Young Learners
By Myrtis Mixon
INTRODUCTIONS
 Do
you know each other?
 How
many of you are teachers?
 Who
am I?
PARDON ME
 WITH
I
RESPECT:
am going to treat you like students:
 WHY?

YOU LEARN MORE BY DOING!
Warm Up
Count off
Form groups
Telling a story with
objects,
toys or
pictures
TOYS TODAY
 Each
group has a group of toys/objects
 Create a story including all your toys.
 Write it down or be prepared to tell it
verbally.
 Each person must say something.
 You will show the toys when you tell your
story to the others.
Warm up?
 Or
is it a major activity?
 What do you learn from this?
 Skills? Listen, speak, read, write?
 Also…
Learning Styles
 Verbal
(speak, listen, read, write)
 Auditory
 Tactile
(listen, sing, rhythm & melody)
(drawing, visualizing, touching)
 Kinesthetic
(move, hands-on, role play, act
Useful?
 Can
you?
 Could you?
 Would you?
Use this storytelling technique?
 Talk
in your group.
Ready
 Are
you ready for more hard work?
How to write an acrostic
 Choose
any word: your name, or anything
you want to describe, like the sun poem.
 Choose any word:
Use the letters in the topic word to begin
each line.
 All lines of the poem must relate to or
describe the topic word.
Using a name
I
want to be…

Silent when others are talking
Absolutely active in my life
 Love is what I hope for all
 Always looking to help
 Magnetic in my dealing with others.

Story Theater?
 What
is this?
 Most
fun/learning-packed activity of all!
 Use
almost any story. Folktales are great.
Recipe
 1.
Each group has a section of the story.
 2. Prepare your part of the story; use
dialog, don’t just read. Don’t tell; show it.
 Adapt description into dialog. Choose any
props on hand.
 3.
Line up to tell the story.
TUG OF WAR
 Tortoise
 The
hippo (hippopotamus)
 The elephant
 Tell
it to students?
 Or get them to “present it”?
Types of Questions?
 About
Tug of War: look at handout.
 Knowledge
 Comprehension
 Application
 Analysis
 Synthesis
 Evaluation
Learning Styles Again
 In
your group,
 Talk about what kind of learning styles
does this activity address?
 Verbal
 Auditory
 Tactile
 Kinesthetic
Your storytelling texts
 Can
you adapt your books to story
theater?
 How?
Sentence Structure
Practice
Use small books
Use BIG BOOKS
Error Correction
 At
this age, use very little verbal
correction.
 Promote
 Hold
fluency first.
back or some will turn silent.
 Example: German sentence
Songs
 Which
ones do you use?
 Make up simple songs with the stories in
your book.
 e.g. I will go; you will go; we will go today.
 TPR songs: Look to the left, etc.
 Hokey Pokey is many skills: singing,
movement, listening, and can be reading
too.
ORAL SKILLS
Speaking and Listening
Chunking
 As
in poetry:
Oh, he walked along the river

On his four fur feet,
 His four fur feet,
 His four fur feet.
 He walked along the river
 On his four fur feet
 And heard the boats go toot
 O.
TPR
Total Physical Response
More than commands
Using TPR
Use TPR to teach prepositions
 Combine with realia for prepositions..toy
Use TPR with mime… and let them guess
 Simple (I walk across…
 Sequences: getting ready to leave;
 Baking a cake, setting a table
 Cleaning house
 Use short dramas that you direct
TPR







Frogs jump
->
worms wiggle ->
rabbits hop
->
Snakes slide
->
Mice creep
->
Puppies bounce ->
Lions stalk but…
caterpillars hump
bugs jiggle
Horses clop
Sea gulls glide
Deer Leap
Kittens pounce
I walk
(Evelyn Beyer)
Do the Hokey Pokey
CHANTS
 Brown
Bear, Brown Bear by Bill Martin, Jr.

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, what do you see?
 I see a red bird looking at me.
 Red bird, red bird looking at me
 I see a Yellow Duck,
Blue Horse
 Green Frog
Purple Cat White Dog
 Black sheep
Gold Fish
Teacher
Children
 We see brown bear, yellow duck, blue horse etc.


