eliana Fernandez Malla- Dominican Republic and Jekaterina Mazure- Latvia
Material          : Flashcard
Organization   : Whole Class
Time               : 20-25 minutes
Aim                : To practice or revise a new vocabulary set
Description     : Children sit in a circle. They learn a new vocabulary set (For example.   Vegetables)
Preparation     : You will need to prepare flasscard of the words you want the children to learn
Procedures:

1.  Introduce a set of words you want the children to learn, for example fruit and vegetables through flashcard. After practicing the pronunciation, stick the card on the board (you might want to write the word under the card)
2.  Ask the children to sit in a circle. explain they will have to use the flashcards to try to remember a list of words 
3. Introduce the phrase. “My auntie went to market, and she bought an apple’. The first child should add to the list, using another word from the flashcard, in the following way: ‘My auntie went to market and she bought an apple and some carrots’. The activity goes on with each child adding to the list after having repeated all the items before  
4. Repeat the activity, but this time take the flashcard off the board and erase any writing
5. Note:You can help children who are struggling by mouthing the words in the list

Alternatives :

1.  It is not necessary to teach a set of vocabulary first. The children can add whatever they like to the list from words they remember. This takes much less time
2. Another alternative is to start the next item in the list with the last letter of the previous item. For example. I went to market and bought an apple, an elephant, some trees and a snake 
3. Add a rhythm. A model the rhythm by slapping your kness (gently) twice, clapping (twice) and then clicking the fingers on each hand in turn. Get all the children to take up the rhythm. Then say your own name on the first click and one of the children’s names on the second. The child then says their name on the first click and another child’s on the second, Once the rhythm has been established, introduce a word family, for example, fruit. The activity starts again, but this time you say a fruit with the first click and a name of a child with the second. For example, ‘Banana, Peter’. Peter then has to say, For example, ‘Apple, Justina’, and soon.

Reference
Crazy Animals and Other Activities for Teaching English to Young Learners

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BOOKS OF YOUNG LEARNERS

1. Crazy Animals and Other Activities for Teaching English to Young Learners 
   
2. Teaching Language to Young Learners (Cambridge Language Teaching Library 
3. Five Minutes Activities for Young Learner 
4. Developing the Gifted and Talented Young Learner 
5. Identity and the Young English Language Learner 
6. The Express Picture Dictionary for Young Learners: Activity Book 
7. Assessing Young Language Learners (Cambridge Language Assessment 
8. Practical English Language Teaching: PELT Young Learners 
9. Cambridge Young Learner English Test 
10. Do and Understand: 50 Action Stories for Young Learners 
11. Move With English: Pupils' Book B (Young Learners Go) 

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Writing Skill Journal of Young Learner

Young Learner Writing Performance in Swiss Elementary Schools-Which Teacher variables matter?
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Listening Skill Journal of Young Learner

1. The Problems Young Learners Encounter During Listening Skills Download PDF 
2. The Effects of English Songs on Young Learners' Listening Comprehension and                          Pronunciation Download PDF

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Challenges in Teaching English to Young Learner

Is teaching a challenge?  According to oxford essential dictionary, a challenge is a new or difficult thing that makes you try hard. It means that teaching is difficult thing. However, Different opinions may be appearing from this statement. As a teacher, either teaching is easy or difficult, many challenges still exist while teaching English especially young learner in the classroom. Here are some challenges faced by teachers

1.      Teaching speaking and writing 

         a)     not know what their teachers explain
         b)      Lack of vocabularies
         c)      Using their accent in speaking English
         d)     problems with their first language (illiteracy)
         e)      Easily get bored when learning either speaking or writing

2.      Motivation

         a)      How to motivate students to love English
         b)      The biggest challenge is to get them learn
         c)      In the classroom, they like appreciation or a present to increase their motivation
         d)     Teachers and parents should be involved to motivate them.

3.      Differences

         a)     Group differences such as culture, language, socioeconomic status, and gender
         b)     Individual differences such as intelligence, ability differences in the classroom,
                 cognitive styles and learning preferences, temperament and personality.
          c)    Exceptional student such as learning disabilities, speech or language impairments,mental
                 retardation, Emotional disturbance, attention-deficit disorder (ADD), and giftedness and
                 talent

4.      Teaching large classes

         a)      Difficulties in managing and controlling students in the classroom
         b)      Difficulties in delivering material
         c)      Fatigue

5.      Discipline

         a)      Children who lack of discipline at home
         b)      Children who chat with their friend while studying.

Still many issues dealing with challenges in teaching English to young learner. Every classroom has its own challenge; however, teachers should be become competent in their teaching, for instance in designing creative learning material, good classroom management, motivating their students in order that their students can be involved in every activity in teaching and learning process.

This article is based on primarily observation in one of international schools in Makassar

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Challenges in Teaching English to Young Learners: Global Perspectives and Local Realities

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