VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY-HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS & LITERATURE ---------- REFLECTION PAPER In TESOL module 1, I am grateful to join a practical and specialized seminar series in Teaching English for Young Learners after learning theoretical knowledge in Language English system and Teaching Methodology subjects. Throughout the 5 lessons, our instructor - Ms Nguyen Ho Y Nhi, provided us with a lot of insightful and applicable teaching strategies in teaching English for young learners. This seminar series happened along with the Teaching Practice subject so I also got to see my classmates employing some of these interesting activities in their micro-teaching sessions. This paper reflects on my key take-aways and how I plan to apply those lessons in my teaching career in the future. Teachers may encounter several challenges when teaching young learners due to certain characteristics. Firstly, young learners have limited attention span and are easily distracted in the classroom. Children are naturally energetic and curious but they can’t sit still for longer than 15 minutes. Therefore, teachers need to plan a variety of interactive and multisensory activities to keep students engaged. This strategy, known as a multi-modal/multisensory approach in teaching children, had briefly been introduced in the Teaching Practice class. In the seminar series, we went into specific activities and ideas such as storytelling, singing, drawing, dancing, role-playing and listening to music. Various activities with physical movements and short breaks will help students focus on the lesson. For example, Total Physical Response is effectively used to teach children since it promotes active participation and helps them memorize the knowledge better. Besides, visual aids like colorful posters, flashcards or videos can help maintain students’ attention. Secondly, young learners’ cognitive ability is still developing. They are too young to understand abstract concepts, complex instructions or formal grammar. Also, their developing short-term memory can make it difficult for them to remember new vocabulary or grammar rules. To address this challenge, teachers need to use simple, direct language when giving instructions. They can break down complex tasks into smaller steps that are easy to follow. Modeling each step before asking students to perform it will ensure students know what they are expected to do. Games and repetition can also be employed to help young students acquire language skills more effectively. Being exposed to the target language items repeatedly in a fun and playful environment will gradually enable young learners to remember and use language naturally. Teaching young learners is generally challenging for me because it requires a tremendous and consistent amount of energy. The skill I find the most challenging to teach is grammar. It’s difficult for young learners to grasp complex and abstract grammatical concepts as they are still in the early stages of cognitive development. Thus, they often don’t understand the metalanguage often used in explaining grammar rules. Additionally, grammar is often considered dry and unengaging so it requires more creativity to make it interesting for young learners. I used to teach grammar like the ways I was taught: present the examples and then draw the rules using a lot of meta language. This may work well for teenagers or adults but if I have the chance to teach young learners in the future, I will use these approaches: 1. Use songs or chants that emphasize the grammatical patterns. I think children enjoy catchy songs and rhymes that they can remember and sing along easily. If grammar structures are repeated in the song, it will be easier for students to learn and use the structure correctly. Additionally, exposing young learners to more authentic language input will help them acquire the pronunciation, accent, intonation and language use more naturally. For example, when teaching past simple, I can use the song “Once I caught a fish alive” from the channel Super Simple Songs Once I Caught A Fish Alive | Kids Song | Super Simple Songs (youtube.com). The rhythmic lyrics help reinforce the past simple structure. Or when teaching 2nd conditional sentences, I can use this song “If I were a ghost”. If I Were A Ghost | Kids Hallowen Song | Super Simple Songs (youtube.com) I also found out a great channel that has chant, rap and funny rhymes: Are You Sleeping, Bah Bah Black Sheep + More Kids Songs & Nursery Rhymes | Doggyland Compilation (youtube.com). 2. Use interactive games to reinforce the grammar rules in a low-stress environment Many games can make grammar memorable. Young students not only understand the grammar rules, they also develop the confidence to use what they learn. A few useful games I have learnt in the seminar series include: 2.1. 3 pieces of paper to practice tenses Each student will write 3 subjects, 3 verbs and 3 time expressions and put them in 3 piles of subjects, verbs and time expressions. After that, each student will come to pick 3 random pieces and make a sentence. This game ensures that students know how to form a grammatically correct & meaningful sentence. 2.2. Bingo Students write 9-12 sentences using the grammar they have learned on a bingo sheet. The teacher speaks out sentences for students to cross out. This game reviews the lesson and practices listening skills. During the course with Ms Y Nhi, I experienced a lot of engaging and motivating activities. I think all the activities are super useful in their own ways and I can use them in different lessons in the future. However, if I am to choose 3 favorite activities, I will choose Whisperer, Stop the bus and Hot seat. These 3 games don’t require constant shouting or movement, which align well with my gentle personality. ● “Whisperer” helps check the listening and speaking skills of students. As I plan to create a sentence that makes no sense, they also have to be very careful in articulating the correct form of each word. The final outcome can be very humorous, making the knowledge more memorable. ● “Stop the bus” can be used for teen class or above to help students recall new words under time pressure. In the course, we played this game individually but I think I can let students play in groups to foster teamwork and competitiveness. After the game, students can also learn new words from other groups. ● In the game “Hot seat”, students will have to recall the learnt vocabulary better by giving contextual clues, synonyms, and antonyms,... so their teammate can guess the correct word. By practicing this, students will understand the words they learn deeply because they have to describe words without using them. Lastly, among all the useful websites the course provided, I am grateful to know Blooket.com, a free alternative to Kahoot. Blooket.com is the whole package: free, interactive and super visually engaging! (1105 words)