Looking at us.
Pairs: HOW COULD YOU CHANGE IT & RE-USE IT? Let’s wait
til structure drills
Other Chanting Books

LOOK ONLINE
 Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What do you hear?
 (Lion roaring) Hippo snorting Flamingo fluting
 Zebra braying
Boa Constrictor hissing
 Elephant trumpeting
Leopards snarling
 Peacocks yelping etc. until the zoo keeper whistles
 Zoo keeper hear children hears lions roaring, hippo
snorting, flamingos fluting etc.

Children can be creative and in writing, make up their
own animals or their sounds to hear. Use all the senses.
Speaking
 WE
started speaking already, didn’t we?
 Creating
stories using:
everyday objects (teacher in Albania)
 toys
 Pictures
 These
activities can include writing.
Combinations
 Skills
are usually not isolated
 Many speaking activities are also listening
activities
 Many reading activities are also speaking,
listening and writing activities.
 Skills don’t exist in isolation.
 Different activities usually stress one but
include several
Reading Skills
Reading Skills
 Choral
Reading
 Group Reading
 How
to check for comprehension?
 Of course, these are combined skills
activities
USING STORIES
 Hundreds
of ways to use a story:
 Teacher/student
 Choral
telling OR retelling
reading
 Story boarding (chart the storyline)
 Role Play
 TPR
 Choose to change the ending
Little Books
 In
your group, work with the little book you
have… how can you use this book to
teach
 Listening?
 Speaking?
 Reading?
 Writing?
Test your listening
Truth and Story or
 The
Stonecutter or
 The
Lion and the Mouse
 (Pair
up) Take turns retelling it to your
partner.
Improve Intonation
and Stress Patterns





One, Two, Buckle my
shoe.
Three, Four, shut the
door.
Five, Six, pick up
sticks.
Seven, Eight, lay
them straight.
Nine, Ten, a good fat
hen.

Humpty Dumpty Sat
on a Wall
 Humpty Dumpty had
a great fall;
 All the King’s horses
and all the King’s Men
 Could not put Humpty
together again.
Shadowing
Use Shadowing with rhymes.
 Shadowing
is repeating under your breath
or in a whisper
 After
each of my phrases, repeat under
your breath, or whisper - Know that you
will have to retell the story
Some ideas?
 Reading?
 Writing?
 Listening?
 Speaking?
Combining Skills
 Use
Stone Cutter
 Write questions for each paragraph of the
story
 Role
Play (not a summary this time!)
Brown Bear, Brown Bear
 OTHERS:
 Polar
Bear, Baby Bear,
 Chicka Chicka 123.
By Bill Martin Jr. & Eric Carle
The Very Hungry Caterpillar
By Eric Carle
HOW COULD YOU USE THE SMALL
BOOK?
WHAT IF YOU HAD LOTS OF SMALL
BOOKS
SHARE
English Language Forum
Young Learners Issues (search online)
Vol. 44, #2, 2006:
“First Road to Learning”
By Myrtis Mixon and Philomena Temu
That’s All Folks!
Myrtis101@mac.com
Goal Setting
 What
is your idea of what you will
accomplish today?
 Write
down two goals
My Goals for You Are
 At
least ten new ideas or ‘re-treads’
 Ten
pieces of usable materials
 As interactively as possible
 not a lazy day
Your Homework
 Find
your homework.
 After count/off, form into groups of 3s.
 Share your ideas about teaching different
skills with your trio.
 Anyone
 Hand
want to share with all of us?
in the Homework to me, name not
necessary
Listening
 The
Hardest,
 The
most NEGLECTED Skill
Tug of War
I
(teacher) tell it)
 Now
in a pair, you choose strategies to
use with this story.
 Include two strategies for each of the four
skills.
 SHARE…
Story Cards
Use:
 Hard Paper
 Index Cards
Use the story cards for:
 Fables
 Short Biographies
 Student created cards
FEEDBACK
 1.
Look at the two main handouts.
 2. List some of the activities that you can
use or how you will change them.
 3. What area in Teaching Young Learners
do you need to learn about the most?
 4. What else can you say about our time
together?
Choral Reading
 Use
with rhymes
 Does
not have to be rhythmic
Use with stories that they have in front of
them (we will do that with a story)
 doucey101@hotmail.com
 www.riomediagroup.com/blanche35now