Question from a reader that I am pondering my answer to- can anyone else help while she is waiting?
“I’m from Bosnia and Hercegovina, and I’ve been teaching English to very small children, age 4-6 and this year I decided to use Cookie and Friends A. I ordered the books, CD, teacher’s book and play pack. But the problem is the delivery.. I’ll get the books maybe in 20-30 days and I’m starting to teach on Monday! So, I must do something interesting with them for about 6-8 times untill the books arrive (we have classes twice a week, and it last for half an hour). Please give me some ideas so that they don’t lose interest in course untill the books arrive. I was trying to find some sample pages of Cookie and friend on the Internet but I haven’t found anything.
p.s. I’m 23 and I have only one year of experience with such small children, it’s fun, i love it, but it’s hard to :) hope you understand, and I hope my English is good.
Thank you very much, Ana”
Any advice at all would be much welcomed I’m sure. Any thoughts guys?
Buy some toys if you havent got any where you work – things like balls, playdough, color/number cards, legos, animal cards, paper and pencils, alphabet cards, etc… and use those for lots of games around simple language like colors/numbers, body parts (playdough is great for making faces/bodies!), animals (again playdough or even legos are good for that) etc… it may very well require more work on your part, but i think you can easily make up some lessons to cover you till the books arrive with your own materials.
I dont have lots of experience with kids myself, but from my experience so far I’d say that things like toys/tactile materials go a lot further than any book. As long as you know what language you want to teach them. I’d say if you have 6-8 classes to cover that’s plenty enough time to really get them working on the basics, which is likely to help them even more once the books arrive.
good luck!
Thanks Laurent, I agree with everything you’ve said. Some of the ideas might need a little adapting if Ana has larger classes. Any more info Ana?
Other vital supplies: simple story books and a tape of action songs, and maybe some photocopies of some colouring in sheets
The other thing Laurent mentions is knowing what you want to teach them. You’ll need to write up a basic syllabus, but if they are beginners it will almost certainly come down to: numbers, colours, body parts, animals, actions (jump etc.), simple classroom language (open your books etc), classroom objects (window, desk etc.), greetings, name and age.
Josie, Laurent, Alex, thank you!
You’ve really helped me, with all these advice I think my class and I will have a lot of fun till the books arrive. I’ll try to use the poems, and I have flashcards from the book I’ve used last year (Zig Zag Island- Oxford University Press), I try to make up some games with it..
Thanks again!
Hi Ana
You might also be interested in the flashcard games I’ve just put up
Hi, you can use”language group activities”-learning by doing things e.g: tosts, milkshake, puppets, christams decorations ect.Children like it, becouse apart of they must learn vocabulary, they can see them as real ones and they play-do, which is amasing how they like it. Try this strategy!
Jola
An something important I forgot to add. use the widgit.com resources sometimes. It is how speach and language therapists work: symbols plus words, because EAL children need symbols to cope English better.
Thanks Jolanta