Introductions: Hello!

The idea exists that teaching very young children is really easy.  Over the years, I've taught every school-going age from 3 to 18 (and beyond) and I can tell you that this is definitely NOT the case. After working with children ages 3 to 5, I really take my hat off to pre-school or Infant-level teachers.
After only a few years of experience with very young ESL learners and not having any natural talent for teaching at Infant level, I certainly can't claim to be an expert.  However, given that I've had to learn techniques to be able to first of all work adequately with young children and secondly, to be able to capture their attention enough for them to want to learn English, I think some of the ideas that I will share on this blog may actually be of use to teachers who, like me, find themselves teaching age groups that they're not completely familiar or even comfortable with.

First of all, most students at this age who attend regular schools with just one hour of English per week (90 minutes at the most), are merely being introduced to the language.  Most have little if any knowledge of English, The youngest ones are just starting school and everything is new (and in some cases, even scary) to them.  The focus should therefore be on making their introduction to English fun and stress-free while building upon and reinforcing, where possible, what they are learning with their class teachers.

I've chosen not to use textbooks at all even though they're readily available and textbooks salespeople are constantly popping up trying to sell schools their company's books.  I find textbooks at these levels to be an unnecessary waste of time and money.  That said however, it is completely understandable that many teachers who have not had any experience working with these levels prefer using them.  They provide structure and sorely-needed guidance in the teaching process.  It is better to follow a textbook with the complementary materials that come with them (flashcards, CDs, puppets, etc.) rather than stumbling through an entire school year without having any idea of what you should be doing with your young students

My structure and guidance will come from the textbooks that students will be using to develop general knowledge and skills (home, school, language, routines, basic hygiene, festivals, etc.).  When they learn about home, for example, I will identify appropriate vocabulary to focus on in class through songs, games, videos and flashcards.

Resources will be culled from the large collection of ESL teaching materials piled up in the English cupboard over the years.  Included are sample books sent by publishing companies, puppets left from previous years when textbooks were used by the teachers who came before me, flashcards, teacher-made resources left behind, and so on.  In order to create some continuity, I've been taking the puppet from the Project used during the last year or two to my classes.  When I walked into the classrooms on my first day with the 4 and 5-year olds, the students immediately recognised him and some even remembered his name, Dex.  Dex is an English-speaking dinosaur who will interact with the class puppets who only speak Spanish.  Some ideas that I've been developing around the use of these puppets are the following:
- Introduce very short formulaic dialogues (Hello - How are you - I'm fine thank you, and you? / What's your name? - I'm Dex.)
- Focus on English sounds through mispronunciation (use English pronunciation for the names of the Spanish puppets through humorous dialogue where the Spanish puppets will get frustrated - in Spanish of course - at Dex's inability to say their names correctly)
- Resolve problems that may occur in class by having the Spanish puppets give short humorous explanations thus allowing both the teacher (me) and Dex to use English

Other materials that I plan on recycling and incorporating into my classes are flashcards and big books with very simple stories and big, bright pictures.

I won't be using any of the CDS that come with the Projects previously used as I have ESL songs that are far better and can be found on the internet so that parents who are interested can have their children watch them at home.  There are many really good websites with educational songs on the internet but my favourite one by far is SUPERSIMPLELEARNING which also has a playlist and CDS that you can order on the internet.  I have their first three CDS which include many traditional English songs adapted to the ESL context.  I will be selecting songs according to whatever theme the children are working on at any given time.  Other really good songs can be found at KIDSTV123 where one can also find songs for older students and BUSY BEAVERS which includes the calendar song (which I really love) so that children can learn the days of the week and the months of the year.

Finally, I will use the occasional worksheet as the general textbook being used by my students actually includes some for English classes though these are simple enough to make and once again, many good ones can be found on the internet (SUPERSIMPLELEARNING for example has worksheets related to some of the songs on the website).

This is the first time I'll be attempting to work without a textbook at this level so I'll probably have to make much of my own resources.  I've already made a set of numbers for my five-year-olds to learn the numbers song (Count and Move) below:

Well, I hope you've found this interesting.  I'll keeping posting ideas and experiences from my ESL very young learners classes.

Janine