Lecture 1

Considerations for Teaching Young Learners

Who are Young Learners?

The term “ young learner” covers a large chronological age span from around 3 years of age to 11. Some
writes and researchers try to segment learners strictly according to age; 3 - to 5- year –olds, 6- to 8-year-
olds and so on. Children do exhibit different mental and social characteristics at different ages; a strict
segmentation is not particularly helpful.

When considering the age factor in EFL teaching, age differences amongst YLs themselves must also be
considered: is it appropriate to teach a 5 and 12- year old using the same methodology? It can be
difficult to define boundaries that separate YLs by specific ages. Pinter points out that even children
within the same age range and teaching context often exhibit significant differences partly due to the
fact that they develop and learn in ‘spurts’ (2006: 2). Despite the uniqueness of each child, there are
generalizations that can be made of YLs that can be helpful in developing age appropriate teaching
approaches, as shown in Tables 1a and b below.

Table №1a The age appropriate teaching approaches

Very Young Learners Young Learners Older/ Late Young Learners

Age: 3-6 years old Age: 7-9 years old Age: 10-11 years old

Grade: Pre-school Education Grade: 1 st – 3 rd grade Grade: 4 th - 5 th grade

Language Focus/ Skills Language Focus/ Skills Used:

Used: Listening & Speaking Listening & Speaking

Vocabulary Items (concrete Vocabulary Items (concrete &

& familiar objects) familiar and new objects)

No Grammar Teaching or New in Reading and Writing (word

meta language (can’t to sentence level)
analyze language but may
No Grammar
be exposed to chunks
through songs, classroom
language)

No reading & writing (may

recognize letters or short
words)

Teaching or meta language (chunks Language Focus/ Skills Used:

through songs and classroom Listening/Speaking/Reading/Writin
language) g Vocabulary Items (concrete &
abstract)

Grammar (inductive)

Characteristics: Characteristics: Characteristics:

*Low concentration span *Low concentration span: Wide *Longer attention span but still
 but easily excited variety of activities needed children

*High motivation; active *Short memory: frequent revision *Taking learning seriously
involvement is needed
*World knowledge
*Love talking but problems *Logical-analytical: Asking
*More cooperation in groups and
in sharing questions
in pairs
*Short memory: Learn *Problems in sharing in group work
*Developed social, motor and
slowly Forget easily
* Developing confidence in intellectual skills
*Repetition and revision is expressing themselves
*Learning strategies are used and
necessary
・Generally concerned about developing
*Limited motor skills (using themselves more than others
a pen and scissors) but
* Limited knowledge of the world
kinesthetic and energetic
*Limited motor skills (left-right)
*Learn holistically
*Reasonable amount of input
*Love stories, fantasy,
*Love stories, fantasy, imagination,
imagination, art, drawing
drawing & coloring
and coloring

Table №1b The age appropriate teaching approaches

Younger Learners Older Learners

・In preschool or first years of schooling ・Well established at school and comfortable
with school routines
・They understand meaningful messages, but
cannot yet analyze language ・Show a growing interest in analytical
approaches, growing interest in language as an
・Lower levels of awareness about
abstract system
themselves as language learners and about
the process of learning ・Growing level of awareness about
themselves as language learners
・Limited L1 reading and writing skills ・
Generally concerned about themselves more ・Have developed reading and writing skills ・
than others Growing awareness of others and their
viewpoints ・Begin to show interest in real life
・Limited knowledge of the world
issues
・Enjoy fantasy, imagination, and movement

Discussion questions

How would you define “young learners”?

 LESSON 2

Considerations for Teaching Young Learners

Children ages 5-11 years are growing and developing rapidly. Teaching young learners English requires
an approach that is developmentally appropriate, which means that learning is dependent on the stage
of a child’s physical, social, emotional, and mental maturity (Coltrane, 2003; Nissani, 1990).

The right approach is to work with their natural tendencies instead of against them. In order to find the
right approach for teaching young learners English, it is important to explore the following:

 Characteristics of young learners

 How children learn

 How children learn language

Characteristics of Young Learners

Children are:

 Energetic and physically active

 Spontaneous and not afraid to speak out or participate

 Curious and receptive to new ideas

 Imaginative and enjoy make-believe

 Easily distracted and have short attention spans

 Egocentric and relate new ideas to themselves

 Social and are learning to relate to others

All of these characteristics can make teaching young learners exciting and inspiring; however, the same
characteristics can present challenges for teachers who may have anywhere between 15 and 45
students in one classroom. It is important to look at these characteristics in a positive way and use them
to develop an effective teaching approach.

