Vocabulary Challenge Games for Young Learners

Laurie Thain – Canada

Age: 6-10

Time: 20 minutes

Large classes: No

Mixed level: Yes

Materials: Flashcards.

Organization : Whole class activity.

Aim: To learn new vocabulary.

Description: In this game the class have to guess what is on a card chosen by one of the children.

Preparation: You will need to make flashcards of the new vocabulary items (we use furniture here). There should be one card for each child in the class.

Procedures

1. Ask the children to sit in a circle. Teach the children the words on the flashcards. There are lots of ways you can do this. We suggest the following: show each card and say the word. Children repeat. Show the cards again in a different order and ask the children to say the correct word. Help them if necessary. Then give each child a card. The children show the cards one-by-one and the class says the word. The children can then put cards face down in front of them and the teacher asks, ‘What card does Mary have/has Mary got?’ and the children have to remember. If they are right, the card is turned face up.
2. When all the cards have been learnt, you can play the game. Choose one leader and one helper. The helper gathers all the cards and the leader chooses one which they put face down on the floor. The helper holds the remaining flashcards. The children take turns asking the leader questions. For example, if the vocabulary set is domestic animals, the children might ask, ‘Do you have the chair?’ The leader answers, ‘Yes I do’ or ‘No I don’t’. If ‘Yes’, the lucky guesser becomes the leader and chooses a new card to turn face down and there is a new helper assigned. If ‘No’, the helper turns up the ‘cat’ so all can see it. Then children take it in turns to ask a question until someone guesses correctly and becomes the leader

Notes

You can play lots of rounds of this game or just a few – it is up to you! It is also a really useful activity for revising vocabulary previously taught.

Alternatives

• The teacher can be the leader. If a child guesses the card correctly, they keep it. At the end of the game, when all the cards have been collected, the children take it in turns to say what they have, for example, ‘I have a chair, a table and a cupboard’.
• Hatice Elif Kalaycioglu (Turkey) suggests the following alternative: instead of sitting in a circle, the children stand in a circle. The teacher plays some music and the children walk round the cards. When the music stops, the teacher calls out the item of vocabulary. The children have to point to the correct picture card. If you want to make this into a competition, the last child to point and any children who points to the wrong card can be ‘out’, until only one child remains. She also suggests putting the pictures on the board. The children can be divided into two teams, A and B. The teacher calls out one item of vocabulary and the first member of the team has to go to the board and either take the correct picture or point at it. The first child to do so wins the point.
• The same activities can be used to practise sound/spelling associations. Instead of pictures, write the words on the cards, or use a mixture of picture and word cards. The children have to collect both the correct picture and word cards.
• Ask the children to cut pictures out of magazines, newspapers etc and stick them on card (laminate them if you can). Over time, you can build up a class collection of picture cards that can be used for a number of different activities.

No Resources

Flashcards do not have to be of professional quality. Basic drawings on scrap paper are fine.

Reference

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

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How to Manage Classroom for Young Learners

One of the biggest challenges facing teachers of young learners is classroom management. On one hand, we want to be friendly and kind for our students. It means that we want to be their friends. On the other hand, we want to maintain in order our classroom so that instruction can take place. Creating both environments are not as easy as we think. According to Linse (2005), to solve this, we will look at some classroom management that will provide an environment that is conducive to learning.

1. Establish Clear Rules at the Beginning of the Year

There are 2 kind of rules that I will stated in this article. The rules are class rules and schools’ rules. Firstly, the class rules means that the teacher and students make the rules together in order that a classroom becomes conducive during learning and teaching process. Secondly, school rules are regarding to schools’ policies. Your supervisor should be able to tell you if a set of rules exist. They may also be a list of rules as in the teachers’ handbooks because one set of rules may have updated. Whenever possible, the rules should be consistent among different teachers. The consequences for breaking the rules should be consistent among the member of students.

Children appreciate knowing what our expectations are. It is important to have rules that are stated in positive terms and establish what the children are expected to be clearly. At the beginning of the school year, and whenever you feel the students need to review the rules, demonstrate or point out expected behavior. You can also see 7 activities for welcoming students back to school.

It is also important to communicate the rules to learners a swell as their parents. The list of rules can be sent home to students in their native language. However, you shouldn’t assume that the parents have taken time to go over the rules with their children. Therefore, you should also read and explain the rules to your students. I personally like demonstrate in English with hand-drawn pictures to illustrate them.

