English For Very Young Learners

While a lot of people are working on their New Year's resolutions, I'm still reflecting on 2017. It was a year full of changes and challenges for me, in both my private and professional life. In addition to moving to a new country and starting learning a new language, I found myself job hunting again. Looking for a new job is always a stressful experience that makes me anxious, but I was lucky enough to be offered a few teaching positions. As well as teaching English to teens and adults, I was given the opportunity to work as an English teacher in a bilingual nursery&kindergarten. I've always been very comfortable working with the former group of learners...the latter one,however, was definitely a bit out of my comfort zone. Nevertheless, I decided to take on the challenge and teach English to toddlers and young children...and it's been bliss!

  In this post I'll share some of my observations about teaching English to very young learners. I'll also share some of the resources I find very useful when working with children. 

Even though I gained some experience in working in childcare in my early twenties and then I taught primary school students for 6 years, I didn't really know what I was getting into when I was about to start working in the nursery. I wasn't sure If I was going to enjoy working with little children...and, to be honest with you, I wasn't even convinced that teaching English to toddlers and kindergarteners was a great idea...However, the last few months have been surprisingly joyful and productive!

One of the most important conclusions I have drawn so far is that in order to be able to be effective in teaching very young learners, one needs to like little children and be able to connect with them. In her TED talk called "Every kid needs a champion", Rita Pierson talks about the importance of forming relationships with students and points out that kids don't learn from people they don't like. I couldn't agree more. Enjoying being around kids is a must when working with very young learners. Everything else will fall into place ;)

While doing my research on working with children, I was given plenty of helpful advice from fellow educators. Everybody I spoke to stressed the importance of singing, storytelling, playing and having fun together. I must confess: I'm not a singing type...I don't feel very comfortable singing. Nevertheless, I've been playing a lot of nursery rhymes from my tablet and my kids have been thoroughly enjoying it, dancing, humming and trying to repeat some words. Even I have warmed up to some songs and I find myself singing along ;)
The links below will take you to my favourite websites with songs and videos suitable for toddlers and kindergarteners:

Super Simple Songs
Jbrary
DreamEnglish

Singing isn't my strongest suit, but I have been definitely enjoying reading and storytelling with my children. I strongly recommend "that's not my..." series (Usborne children's books) and lift-the-flap "busy..." books (published by Ladybird)...or any lift-the-flap books as kids always love those!













You can also try playing the shows from  SuperSimple Online if your little ones are able to concentrate long enough (FYI www.supersimpleonline.com is full of great resources for those who work with very YL).

Singing and reading together have been very fruitful, but doing arts and crafts has been both educational and entertaining to kids and me alike. I have been thoroughly enjoying involving my children in various crafty projects and they have learnt a lot of English and other skills by doing things. Colouring, painting, finger-painting, drawing, cutting out, gluing, modelling plasticine, making posters and handprints have all proved to be a great way of learning new vocabulary.
The websites below are full of ideas and resources for fun arts and crafts for kids:

Activity Village
Ichild
Mes-English
pinterest
Art and Craft ideas (facebook page)

                                                                       

If you're interested in what I do with my children, feel free to visit my  instagram account :)

Apart from buying a few books and some arts and crafts supplies, it's worth investing in a few puppets. Kids love colourful puppets and you'll surely grip their attention with them.

If you're still not convinced puppets are a good idea read 6 reasons why puppets will change your classroom forever.


Here are other websites and articles I consider very helpful in working with little ones:

Genki English
Jolly Learning
The Dad Lab
English for little kids
Twinkl Early Years
How can young children learn languages
Active English

Besides the aforementioned, I make sure I talk to my kids all the time. I talk them through everything we do trying to use simple terms and vocabulary. I try to repeat the same words and create routines so that they associate actions with words. And even though they don't always answer and they don't always seem to understand what I say, I don't lose heart because I know they are taking everything in and sooner or later they will comprehend and use the target language.
Just before Christmas a small girl, who had never spoken English before,  shouted "See you, Alex!" when I was leaving the room :D They do learn, even when we think that they don't! 

                             Please, share your experiences teaching English to very YL :)