95 95 Language teaching with young learners

Revise

1 For questions 1–11, match the descriptions with what they are
describing A–L. There is one extra option that you do not need to use.
’ AK
A Chorus G Same or different
B Disappearing dialogue H Snake
C Formal operational stage I Song
D Mime J Spaghetti (ball of string) pictures
E Puberty K Stress
F Puppets L Wordsearch puzzle

1 Students have to find words in one of these.

2 Students have to follow lines to match words and pictures.
3 This is an activity where students have to compare themselves (and their lives)
with someone else’s (a puppet, for example).
4 This is often thought of as the last part of a child’s intellectual development.
5 This is the stage where children grow and change – and become capable of
thinking about abstract concepts.
6 This is when students say words, sentences or even dialogues together.
7 We can ask students to demonstrate this by getting them to write words where
some part of the word is bigger than the rest of the word.
8 We can gradually remove the words so that students have to remember everything
from memory.
9 We can use these for students to talk to, or to make dialogues between two of them.
10 We can write a series of words on a picture of one of these. The students have to
separate the words to find out how many there are.
11 We use this to demonstrate an action or event without using any words.

Research

2 Look at teaching materials for young learners (including coursebooks,

workbooks and online material) and find out the following.
1 What age and level the materials are for.
2 Whether any of the activities described in Unit 95 of Essential Teacher Knowledge
are included (e.g. wordsearch).
3 What other game-like activities are used to practise language.
4 How frequent the use of games is.

Which is your favourite activity from the ones you have found?

Reflect

3 Consider the following questions. ’ AK

1 Why is mime useful in a language learning situation?
2 Have you seen (or used) mime in a young learner classroom? How useful was it?
3 How do/would you feel about using mime with young learners?

ESSENTIAL TEACHER KNOWLEDGE | PHOTOCOPIABLE | COPYRIGHT PEARSON EDUCATION LTD

2012