Teaching English in the Greek primary school. Training seminar

1. Teaching English in the Primary School
Insights in EFL teaching methodology
for young learners
Marianthi Kotadaki
School Advisor for English Language Teachers
Ilia, Peloponnese
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2. The lesson
Unit 2,
Lesson 1,
Activity 3
likes and
dislikes + verb +
ing
sports and other
activities 2

3. Warm up and preparation
• Days of the week
• Matching activity + example
• Student’s book activity 3.
• Verb + ing: transformation activity using the
information of the matching activity.
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4. Presentation of the new language
• Introduction to “I like”, “I don’t like” using the
information of activity 3. SS put faces and
practice the same.
• Introduction to “he/she likes”, “he/she
doesn’t like” with examples. Pair work
practice.
• Introduction to “we/they like” “we/they don’t
like” with class examples.
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5. Guided practice
• Practice using funny animal pictures (all persons)
• Written practice
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6. Productive use of language
• Guided written production using pictures and
cue cards.
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7. Who are our students?
Younger learners
• First couple years of schooling
• Understand meaningful
messages but don’t analyse
language yet.
• Have limited reading and
writing skills, even in L1.
• More concerned about
themselves than others.
• Have limited knowledge of the
world.
• Enjoy fantasy, imagination and
movement.
Older learners
• Well established in school and
comfortable with school routines.
• Begin to take interest in the
language as an abstract system.
• Become to grow awareness of
themselves as language learners.
• Developed skills as readers and
writers.
• Grow awareness of others and
their viewpoints.
• Have a growing awareness of the
world around them.
• Begin to show an interest in life
issues.
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8. 2 approaches to YL teaching
Synthetic approach
• Focus on language
• Presents an inventory of
language components
taught separately which the
learner synthesizes or
reassembles to produce
grammatically correct ,
comprehensible utterances.
Analytic approach √
• Focus on learner
• Creates an inventory of
communicative tasks
related to the
communicative contexts in
which the language occurs,
based on learner needs.
• Such approaches offer more
potential than synthetic
approaches.
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9. Teaching vocabulary
• Use direct and indirect teaching
Direct teaching: providing explicit definitions and examples
of word meanings.
Indirect teaching: providing guided discovery activities to
help learners figure out the meaning of the words
themselves).
• Teach vocabulary before doing an activity (it aids
comprehension and acquisition of vocabulary).
• Teach to use context clues appropriately.
• Present multiple exposures to new vocabulary items.
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10. Teaching grammar
• Grammar: the way language manipulates and combines words in order
to form longer units of meaning (Ur, 1988).
Morphology and syntax.
• “We need to simplify and even oversimplify grammar for learners in
the beginning stages. They will have only a partial understanding at this
stage. We should help them perceive patterns and regularities that can
be developed over time as learners ‘grow their grammar’. It is a
‘consciousness-raising’ period. Increasing the load to the learners has
to be done gradually. One of the quickest ways of killing motivation is
by overloading beginning learners”.
(Nunan, 2005a, 2005). 10

11. Step 1
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12. Step 2
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13. Step 3
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14. Step 4
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15. Teaching writing
• Writing starts from copying letters and
words to producing a range of text
types and genres
(reports, instructions, narratives)
• Writing is for preserving information
and transmitting information.
• Writing is dependent on thinking and
reasoning skills.
• Writing reinforces oral language
development (supports other areas of
language learning)
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16. The process approach to writing
• Discussion (class, small group, pair)
• Brainstorming; making notes; asking questions
• Fast writing: selecting ideas; establishing a viewpoint
• Rough drafting
• Preliminary self-evaluation
• Arranging information; structuring the text
• First draft
• Group/peer evaluation and responding
• Conference
• Second draft
• Self evaluation; editing; proofreading
• Finished draft
• Final responding to draft (White and Arndt, 1991)16

17. The mechanics of writing depend on:
Age of learners
Levels of oral proficiency
Nature of their L1
Early stages: copying, tracing, especially through games
Later stages: more challenging word, sentence and text-
level writing
(gap filling, completing familiar texts with key words
removed, replicating familiar texts, producing familiar
real life texts).
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18. Something to think about
“While students certainly need to learn how
to pass exams, they also need to perceive
writing as a tool for learning, a tool that can
be useful to them throughout their
professional and personal lives”
(Raimes, 1993).
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19. Ten Helpful Ideas for Teaching English to Young Learners
1. Supplement activities with visuals, realia, and movement. Children are very much
linked to their surroundings and are more interested in the physical and the tangible.
2. Involve students in making visuals and realia. It helps engage students in the learning
process.
3. Move from activity to activity. young learners have short attention spans. Do not spend
more than 10 or 15 minutes on any one activity because children tend to become bored
easily.
4. Teach in themes. Moving from one activity to others that are related in content and
language helps to recycle the language and reinforce students’ understanding and use of it.
5. Use stories and contexts familiar to students. Find ones that are appropriate for your
students based on their language proficiency and what is of interest to them, because they
may have limited knowledge and experience in the world.
6. Establish classroom routines in English. Young learners function well within a
structured environment and enjoy repetition of certain routines and activities.
7. Use L1 as a resource when necessary. The teacher should spend class time focusing on
those target language objectives rather than spending time trying to make a difficult word or
expression comprehensible in English
8. Check comprehension often.
9. Provide the students opportunities to personalise.
10. Grow global citizens. It helps keep your classroom fresh with new ideas and generate
collaboration. 19

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21. The alphabet of a good FL classroom by Carol Read
A is for Affect
B is for Behaviour
C is for C-Wheel
D is for Development
E is for Energy
F is for Flexibility
G is for Grammar
H is for Holistic learning
I is for Imagination
J is for Jazz chants
K is for Kinesthetic learning
L is for Learning to learn
N is for Neuro-linguistic
Programming (NLP)
O is for Oracy
P is for Praise
Q is for Questioning techniques
R is for Relationships
S is for Storytelling
T is for Technology
U is for Understanding
V is for Vocabulary
W is for Writing
X is for Xenophobia
Y is for Young Learners
Z is for Zone of Proximal Development 21

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24. British Council video tips for teachers
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