1. Children are energetic and physically active

Teachers should utilize children’s natural tendency to be physically active and not get frustrated with
the fact that young children cannot sit still for long periods of time. You might incorporate kinesthetic
activities that encourage young learners to get up and move around. For example, Total Physical
Response (TPR) is a commonly used method with children because it connects language to movement
(Asher, 1977). In TPR you would give a physical command, such as “Sit down,” and sit down while saying
it. Children at even the lowest level of English language proficiency can connect the oral utterance with
the movement and can follow the commands through repetition. The game Simon Says is a perfect
example of a fun activity that uses TPR.

Table №2 The game «Simon Says»

 Simon Says

Simon Says is a popular children's game that uses TPR. It is great way to check comprehension of
vocabulary related to body parts and physical movement and bring lots of laughter to your classroom.

Instructions:

Tell students that they have to do what Simon says, or they will be out.

Always begin every sentence with "Simon says...."

Then give a command to do a body movement while physically doing that movement. For example:

Teacher: Simon says…..touch your toes!(teacher touches her toes)

Students have to do what Simon says. So students should touch their toes.

However, the game is to listen carefully. Sometimes the teacher can say one movement while
physically doing another movement. Then if the student does not do what "Simon says," s/he is out
and cannot keep playing. For example, Teacher:"Simon says... touch your head!" (Teacher touches her
toes)If a student touches her/his toes, then s/he is out. The teacher can make it funny by saying, "But
Simon didn't say touch your toes!"

2. Children are spontaneous and not afraid to speak out or participate. Young learners are not very
inhibited. Older learners can be more self-conscious and concerned with how people judge them. Young
learners are much more willing to participate in activities and speak out in English without feeling
embarrassed. They are good imitators of language, in part because they are not afraid to repeat after
the teacher or sing along to fun songs, even if their use of the language isn’t exactly right or even if they
don’t understand every word. Teachers can use simple songs, rhymes, chants, and dialogs with kids
because they are ready to follow along.

3. Children are curious and receptive to new ideas Young learners have a natural curiosity. The world is
a new place for them, and they want to know more about it. Teachers should prepare activities that
arouse students’ curiosity. For example, the Mystery Bag game is a commonly used activity for fun at
parties or in class to teach English.

Table №3The game « Mystery Bag»

Mystery Bag

Instructions:

The teacher can put different objects in any opaque bag, like a brown lunch bag or a cloth bag.
Students have to reach into the bag, feel the object, and describe it. Then students have to guess
what the object is. The teacher could prepare a few bags for students to use in groups and put in
objects that have different qualities, like hard, soft, big, small, long, short, round, square, etc. The
students have fun guessing what the objects are.

In addition, teaching about new and interesting topics like exotic animals and plants that don’t exist in
their local environment can capture young learners’ attention. Unusual animals like kangaroos or bizarre
plants like Venus flytraps can keep learners interested and teach them about the amazing world we live
in. Introducing international cultures can also arouse their curiosity and introduce them to the world
where they may be using English in the future. It is important to expose students to lots of different
cultures, not just American and British cultures that are usually associated with English. Cultural topics
that are particularly interesting for young learners are food, dress, music, holidays, celebrations,
greeting customs, and folktales.

4. Children are imaginative and enjoy make-believe Young learners love activities that encourage them
to use their imagination. Using role-plays and drama games allows them to play “make-believe” and
pretend they are someone or something else. Children can learn new vocabulary about animals and
have fun pretending to be an elephant, lion, or giraffe, making the movements with their bodies and
sounds with their voices. Teachers can also use stories or plays to create an imaginary world for
students while learning new language. Students can use their imagination and creativity to make and
use their own pictures or puppets to retell a story. They can also play make-believe by dressing up in
costumes and pretending to be characters to reenact a story using English.

5. Children are easily distracted and have short attention spans Young learners are known for being
easily distracted. Although children have short attention spans, they can concentrate on longer activities
if they are fun and interesting to them. Teachers should try to engage children with fun activities that
arouse their curiosity and imagination, as the previous sections suggested. Teachers can also capture
their attention with brightly colored pictures, photos, and posters. Incorporating different kinds of
audio-visual aids such as playing songs, TV or movie clips, or YouTube videos can help keep children’s
attention and interest. In addition, it is a good idea to plan lessons as a series of short activities.

