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Watching Young
Learners at Work : From Practice to Principle
Report
on a presentation by Marisa Constantinides
Based on a presentation at the
PEKADE
(Panhellenic Association of Teachers of English in the State Sector) Annual
Event on May 10 1997. The workshops and comments were based on three
activities on video with a young class in their first year of English.
The presentation
opened with the speaker asking the participants to mention some of the
guiding principles which form the underpinning of their decisions and
choices in teaching young learners.
Among the principles
in use reported, the following were reported:
-
The learners’
age was, of course, of prime concern and all that entails their
knowledge of the world, their needs and wants, their
language background both in the foreign language as well as in their
mother tongue.
-
Another set of
principles in use, was related to selecting those techniques which would
involve, motivate, indeed, absorb the learners and facilitate language
acquisition.
-
Variety of
activity and materials was mentioned as one of the means of achieving this
end.
Most notably, it was
extremely pleasant to hear participants mention that respect for the
learners was an important principle that guided their work , a
desire to raise the learners’ self esteem and promote their self
awareness in all kinds of ways.
The speaker then,
presented three videotaped activities from a young learners’ class in
their first year of English. The class (16 children) at the point of
being videotaped had had about 40 hours of English, mostly concentrating on
oral work, and was at the initial stages of being introduced to reading and
writing. Most children were 9 years old with one or two at the age of 10 and
11. The teacher was the presenter herself, Ms. Marisa Constantinides.
The three activities
can be briefly described as follows:
ACTIVITY 1
Compliments
– total time 6 minutes
This activity
involved familiar language which the teacher intended to revise, i.e.,
various items of clothing presented in previous lessons, and was organized
in three stages:
1. In
stage one, the teacher complimented one or two students about their
T-shirts, dresses, etc. by saying a simple phrase: “Nice dress, Eleni” and
generating the response “Thank you, miss”.
2. In
stage two, the teacher directed various pupils to ‘say something nice’ to
each other, indicating what to comment on, e.g. clothes, pencil boxes,
shorts, pencils, etc.
3. In
stage three, the students were organised in pairs and small groups and asked
to think of something nice to tell each other. Pupils replicated the
teacher’s comments (from stage one) but some were also overheard commenting
on hair, schoolbags and one or two pupils asked the teacher for words such
as “cardigan” and “ hairband”, which the teacher supplied.
In the discussion
which followed, presenter and participants were invited to draw the
principles behind the activity and commented as follows.
ź activities
promoting a pleasant classroom atmosphere, and establishing a climate of
positive feeling and mutual awareness and respect amongst the pupils should
be used early on
ź the
element of personalisation involves and motivates pupils to talk and
provides endless opportunities for communication activities.
ź revision
does not have to involve the pupils in doing “ busy work “ type of written
exercises
ź pupils
enjoy the personal contact with the teacher who may comment about them and
uses them as the “ subject “ of the lesson
ACTIVITY 2
A Jazz chant
organised in three stages – total time 12 minutes
1. In
stage one the whole class chanted the lines rhythmically, prompted by the
Teacher using a set of picture flash cards.
2.
In stages two & three the class divided in two teams, “the Lions“ and “the
Tigers“, chanted Questions and Response lines alternating roles .
The chant was as follows:
Questions Responses
Where’s
my little mouse? I’m here! I’m here! I’m in the house!
Where’s my little cat? I’m here! I’m here! I’m in
the hat!
Where’s the red fox? I’m here! I’m here! Behind
the box!
Where’s the green frog? I’m here! I’m here! I’m under
the dog!
Where’s the honey bee? I’m here! I’m here! Between
the two trees!
At the end of this
classroom event, participants were invited to comment on the children’s
level of comprehension, which was noted as higher than their ability to
produce language, as well as on the difficulty the children had with the
last line of the chant. Concerning the latter, participants commented on the
structural complexity of the last line and mentioned that possibly the
different rhythmical pattern may have confused the class, a very accurate
assessment of the problem.
Principles drawn
from this classroom event
ź The
Teacher’s language is a rich source of input and, though simplified, can
enhance comprehension and promote acquisition.
ź The
lesson should comprise of lots of short 5-7 minute activities as children
lose their concentration quite quickly.
ź The
Teacher encourages the use of team or group names to promote group
membership and help classroom dynamics.
ź The
children repeat a poem or a rhyme to satisfy their need for repetition,
rhyme and music- even if they do not understand all the words or grammar of
the language included.
ACTIVITY 3
The “Please”
Game” – total time 10 minutes
This game was an
adaptation of the well known “ Simon says” listening game, in which the
children were not supposed to perform a command if the teacher did not
include the word “please” in it because it was not “nice”.
