Top 10 tips for young learners

1. Revert to your childhood

how to build rapport if they are very young and / or dont understand
you.
build a foundation
sit on the floor in a circle
use puppets and games.
toddlers symbolic thinking, develop reflexes, object permanence,
imitating, intuitive thinking, trial and error, hand eye co-ordination,
imagination.
2. Engage with the parents
observe how the kids interact away from the class, watch them play
suggest games, show a talent, sing songs, decorate the room
3. Build routines
10 activities per hour, move around, repeat activities, include short rest
periods, strike a balance between sit down and move around activities
schedule
Hello song,
Hello game,
discovery game (peek a boo, guess whats behind my back)
dance or sing
have a short break
read a book
hands on activity
discovery game
colour (have English music on in the background)
closing song or dance
4. Create a survival kit
flashcards, timer, ball etc
5. TPR Total physical response
body language conversation
the way parents and babies communicate
6. Amplify story time
hand gestures, include pauses, dress up, onomatopoeia (the way

animals or objects sound), use props, change pitch, animate your face,
vary your speed, make them characters.
7. Change your environment
8. Integrate technology effectively
toy phones, talking Tom app,
9. Be a learner
10.

Have fun

Start with positive energy. Smile and welcome your students.

Use motivational exercises, i.e. daily routine, say the day and the date etc,
review the learning from the last class
Write the objective on the board
Activity 1 repeat new vocabulary, get the students to listen and repeat
Activity 2 - practise speaking such as role plays
Activity 3 free practice to speak and express themselves, what they
have learned, use groups and different scenarios
Consequsences
Re-inforcing positive behavior isnt always effective and you need a
strategy for dealing with students who arent adhering to the rules e.g.
talking with each other and not paying attention. Comment on positive
behaviours e.g. Jaime thank you for putting up your hand so that you
could ask a question. With negative behaviours use a positive instruction
e.g. Speak English as opposed to saying dont speak Spanish. The child
can get upset and feel as if the criticism is personal so refer to them
having broke a classroom rule e.g. only talking in English in class. They
should know what the rules are. Always give a warning before taking any
action.
1. Change the students seating position. You can set the seating
positions before class or just move one or two of them if they are
causing problems. Tell them why. If the behavior improves you can
sit together again but dont do this or tell them this too soon.
2. Remove a student from an activity especially if it is fun. Give them
a worksheet or an assignment which is less exciting than the
activity.
3. Subtract time from something fun. If you do a fun activity at the

end of a lesson and a student has been to noisy or disrespectful or

hasnt finished a piece of work then explain that you wont be doing
the usual ten minutest. Tell them why.
4. Stop whatever you are doing and explain why e.g. if a game is too
noisy then stop it and tell the students to open their books.
5. Subtract points if they break a rule. Useful to do on the board so
that the other students can see. Have a point system alongside
each name and show a -1.
6. Subtract points fro the team or group to which the disruptive
students belong. If you dont use points then take a way some
privileges.
7. Deduct from the whole class. Tell them why.
8. Make the student stand. This is a common tactic in asia and do it
for as long in minutes as they are old in years. Its a bit like having
a naughty step.
9. Give them time out. Take the student outside and talk to them,
dont shout just explain what it is you want them to do. You could
even get them to complete a task outside of the classroom. Again
use their age to determine the length of time to be outside. Focus
on positives. Tell them what they have done, why it is wrong and
reinforce what behaviour or action you want them to do instead. Or
separate them into a different part of the classroom such as a desk
at the back away from the other students. Find out from the school
if this is acceptable or not.
10.
Write a letter to the student (with older students) telling them
why you are doing this and what behaviour you would like to see
from them. Write or talk to the parents.