If students have been focused on a writing activity, it is recommended for teachers to take a quick break
and do the “Hand Shakes,” which is a TPR activity. To do the Hand Shakes, the teacher leads the
students in TPR by saying and doing the following three or four times in a row:

Shake your right hand. One. Two. Three. Shake your right hand for 3 seconds)

Shake your left hand. One. Two. Three. (Shake your left hand for 3 seconds)

Young learners are still learning to write well, so they often hold their pens and pencils too tightly and
can use a physical as well as mental break from the activity. Sometimes these are called “brain breaks”
and are recommended for young learners with short attention spans.

6. Children are egocentric and relate new ideas to themselves Young learners are egocentric, centered
on themselves and their immediate surroundings. They have difficulty perceiving things from another
person’s perspective. As they get older, they improve in this area, but they still have a tendency to relate
new ideas to themselves while at primary school ages. Teachers need to provide opportunities for young
learners to personalize what they are learning. This means to connect new information and language to
themselves. For example, if you are teaching children about adjectives to describe people, they will
enjoy writing an acrostic name poem about themselves. See the example below for a young learner
named Minh: Musical, Intelligent, Nice, and Happy.

An activity like this is engaging for children because it is about them, and it helps them practice new
vocabulary by relating it to themselves. The teacher could have students draw or bring in pictures of
themselves to put on the paper with the poem and have them decorate the poem using their own
creativity. Then the teacher can post students’ acrostic name poems around the room and have them
present their poems and pictures to the class. These activities reinforce the language and cater to
children’s egocentric nature. Not only is personalizing a good strategy to use with young learners; it is
also good to relate cultural topics to their own native culture. If the teacher uses stories or topics from
other international cultures, it helps young learners when they get a chance to relate it to their own
culture or immediate context. This can help teachers see if students understand the information, help
students remember the information, and build their understanding of cultural differences.
7. Children are social and are learning to relate to others Young learners are very social and like to talk
to each other. They are learning how to relate to others as part of their socialization process to their
culture. They love to play games with each other and can cooperate to do activities. Teachers should
have a balance of activities that allow students to have various types of interaction, such as student-
student in pairs, students-students in groups, teacher-student one-on-one, and teacher-students as a
whole class. First, varying the kinds of interaction from activity to activity, including ones that encourage
students to work alone, is important to keep the class engaging. It is also important for students to
experience all types of social interaction with each other and the teacher, because communicating in
different contexts is like real life. Learning how to communicate with and work with peers is an
important part of personal growth and development for each child. Finally, plenty of interaction with
the teacher is very important for young learners because the teacher has the role of supporting students
through the process of learning English. This part of social interaction will be discussed further in the
next section “How Children Learn ”

As the examples associated with each characteristic show, taking advantage the characteristics of young
learners will create a classroom environment that exciting and dynamic. Although a class full of
energetic, spontaneous, curious- imaginative, easily distracted, egocentric, and social learners can be
challenge in teachers can cater to those characteristics to keep learners engaged in order to teach
English effectively.

Task

1. What are the characteristics of young learners that can make teaching them fun and exciting
as well as challenging?

 LESSON 3

How Children Learn

As we go through the basic principles of teaching young learners, think about how these theories can be
applied to TEYL classroom situation.

Children are active learners Children construct knowledge from actively interacting with the
and thinkers. physical environment in developmental stages. They learn through
(Piaget, 1970) their own individual actions and exploration.

Children construct knowledge through other people, through

interaction with adults. Adults/teachers work actively with children in
the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD).
Children learn through social
interaction. Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)

(Vygotsky, 1962) =

difference between the child's capacity to solve problems on his own

and his capacity to solve them with assistance

Children learn effectively The adult’s role is very important in a child’s learning process. Like
through scaffolding by Vygotsky, Bruner focused on the importance of language in a child’s
adults. cognitive development. He shows how the adult uses “scaffolding” to
guide a child’s language learning through finely-tuned talk. (Cameron,
(Bruner, 1983) 2001)

Children:

8. Learn by doing and interacting with their environment Children learn by doing and interacting with
their environment Confucius said, “I hear, and I forget. I see, and I remember. I do, and I understand.’
This is particularly true for young learners, who are just beginning to make sense the world around
them. Piaget (1970) emphasized that children are active learners and thinkers. Children construct
knowledge from interacting with the physical environment in developmental stages. Students in primary
school can be found in Piagets Preoperational and Concrete Operational Stages. Very young learners at
5 - years old who are in the Preoperational Stage are extremely egocentric and highly imaginative,
although they are starting to distinguish between fantasy and reality compared to younger children in
this stage. As young learners reach the Concrete Operational Stage (7-11 years old), they are able to
think more logically but are still grounded in concrete objects and what is happening here and now. It is
not until adolescents are over 12 years old that children start to exhibit intelligence through their
understanding of abstract concepts.