1. In
stage one, the teacher gave a variety of commands to the class, which also
included the prepositions of relative location introduced earlier in the
chant. The teacher preformed the actions at the same time as the children to
facilitate understanding and promote acquisition of the items.
2. Individual
pupils were then invited/encouraged to give the teacher a variety of
commands using or not using “please”. The teacher was instructed to run,
jump, close her mouth, ( ! ) , * speaking, etc. The
teacher followed the pupils’ commands but did not correct accuracy errors
like the one noted above.
3. The
pupils were instructed to work in pairs and give each other orders or polite
requests, “two each”. The pupils mainly replicated language used earlier,
but were also overheard trying to create new combinations.
During the ensuing
discussion, participants were invited to comment on
ź pupil
involvement, which was quite high, possibly because children love ordering
the teacher and each other around (!)
ź the
way the teacher explained the activity and gave instructions, carefully
checking and rechecking, as well as physically going round the class and
dividing pupils into pairs, as well as
ź the
treatment of errors.
Some colleagues were
concerned with the evident lack of correction at this stage; however,
others, quite rightly pointed out that overcorrection at the point the
children were trying to create their own phrases might have been inhibiting
and would have probably had not particular effect since children acquire new
forms only when they are ‘good and ready’.
Principles drawn from this activity
ź The
children demonstrate their understanding by using non-verbal tactics:
ticking, pointing, drawing, circling, miming, doing.
ź The
children should often be engaged in Total Physical Response activities.
ź The
teacher does not frown or tell children off even if they are making mistakes
in their own production but praises them even for just trying.
ź The
teacher sometimes asks pupils to play a circle game or do some other kind of
high energy activity to release tension and increase motivation.
ź The
pupils are already familiar with the concepts in the English lesson from
home or L1 class – in this case, it seemed relevant to teach the imperative
but to lead children to the discovery of a familiar politeness rule in L2,
that if they do not use ‘ please ', this form is considered rude.
SUMMARISING
REMARKS
During the last few
minutes of the presentation, the speaker wrapped up by discussing certain
principles which she considered of prime importance in teaching young
classes and which may be gleaned from the sum total of the three activities
shown.
- Use
of a variety of media,
as in a multimedia approach- sound, picture and movement to
make meaning memorable and recall easier.
- Involvement
of the pupils in some physical activity
at some stage or some playacting ( a natural part of mother tongue
acquisition as well )
- Remembering
VAK
(Visual, Auditory and Kinaesthetic) ways of processing information and
language.
- Awareness
of the cognitive abilities of the children
in that age group, what they can or cannot do, e.g children cannot
understand an abstract analysis of language ( T: “ This is the Present
Simple tense and is formed as follows…”) but can relate well to personal
sub-categorizations indicating what they can do with language ( T: “Let’s
learn more phrases to compliment each other” ).
- Taking
account of the children’s emotional needs,
their need for love and praise/ reward should be attended to on a regular
basis; also their need for security and reliance on the teacher – thus, in
the activities shown, the degree of control was much higher than would be
possible or, indeed, desirable with an adult class.
- Providing
opportunities for practice
in which the focus is not on language but on the content and the
outcome.
- Animating
the coursebook-
often best done by closing it!
- Selecting
situations and activities for language practice which…
. . . are easy to
illustrate through quick sketch, mime picture
. . . are
relevant to the children’s lives and experiences
. . . are
exploitable and fruitful ! i.e. generate lots of responses
. . . are as
funny as possible, as jokes are remembered after
. . . associate
new language with easily memorable people and events
. . . are
visually exciting & stimulate the child’s imagination
. . . have an
element of exaggeration & absurdity which children love
The speaker closed
the presentation with a suggestion to the participants to be serious about
their teaching but more light-hearted and adventurous in their approach
to teaching young learners.
About
the presenter
Marisa
Constantinides, Dip.RSA, M.A. App Ling
A teacher since 1976
and teacher educator since 1981, Marisa Constantinides has taught a variety
of age groups and levels in private language schools and has, so far,
trained teachers both in the private sector organising courses and workshops
for PALSO, frontistiria and offering courses at CELT Athens, and for state
school teachers with CELT supporting the programmes organised by the school
advisors. She is the Director of CELT Athens, and local support tutor for
the postgraduate programme offered to teachers in Greece in association with
the University College of St. Mark & St. John in Plymouth and the University
of Exeter. She is a frequent presenter at local and international
conferences, has published TEFL materials on literature and materials for
children, numerous articles on issues related to TEFL, linguistics and
education and is an Approved RSA/Cambridge DOTE Moderator.
N.B.
1. The biographical note and report above were first published in the
Quartely Journal
of PEKADE in the Summer 1997 Issue.
2. The same paper was
attempted at a Young Learners' Event organised by TESOL
Greece in the fall of 2006, but the Video did not work and much of the talk
was
adlibbed.. |
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