Give a warning
Write or talk to the learners parents
Be consistent
Subtract some fun-time from the class
Stress the positive and not the negative
Make the learner stand
Write a letter to the student
Create engaging lessons
Change seating arrangements
Subtract points from the learners team
Take the learner outside and talk to them
Use positive reinforcement and present consequences of bad behaviour
as negative reinforcement
Remove the student concerned from the game or activity
Deduct points from the student themselves
Send the student outside to work on a worksheet or send him to sit and
work alone at the back
Deduct privileges from the whole class
Stress to the learner that the main problem is that they have broken a
rule with their bad behaviour

Keeping Young Learners On-Task

Wonderful as it would be if we could, we are never going to have total
attention from each of our young students all of the time. Sadly, this is a
dream, as even we as adults do not give that level of complete
engagement! There are tips, though, to maximise young learners
engagement and to keep them on task for as much of the lesson as
possible. The learners being on task, i.e. doing what they have been set
to do, is a major criterion for any observed lesson.
What would you recommend for keeping young learners directed and
engaged all through your lesson?
Some suggestions would be to change activities frequently and to change
the type of activity e.g. from a song to a cloze task. It is a good idea to
make the classes quite physically energetic and setting time limits with
each task. It can be fun to have a funky timer like a lemon or a bomb.
Another way to keep interest and engagement with any group but
especially with young learners is to change the class dynamic at a fast
pace e.g. moving from pair to small group to individual to whole class
tasks quite quickly. It is also effective to keep suspense going by
nominating a learner to speak and contribute rather than asking for
volunteers each time. No-one in the group is then able to sit back and do
nothing. A soft ball is very helpful for combining the necessary physical
part of the focusing with the nominating mechanism. There is a game with
a soft ball where the ball is thrown, with the name of the student and one
word (e.g. red) and the catcher of the ball has to speak for as long as he
can about red. He then chooses the next speaker, throws the ball with
the next name and a new word of his choice.
With very young learners, a companion in the form of a class (soft) toy
with a name and a personality can be very motivating. The star of one
task gets to keep the toy until there is a new star learner who emerges
during the next one. This technique could also be used for improving
classroom behaviour or teaching the importance of polite turn-taking, for
example. A technique for older young learners is the hot seat or the
story-tellers chair. This is basically a designated chair for the student of
the moment to use. As the hot seat it is the focus for any kind of
competition or quiz and as the story-tellers chair it is the focus for
learners attention while one of their class-mates makes a long-turn
contribution to the lesson. In either case every member of the class
should have fair and easy access to the chair!
We spoke earlier about personalised learning. That is where, as far as
possible, the material and the tasks for a lesson are selected to be
accessible to each learner, his interests and what he does in his life.
Needless to say, personalised learning is, more often than not, the

learning which engages and stimulates the young learner the most. One
criticism of the method of teaching that sticks closely to a course-book is
that it does not allow for this type of personal touch. As the teacher gains
confidence and experience, the course-book loses its over-riding
importance in lesson-planning, but it does still provide a very effective and
useful structure for a course. Personalisation can be as simple as finding
out and remembering whether a student has a pet or brothers and sisters,
making a note of it and then being able to refer to that briefly in a lesson;
Juan, what colour is your cat? As with many areas of life, there is a happy
balance between using the course-book that might be set for that course
and enhancing your teaching with some personalisation as we have
discussed.
The importance of a warmer activity for each lesson cannot be
understated. Sometimes (at a higher level especially) a good warmer can
become the whole class itself! A warmer can be a short physical activity
(like rhythmic jumping to a poem) or a pronunciation task (like a simple
tongue-twister or a jazz chant). A warmer is exactly what it claims to be. It
ideally motivates the learners into the lesson and sets up their energy and
commitment to that sessions learning.
How can you tell when or that your young learners are on task and
engaged?
These may appear to be very obvious points, but the very young learners
are engaged when they are smiling and leaning forward. They also
normally react to teaching events almost at the same second as the
teacher and their eyes are fixed on the appropriate place, e.g. cards on
the floor. The learners (especially at this age) will genuinely want to
answer the questions.
The on-task older young learners would almost appear to know the task
from before the beginning of the class, and they might well start the
activity unprompted because they know the routine and the classroom
culture. In fact they would ideally proceed very successfully with what
could be described as minimum intervention from the teacher. Yes, they
might be noisy, but they would certainly not be unruly, as it would all be
well ordered in the classroom.
Classroom Language
Now make a list of words or phrases that young learners could usefully
learn almost from the first day for and use in the classroom context.