2. Teach the Concept of Appropriate and Inappropriate Behavior

The terms good behavior and bad behavior are relative and can be problematic. When you tell children that they often internalize it that they are bad children and not that their behavior at the moment could be interpreted as bad. As a teacher of young learners, you need to monitor yourself to make sure you comment on appropriates of your learners’ behavior and not on the children themselves.  For your learners, it’s important that you spend time discussing the concept of appropriate and inappropriate behavior. For example, you may to teach children that is inappropriate to shout and run in the classroom, whereas it can be very appropriate to shout and with their friends outside on the playground.

3. Offer Reward Judiciously

Often teachers will give children rewards for good work. Unwittingly, by misusing rewards, teachers can contribute to an atmosphere of competition that is unhealthy. It is important to instill in your learners some sense of pride in their own accomplishments rather than a reliance on external gratification. Having said this, there are times when rewards are in order. If a child has gone from consistently not finishing her work during the allotted time to finishing it on time, then you might want to let her select a special sticker to attach to her paper. Personally I am concerned about the use of candy as a regular reward 

4. Plan More Than You Think You Will Need

Always be sure to have enough activities to keep children engaged, paying attention, or on task. Nothing leads to chaos more quickly than children who don’t have anything to do. You may want to prepare a set of back up activities that you or substitute teacher can use at a moments’ notice. It is easier to not get to all your planned activities than to come up with an engaging task while a class full of fidgeting students is eagerly looking at you and you and asking “what’s next

You can also find the article about differentiated instructions for young learners (6-12 years old)

5. Balance Activities

Most children do not have very long attention spans. Also not every child is going to enjoy or learn the same type of activities. In order to keep children engaged, you will want to include a balanced I mean that you want some noisy activities and some quiet ones, some large-group activities mixed with some group or individual activities.

These are 5 things that teachers should be aware how to manage classroom for young learners

References

Linse, T Caroline, A. 2000. Practical English Language Teaching to Young learners. New York. McGraw-Hill ESL/ELT

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Effective Strategies to Teach English to Young Learners

Every teacher has different ways to teach English to her/his class. Before we teach students, we have to know who we teach and what are their characteristics in learning language. Therefore, we will provide learning design in our class. Here some considerations which you should know about your students

1. Children are often enthusiastic and lively as learners
2. The children are lose interest more quickly and are less able to keep themselves motivate don task they find difficult 
3. Children use their new language in conversation (talking to someone) without focusing on grammar 
4. Adults tend to be worry of using foreign language because they think that the language they use is correct or not based on grammar or structure they learn. 
5. Children often seem less embarrassed than adults at talking in a new language, and their lack of inhibition seems to help them to get a more native-like accent.

After we know students, we start to design teaching strategies. Wulandari, Ratminingsih, and Putu Ramendra (2020) found 5 strategies in teaching English for young learners

• Listen and Repeat

These strategies focuses on enriching young learners vocabulary. Young leaners will imitate the word which they listen and repeat the word. This activity is aimed to help students memorize the vocabularies easily.

• Listen and do 

The teachers will give instruction to students. The instruction contains of a few sentence and ask young learners to do what the teacher say.

• Question and Answer 

The teachers will ask a question and the students answer the question. Young learners can write in a book and whiteboard, and directly answer the questions. 

• In Pair

The teacher asks young learners to make groups in pair.  Afterwards, the teacher gives several tasks related to pair activity.  

• Cooperative Learning 

This strategy is group strategy. Young learners will try learn a new vocabulary in a group. They will try to learn it in a community and When you learn something together, you'll likely spend more time with each other, understand different perspectives and accommodate different work styles. It's an effective strategy for team building and collaboration

• Games 

Every young leaner like studying through games. They will enjoy, relax classroom, and play while studying. 

According to lestari, Asrori, and Sulistyawati (unkown year), They stated some strategies to teach English to young learners.

1. Icebreaking
2. Recalling Memory 
3. Brainstorming
4. Discussion 
5. Game
6. Listen and Read 
7. Listen and Match 
8. Draw and Write
9. Write Paragraph
10. Filling the blank
11. Vocabulary Writing 
12. Concluding Material
13. Police of English 
14. Reading Time
15. English Camp 
16. Assembly 

Based on my teaching experiences, I have some strategies to build young learners understanding the material taught.

