Back to Basics: Teaching primary

school kids

Back to Basics: Teaching primary

school kids

By: Oksana Kharenko

The main point“The main objective of teaching young learners is not to produce geniuses, but to develop boundless abilities of a personality thus to add more happiness to the existing world.”

Recommendations for teachers

• Teachers must use different kinds of pictures and visuals

• Use method of Total Physical Response

• Use different teaching games

• Vary the activities throughout class

• Use activities that require class repetition

• Provide positive motivation

Recommendations Continued

• Use communicative approach

• Use activities that allow children to develop creative thinking – Drawing, craftwork,

dramatization

• Use authentic materials– Songs, rhymes,

chants• Use activities that

correspond to your class level

4 basic teaching skills• Listening• Reading• Speaking

– Vocabulary

• Writing– Grammar

Listening• Listening is the ability to comprehend and

understand other English speakers• Start with the basics of listening then work your

way to higher levels of listening• Teachers need to speak mostly English since

they don’t hear English a lot out of their lesson• Phonetics

Example: • Pattern

– sentence- What is your name? word- what

sound- /w/*children must repeat vice versa

Reading and Listening games & activities

• Listen and Do (clap, mime, matching, drawing)

• Listen and Repeat (songs, poems, rhymes, doing actions, chants)

• Listen and understand (fill in the blank, sentences in order, find the incorrect word)

Reading• Reading is a skill that should be trained everyday

through demonstration and speech patterns.• Text level should be increased as students master

reading.• Students should aim for perfect intonation and phonetic

levels.• Students should be able to find new information

through reading by a full understanding of the text.• Reading should be done everyday and used to train the

other skills. • The same activities can be used to train reading as are

used to train listening

Vocabulary/Speaking• Children possess A1 level of

English after primary school• The concept of teaching

vocabulary is providing relevant speech in everyday communication

Steps for vocabulary training

• Introduction- a teacher should not translate but use visuals, songs, rhymes, miming, gestures

• Training- Form an automatic pattern on a phrasal level

• Communicative practice- Must provide this language practice through different skills not just speaking

Vocabulary games & activities

Vocabulary Training• Listen and repeat• Play vocabulary game• Solve crossword and puzzle• Find the right word and read it• Write the words with missing

letters• Draw the words• Fill in the blanks in the

sentences• Put the correct word instead of

the picture• Look at the picture and express

your opinion • Guess what is hidden behind

the frame

Communicative Practice• Describe a picture• Speak in pairs• Re-tell the text or

stories• Write a short story • Role games

Writing• Start teaching writing with

teaching letters, words, sentences, short stories

• The aim of teaching writing is for students to practice handwriting, spelling, and written speech.

Writing activities and games

Handwriting Exercises-Match capital letter with the

small letter-Put the words in alphabetical

order-find the letter among the

words-Match the words to the picture-make up a word out of given

letters-decode the word

Spelling Exercises-write out: the words with

the same pronunciation but different spelling (for, four), words starting with B or C, colors, seasons

-fill in the gap-language games:

crosswords, puzzles, word search, word scramble

-translation - dictation: highest level of

activities

Writing activities and games continued

Written Speech Exercises

-make up story using the given words

-write a letter (First introduce the letter pattern then finish the letter followed by writing their own letter)

-describe object and people

-create short stories-write an essay

(History of Lesky)

Grammar Training steps

• Reception (introduction)– Listen and show, listen and clap, listen and

point, look and choose, listen and repeat• Accuracy (training)

– Complete, replace, look and say, look and answer, look and guess, play a game, fill in the gaps

• Fluency (communicative practice)– Describe, talk, retell, compose, write,

dramatize

Biblioghaphy• Биркун Л.В., Колтко Н.О. Комунікативні завдання для

початкової школи: перший рік навчання. В 2 ч. – Х.: Вид. група “Основа”, 2003.

• Don Dallas, Linda Pelham. New Let’s Learn English 1.- Longman, 2007.

• Пахомова Т.Г.: Методичні тези.- Черкаси.- 64с., 2009• Пахомова Т.Г., Вакуленко О.О.: Навчаємо молодших.

Teach and Enjoy. – Черкаси, 2006• Паценкер І.Б. Серія “English for Me”. Комплект наочних

посібників для дошкільних закладів і початкової школи. – “Ранок”, 2009.

• Posnayko. Kids’ magazine.• Reference guide for the teacher of English:-Київ: Редакція

загальнопедагогічних газет, 2004