1. The Make
Me Say Yes game
In this game,
students ask the teacher Yes/ No questions and only get a point if the
teacher’s (true) answer is “Yes”. Possible language points with low level and
young classes include can (“Can you swim?”), have (“Do you have a pet?”, “Do
you have a pen in your bag?”), to be (“Are you British?”, “Are you 37?”), and
like (“Do you like pizza?”).
2. Likes/
wants
“Do you
like…?” is one of the questions from the Make Me Say Yes game that can be
extended into almost any language point, e.g. getting students to respond to
things on each flashcard you reveal such as colours (“It’s pink. Do you like
pink?” “No!” “No? Do girls like pink?”), food, animals, sports, school
subjects, and household jobs and other daily routines. You can also use this
language or the more suitable “Do you want..?”
3. Have
“Do you
have…?”/ “Have you got…?” is another piece of grammar you can use to
personalize lots of other language points even before you have formally
introduced it, e.g. with family members (“Do you have four sisters?”), clothes
(“Do you have black socks?”), and toys.
4. Can
The third and
final (?) grammar point you can use to personalize lots of other language
points is “can”, e.g. with sports (“Can you swim?”) or body parts (“Can you
your nose with your toe?”).
5. Puppets
Students are
likely to be less shy about asking a puppet personal questions than they are
about asking a teacher.
6. Storybooks
with personal questions
Another way
to use fantasy and fiction to lead to talking about their own reality is to use
storybooks where there is information about the characters that answers the
kinds of personal questions you are practising, such as names and ages. The
students can then ask the questions to or about the storybook character (e.g.
“What’s your/ his name?” “My/ his name is Spot the Dog”).
7. Make false
statements
Saying “Your
name is Blblblblblblbl” or “You are 1 year old/ zero” to students is good for a
laugh, makes them listen to everything you say from then on in case it is also
false, gives them a feeling of power and the ability to speak out in the
classroom (they can correct the teacher!), and is a good way of eliciting the
answers to questions like “How old are you?” and “What is your name?”
8. Remember
each other
After they
have got used to correcting you on their own personal details, you can get the
whole class to correct you on what you say about the one student you pick on,
e.g. “His pet is a spider” “No! His pet is a cat!”. This can then be then be
extended to students remembering or guessing the answers to questions about
other students, e.g. “What is his favourite colour?” They can then test each
other, e.g. “What’s my favourite food?”
9. Profile
pages
A great way
of showing students that you are really listening to what they say is to let
them see you writing it down. This can be something as simple as changing what
you have written down when they tell you “I am 5″ instead of
“I am 4″ for the first time.
10. Celebrate
birthdays
Ways of
adding a language point to this include drawing them pictures of presents they
would like, counting and correcting the number of candles on a picture of a
birthday cake, and singing the Happy Birthday song.
11. Projects,
photos and drawings
Arts and
crafts work should be a standard part of any pre-school syllabus, but you can
add to its language content and how much it helps students remember the
language by making sure they put as much personal content into it as possible.
For example, make sure they are actually drawing something that looks like
their own family by asking “(Does your) father (really have a) beard?” (maybe
with mimes), “Wow, your brother’s nose is BIG!” or “How long is your mother’s
hair? (To her) ears? Shoulders?”
12. Comment
on what is different today
Small
children have a cute but English-free habit of stopping the whole class to show
their teacher the cut on their finger or the pink socks that they didn’t have
in the last lesson.
13. Please Mr
Crocodile
In this
traditional English playground game, students stand against the back wall and
chant together “Please Mr Crocodile, may we cross the water?” and the crocodile
(teacher or good student) says “Only if you are wearing a skirt/ are three
years old/ have the letter Y in your name” etc.
14. A regular
personal questions stage
The fact that
young children learn languages quickly is well known (especially by ambitious
parents), but the fact that they forget quicker than the rest of us too is
often ignored.
15. Talk
about their other teachers
Once you have
run out of things to say about yourself and all the students in the class, a
few questions and answers about their other teachers is a great way of getting
their interest, using English for real communication (telling them something
they didn’t know such as their Maths teacher’s favourite food) and of making
them remember what they learnt when they are outside English class.
GLOSSARY
GAME : PERMAINAN
PUPPETS : BONEKA
FALSE STATEMENT : PERNYATAAN PALSU
RUN : BERLARI
INTEREST : MENARIK
Answer
the correct answer based on the text
· =
Mention 15 ways in personalizing young learner!
· =
What is the meaning of 6. Storybooks with personal
questions?
· =
What does puppet mean?
· =
Why the way”talk about their other teacher” is important?
Postingan
