Teaching English to Young Learners
A series of connected workshops forming this year's IH YL Teacher Development Course. There will be 8 two-hour sessions.
Participants may enrol for all eight sessions, or for individual sessions. However, it should be noted that the sessions are designed as a cohesive series forming a course in Teacher Development for treachers of Young Learners.
Teachers attending the whole course of eight sessions will receive a certificate at the end of the course. Certificates will not be issued for single sessions.
Task Extensions
YL 1 -- Friday 17 November 2006 10.00-12.00
Many teachers are concerned to include enough variety in their YL classroom to keep the learners interested. One solution seems to be to provide a series of different activity types. This, however, can cause lessons to become "bitty" or not linked.
This session will look at ways to take 'an activity' further: how can we get the most out of one thing by extending and stretching it to its limits?
Teaching thinking
YL 2 -- Friday 15 December 2006 10.00-12.00
"Thinking has to be learned in the way dancing has to be learned"
Nietzsche (1888)
The upsurge in interest in this area is linked to the inclusion, for the first time, of a range of thinking skills in the primary curriculum. But what are thinking skills? Why should we teach 'thinking' to YLs? And what options are there for developing thinking skills with our classes while keeping a focus on language learning?
This session takes a practical look at the teaching of thinking skills to children from 10 to14 years-old.
CLIL in Action: Integrating language and content
YL 3 -- Friday 19 January 2007 10.00-12.00
Many schools are beginning to teach other parts of the curriculum – art, science etc - in English. As English teachers we may feel that this does not effect us, but if we stop to think about it, we can easily plan to integrate small parts of the curriculum into our language lessons.
This session will give some practical ideas on how we can and should begin to do this.
The Art of Story Telling
YL 4 -- Friday 16 February 2007 10.00-12.00
Story telling is always a favourite with primary teachers but sometimes the story falls flat or is not appreciated by the learners. How many times have we told a story in class and felt disappointed because the children didn't seem involved? This session aims to provide practical suggestions and tips on how to incorporate story telling in a more diverse and challenging way.
Making lessons memorable
YL 5 -- Friday 9 March 2007 10.00-12.00
What makes a lesson memorable? It depends who you ask, of course. What would your teenage learners say? What makes a lesson memorable for you?
This workshop is about being creative in your teaching. It is about challenging yourself to try out new ideas or look again at tasks and techniques that you haven't used in a while. We'll look at a wide range of tasks and activity types which aim to make learning as memorable as possible.
Integrating Skills into the primary classroom
YL 6 -- Friday 13 April 2007 10.00-12.00
This will be a mainly practical session, looking at different lesson types and how we can integrate the four skills in a balanced and motivating way and provide an equal focus for each one.
Making and using puppets for primary school
YL 7 -- Friday 4 May 2007 10.00-12.00
Art and craft in the language classroom motivates children to be more imaginative.
This workshop will look at different types of puppets we can make with our classes, and the different ways in which they can be exploited.
Using and designing web-based activities for primary school learners
YL 8 -- Friday 25 May 2007 10.00-12.00
Many schools now have computer facilities and many of our young learners also have internet access at home. This provides opportunities for in-school tasks but is also a chance to make homework meaningful through projects and activities.
This session looks, amongst other things, at setting up a class homepage, using internet in class and designing technology-based projects suitable for primary school children.
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