Teaching English to Young Learners
2008-2009 series
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 teachers 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.
Games and vocabulary recycling
YL 1 -- Friday November 14, 10.00-12.00
Games are the most natural way of learning for children. The aim of this first session is to provide participants with a range of games that help to recycle and extend vocabulary learnt in class.
The focus will be on ways to encourage learning through enjoyable and stimulating activity types for the children, especially at primary level.
Integrating language and content
YL 2 -- Friday December 12, 10.00-12.00
Many schools are beginning to teach other parts of the curriculum in English. As English teachers we may feel that this does not effect us, but 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.
Why is the teaching of phonemic awareness important in the ESL classroom?
YL 3 -- Friday January 23, 10.00-12.00
As young learners enter school they already have had a wide variety of experiences with print and oral language. Many pupils have been read to since they were born, provided with rhymes and riddles, and even taught basic sight words like "dog", "cat", "mum", and "dad". Yet, pupils may not have been instructed about the identification of sounds within words. Learners need direct instruction and practice through mini-lessons and word play.
This session hopes to provide some useful activity types which can integrate phonemic awareness into the classroom.
Encouraging creativity
YL 4 -- Friday February 20, 10.00-12.00
Some experts describe creativity as "thinking outside the box" and others state that some people can't learn if they are not given the chance to be creative. (They do not understand the point in doing a language activity for its own sake, for only practising the language without a real content, purpose, outcome or even a product.)
This workshop will take a look at how we, as teachers, can be more creative and how we can provide opportunities for out Young Learners to do the same.
Teaching the very young
YL 5 -- Friday March 6, 10.00-12.00
Children are beginning to learn English at an earlier age than in the past. Many of us have to deal with teaching children who cannot read or write yet.
This session will look at the characteristics of the learners in this age group and address basic principles for teaching such young learners. The emphasis will be on providing examples of successful activity types for integrating English.
Integrating grammar
YL 6 -- Friday March 20, 10.00-12.00
From a very young age, we are all equipped to learn to use grammar with ease in our mother tongue. Why then should we find it difficult in a second language? In a sense, teachers of young learners have a considerable advantage over teachers of adults. Pupils are at a highly receptive age when everything is of interest to them, when nothing seems impossible, when they are at their most retentive.
This workshop aims to look at ways to integrate grammar through stimulating task types.
Using images to create interest
YL 7 -- Friday April 24, 10.00-12.00
This workshop will take a look at the power of images to stimulate learning. They can help the learner (teenager in this case) to focus on something other than himself / herself, provide stimulus and ideas, be a stepping stone to controlled practice, create a more relaxed and less threatening focus and bring a more "creative focus to learning".
Improving writing skills and using story telling techniques
YL 8 -- Friday May 15, 10.00-12.00
Writing often feels the poor skill of EFL with young learners. Most young children (8 year olds+) enjoy inventing stories so why can't this venue be a way to encourage writing skills in the language classroom?
This last workshop of the series will focus on ways to integrate creative writing as well help the learners improve their writing skills in general.
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