1. Identifying Students' learning styles
2. Visible Thinking Routines (VTR)
3. Differentiated instructions 
4. Ice Breaking and games 

References 

Journal of Educational Research and Evaluation  Volume 4, Number 3, Tahun 2020, pp. 235-241;

Strategies Implemented in Teaching English for Young Learners in Primary School by Ni Luh Putu Titin Wulandari, Ni Made Ratminingsih, and D. P. Ramendra (2020)

Journal of The English Teaching Strategies for Young Learners in An International Primary School in Surakarta by Ria Puji Lestari, Muhammad Asrori, Hefy Sulistyawati

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7 Activities for Welcoming Students Back to School (A New Academic Year)

 

Who doesn't like having long holiday? Both teachers and students like this time, so do I. When I have holiday, I just want to stay for long time. I also believe that my students enjoy having their holiday and based on my experience, I still find some of them add some days for their holiday. Therefore, as a teacher what we have to welcome back to our students to school in order that they will be ready to study in the classroom. Here I list some activities for welcoming students back to school; 

• Decorate you classroom door. (Welcoming Door)

 This is my routine every new academic year. I start to make welcoming door. I'll make it before my students back to school. We have to try to create atmosphere that the students will get excited to back to school and enjoy it in their a new class.

• Outdoor Activities

The activities we design for one or two days. We can do Gym, play traditional games, make up, karaoke, or other fun activities. The activities are not only for your class but also for whole school member. below is the example

• Class Rules for students  

In another day, After doing outdoor activities, we discuss class rules with our students. The students will understand what is appropriate and what is not and what should they do or don't. Class rules help the teacher to maintain class routines and student expectations for classwork and behaviors. Clear classroom rules create a framework that provides choices to students and helps teach them to self-manage their classroom behaviors. Moreover, we can also discuss about the consequences if they break the rules. 

• Getting to know. 

This activities help us to know them. We ask the students to write who they are. They will write everything about themselves. You can find the example below

• Birthday Chart. 

After we know our students and they introduce themselves in front class, the students will make birthday chart. Birthday chart displays chart bulletin board including everything you need to recognize and celebrate birthdays with your students. Why do we make the birthday chart? because It builds a sense of community, appreciate students' specialness, and gives them one day in which they can feel prized.

• Class duty in the class 

Class duty in the class make them responsible about what they do. By teaching your students to be responsible in the classroom, we’re also teaching them to be responsible at home and in their communities. This is a life skill that they will need to practice throughout their lives. The class duties include class captain, teacher assistant, whiteboard monitor, table and chair monitor, and clean up the classroom. You can also vary your class duty depending on your classroom condition. 

• Set a goal

I called it " a wish tree" . We make tree poster and give a leave to each student and ask the student to write their goal or what they wish during this academic year. Put the leaves on a tree that we have already made it before. 

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English Worksheet for Grade 6

English worksheets for grade 6 contain of some materials. The materials are listed below:

Grammar Worksheet 

1. Simple Present Tense Worksheet 
2. Simple Past Tense Worksheet
3. Present Continuous Worksheet 
4. Present Perfect Worksheet 
5. Pronoun Worksheet
6. Preposition of Place Worksheet 
7. Preposition of Time Worksheet
8. Conditional Sentence Type 1 Worksheet 
9. Direct and Indirect Sentence Worksheet

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Download Pronoun Worksheet for Grade 6

Pronoun is a word that takes a place a noun. Pronoun are divided into 9, but this post focusses on three kinds. They are as follows: 

1. Personal Pronoun 
2. Possessive Pronoun 
3. Reflexive Pronoun 

You can find practice of the kinds pronoun below and this worksheet focusses on grade 6 students. 

Download Pronoun Worksheet for Grade 6

1. Download Personal Pronoun Worksheet 
2. Download Possessive Pronoun Worksheet 
3. Download Reflexive Pronoun  Worksheet 

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English Worksheet for Young learners

 

A worksheet is a sheet of a paper containing students' practices. A teacher should design an attractive practice to make students understand about the material. Here, You can find English worksheets that you can use in your classroom based on the grade you teach especially young learners (kindergarten-grade 6). Click which grade you want to find the worksheet.

1. English Worksheet for Kindergarten 
2. English Worksheet for Grade 1 
3. English Worksheet for Grade 2
4. English Worksheet for Grade 3
5. English Worksheet for Grade 4
6.  English Worksheet for Grade 5
7. English Worksheet for Grade 6 

Note: I am still working on this worksheet, so I will gradually update the content. 

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