How NOT to teach

Young Learners:
5 deadly sins

leandra.dias@pearson.com

In spite of having a
handfull of different
and carefullychosen activities,
teachers do make
mistakes.

Songs
Stories
Games
Pronunciation
Routines

Learning as a process
(Vygotsky )

Head, shoulders, knees and toes

Songs are used

only for
entertainment or
to introduce the
topic of the
lesson.

- Ask your students to follow the

commands: Touch your head...
- Play the song and sing along
with your SS...

- SS sing as in a Karaoke version

( good to identify phonological
innacuracies.)
- Use only one part of the body to
sing the song.
- SS stand facing each other and
touch their friends body while
listening to the song.

- SS sing the song as if they were

sad, bored, hungry or happy.
- SS order the words as they
listen to the song.
- Each S gets a word and they
have to stand up as they listen
to it.
- Create different versions of
the songs and substitute the
old words for new ones

Stories are used

only for the circle
time or to cool SS
down.

- Elicit the story from the SS.

- Work on Emergent Language ,
if necessary.

- Tell the story

- Invite SS to retell the story with
you.
- Give SS ( in pairs ) a card and
ask them to say this part of the
story. (
- SS mingle around and say parts
of the story

- Ask SS to list what is nice for

them. ( also really nice and not
nice)- can be done in pairs as
well.
- SS can create their own stories
and present to the class.

Hot Potato

Games are
played just for fun
or to get SS in the
mood of the
lesson.

- Ask SS to say their color and

the colors which have been said
before
- Ask questions related to the
content.
- Ask SS to say a sentence with
that specific piece of
vocabulary.

- Ask SS to ask another S a

question about the content.

Children are too

young to deal with
pronunciation.

- Work on individual sounds

through drills. ( Lake, house,
pen, watch)
- Use shapes right above the
words to indicate stress.
-

LAKE

- Ask SS to place the stress

correctly.
- Ask SS to stamp their feet as you
/ they pronounce the words.

- Ask SS to guess the word by

showing only the stress shapes.
- Ask SS to use the stress
shapes to say a word.
- Use phonetic transcription for a
specific set of words.

- Use arrows to indicate the

proper intonation of a sentence.

Lessons start and

finish in the same
way.

- Repetition brings predictability

and predictability opens the door
to boredom.
- Classroom agenda based on
activities.

- Use a song, a story, a game and

a handout, but not necessarily in
the same order every class.
- Sing the Hello song in different
ways. Ask SS to create new Hello
songs.

- Keep some books or games in

the corner and allow fast
finisher to read or play.
- Work with class monitors.
- Get feedback from SS at the
end of the lesson.
- Add little surprises to break the
routine.

- Peer observation.
- Record your lessons.
- Accept feeback from other
teachers,
- Celta YL extension
- Trinity TYLEC
- International house/ online
face2face couses
- British Council online courses
- NILE /online face2face
courses
- Pearson TDI -online

 But children can always

do more than we think they
can.
Cameron , 2001

leandra.dias@pearson.com