Please and thank you

Sorry, I dont understand.
Sorry, please repeat that.
Please can I have (e.g. the pen)

 Please can I (e.g. go to the toilet)

Please can you (e.g. help me)
May I.....?
Of course, these phrases can and should be developed and made more
sophisticated later. They are, when taught with the correct intonation
though, a sound and important basis for good manners in the classroom.
For the classroom and lesson vocabulary, there could be on the board:

Please stand up / sit down.

Please say after me.
Your pencil, eraser, pen, book, etc.
For homework...

Any classroom and the learners (of any age) who use it is a learning
community, has to be a safe, attractive, affirming place for the students
as a group and as individuals and, equally importantly, for the teacher.
Clearly for younger learners, this involves a legal and a moral duty of care
as if the school and teacher are in the place of a diligent and nurturing
parent. You probably noticed in our transforming a classroom video that
the teacher was going to display a poster with his classroom rules. They
are clearly a significant part of how he creates a learning community, and
it is important that these ground rules are on permanent display.
Elsewhere in the course, the issue of how to implement and reinforce
them is addressed.
What would you include in such a list?

Show respect for each person in the room.

Do nothing that will put another person in danger.
Do not interrupt or talk over another person.
Do not be late.
Do not use mobiles or iPads unless the teacher asks you to.

On the principle that rewarded behaviour is repeated behaviour, how

could you keep the cycle of respect and harmony rolling? What systems of
reward would you set up?
You could use a Star of the week programme where the star could
choose the game for Friday afternoon and has his photo in the Star of the
week place on the wall and gets to have the award statue for the
coming week or be the storyteller for that week. There is a private vote
on Thursday and an announcement on Friday.
Adapting materials for mixed ability classes

Support for weaker students

Ask early finishers to

write new vocab up on
the board with
definitions.

Reading

Listening

If there are gaps, give

students the answers in a
Rewrite a part of the
jumbled order, with a few
text in a different tense / extras.
person.
Draw attention to the title,
Write their personal
pictures etc and set the
opinion / a short
scene beforehand so their
summary of the text.
mind is on track for the
Write questions about
topic.
the text.
Break the text into chunks
and give the option of only
reading some of the text.
Give out the tape script
and nominate a
vocabulary master to
look up tricky words or
expressions in a
dictionary to then
explain to the group.
Focus on the accents or
intonation of the
speakers and get
students to copy chunks.
If its a true/false
activity, follow on by
asking why/why not?)

Writing

Pre-teach difficult vocabulary

and leave it written on the
board for students to refer
to. Use visuals if possible.

Give creative tasks that

students can do at their
own level.
Indicate mistakes using
correction code to give
students a chance to
self-correct. (Sp =
spelling, Gr = grammar
etc.)

Pre-teach vocabulary, use

visual prompts when
appropriate.
Give students time to
discuss answers before
feeding back to the class.
Give students the tape script
on second listening.
If its a gap fill, supply the
words with a few extras.

Correct the draft together

before students copy up in
neat.
Reduce the word limit.
Encourage use of
dictionaries / vocab books.

Increase the word limit.

Indicate where they
could use more
interesting ways of
saying something.

Give and example piece of

writing as a model before
they begin writing.
Pair or group weaker
students with stronger
students.

Give students time to

rehearse and gather their
ideas before a role play or
discussion.
Pair weak and strong
together.

Speaking

Ask students to justify /

defend their opinions.
Ban easy words like
nice to push their
vocab to a higher level.

Let students make notes

before the speaking activity
begins. Allow for thinking
time.

Get students to record

themselves and selfcorrect.

Grade students on the effort

they make rather than their
ability.

Pair students of higher

level together so they
really go for it.

With a whole class mingle

like a class survey or a find
somebody who... practise
the questions as a group
beforehand.
Give weaker students more
listening and thinking time
before calling on them to
answer questions.