The class’ structure.

   The class’ structure.

Nowadays, the structure of the class has become one of the most influencing aspects in learning and teaching; with the diverse learning styles and attention problems that every teacher has to face in class, the way in which you organize the class can motive and get the student involve in an active and dynamic class, things that are very necessary in the learning of a foreign language. The typical and boring classes not work today, but don’t worry; there are many information and proposals out there, to make your class the students’ favorite one, you only have to search.

You can plane your class organized in different moments, each moment with its period of time and specific purposes. In the lesson plan of the class, normally three moments are used: Pre, While and post activities.

Pre-Activities

The objective of a Pre-Activity is to active the student motivation and previous knowledge. You can use warm ups to begin the class, in relation with the topic that you are going to bring next. This part of the class has to be very short, try to use games and dynamics.

While-Activities

In the while time, you teach the lesson of the class, with the topic that you chose for the students, with the motivation that you activity with the pre, they are going to be more involved during the lesson. Try to do the lesson attractive for the student; here is where the didactic and methodic of the teacher take part.

Post-Activities

To finish the lesson, try to do activities that summarize the information. You can solve doubts or make an evaluation of the class performance. 

Here I leave you some examples for warm ups, you can use videos , stories , music and games before a topic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hUZ__feNjo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SA9F7o-REIw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVgumEnq-yU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YS3qeUWMTYM

Introducing Speaking

Introducing speaking to Preschool and Elementary.

There are different speaking approaches; the main idea is to begin with the kids the process of speaking. The teacher needs to create a warm and natural environment to make the children express themselves in English with confidence. With Preschool and Elementary kids, we can’t no expect that they talk immediately and correctly, they are going to make a lot of mistakes and mispronounce some words or create words that don’t exist in English, but at least they are going to try it. In the future they can have more security and basis to speak better.

Some of the approaches that I told you are:

-Oral Skill (Situational Language Teaching)

Is very behavioral, is based on repetition, receiving instructions and grammar rules to habit the information. Syllabus and drills are commonly used to teach, is focused in vocabulary and speech’s structure.  

-Communicative approach 

Is based on real communication through different and meaningful tasks and syllabus, the purpose is the interaction with the language with function and notional aspects.

These activities are meanly focused on communicative approach; make the students interact with the language in real situations and though interesting games like the use of the can-phone and materials.  Is important have account the age of the student, because with cant force the speaking skill in preschool and elementary. 

I am going to leave you this link where you can find great examples of speaking activities:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCWhIgKrpfM

http://www.tesolzone.com/esl-speaking-activities.html

Introducing Reading

Introducing reading to Preschool and Elementary.

Developing the reading skill in childhood can have great benefits in the learning of a foreing language like English. At young ages the grammar and reading comprehension is not really settled, that is way the stories,tales, and storybooks are promoted to be the best expression of the reading skill for preschoolers and elementary students. 

I have made a conceptual map for you, summarizing the theory about the introduction of reading to take account if you want to approach your students to reading.

I have made with some classmates, a short  storybook, based on the movie by Pixar "Toy Story". The books is for 5-7 grades, so is very simple and is focused on verbs and talks about friendship. The idea is apply all the theory and start to create our own material for class. You can cheek it at this link if you want:

http://www.mediafire.com/?s3pcz22bydd2884

I'm no owner of the images  and characters used, they belong to Pixar Animation Studios , this is a material created in class with non-profits purposes.

I leave you a good link to cheeck reading activities:http://www.eslflow.com/readinglessonplans.html

Worksheets

Working with worksheets

The worksheets are  necessary in the elementary and high school, because allow the students to put in practice their knowledge. The job of the teacher is create an effective and objective worksheet, according to the class and the subject.

Some rules to create a worksheet are:

1. Target: Take account the level and ages of the students.

2. Purpose: Define the purposes that you want  aacomplish with the worksheet.   

3. Visual: The students at young ages, are very distracful,the teacher have to get their attention with an attractive activiy, with images and colors.

4. Practical: Try to do different exercises, not all the same becauses it gets boring for the students. Have on mind the purpose,  be practical with the extension of the worksheet and the distribution of the space for each exercise.

5. Clear instructions: The rules help to aacomplish the worksheet as is expected. Try to be clear , not cause troubles the students with the instructions to resolve the exercises.

6. Modeling: The grammar and writting rules in the worksheet have to be very good and without mistakes, everbody make mistakes but try to not confuse the students. Also, try to give examples , in that way the students will understand more easier what they have to do.

You can create your own worksheet or use a public worksheet, but as a teacher is really important to know how to make one.

I made a worksheet for the next video, trying to apply all the rules that the teacher have to take account in the construction of a worksheet for young students. I tried to be very clear, my focus is elementary students I suggest to have coherence  in the content of the worksheet, my purpose is make the students identify and learn some products of the supermarket, that is why I only use the specific words that I chosen to be learned in all the exercise. Take a look.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kze2EtH9l0A

My Peppa Pig's worksheet:

Fine Motor Skills

Developing Gross Motor Skills with English

Fine motor skills involve the small muscles of the body that enable such functions as writing, grasping small objects, and fastening clothing. They involve strength, fine motor control, and dexterity. Some activities that you can use to develop the fine motor skills and taugh English are:

According to Piaget, the simbolic play, is very important to improve the relation between images and objects with ideas and concepts, that is way, the play-doh is a good activity to make simbolic relations with english, you can say: Form a "Sun" with the playdoll, after showing a flashcard, they are going to drawn the sun, relating the image, but also, associating the word "sun" wih it.  The paint and the origami can bring free and diverse task, like paint different objects that you have work in class like animals or numbers, or with the origami you can make the students relate shapes with meanings. 

I am going to leave you this link where you can find great examples:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yu-9kqf4Ua8

Gross Motor Skills

Developing Gross Motor Skills with English

Gross motor skills are the  movements that use the large muscles of the human body. Those movements can be done in activities such like running, jumping, catching and throwing , and other  activities wich involved the large muscles. “Good gross motor skills are essential, because the body develops from large moments such as control of the arms and the legs, to small, isolated movements that include the hands and fingers. Without reasonable gross motor control, it can be difficult for children to move onto developing the fine motor skills...". Some gross motor activities that use English can be:

Through this activities you can involved all the students and funny and dinamic games, where they have to move a lot, jump  and run to develop the Gross Motor Skills, but also use those games to teach colors, numbers and simple directions in English.

I am going to leave you some links where I got information and where you can find more examples:
http://www.getreadyforschool.com/preschool/preschool_activity.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HzlWIUmpkg