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    Kiddie English
    Kiddie English
    Kiddie English
    Ebook181 pages1 hour

    Kiddie English

    By Virginia Calhoun

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    About this ebook

    Kiddie English is a practical, hands-on guide to teaching English to young children. The ideas and resources in this book will help EFL teachers in kindergartens and primary schools around the world to be effective, creative and satisfied.

    Most English teachers work with children at some point during their teaching careers. Children are often enthusiastic about learning, full of energy, quick to imitate the teacher’s pronunciation and proud of their new vocabulary. However, teaching children is very different from teaching teens or adults - their attention span is short, they get bored easily and are difficult to control, and testing illiterate kindergartners seems impossible. Kiddie English is a manual for English teachers and students of didactics, designed to help them learn appropriate techniques for planning children’s classes, relating to children, motivating them, finding appropriate activities for different stages in the child’s life, presenting new material in English to children who don’t yet understand the language, testing children who can’t read or write yet, controlling the group and engaging children’s interest. An additional section provides songs, games, stories and pictures which teachers can incorporate in their lessons or use as rewards. Most of the ideas and all of the drawings come from the author’s 20 years of teaching experience or from observing other successful teachers.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherVirginia Calhoun
    Release dateJun 6, 2012
    ISBN9781476269580
    Kiddie English
    Author

    Virginia Calhoun

    Virginia Stuart Blair Calhoun, a native of Wooster, Ohio, U.S.A., received her B.A. in Liberal Arts from Kenyon College in Ohio in 1980 and her ICELT (English language teaching certification) from the British Council in 2006. She has lived in Chiapas, married to Francisco Millán Velasco, since 1982. With over 20 years of English teaching experience, Professor Calhoun has taught at all levels from kindergarten to university. Professor at the Campus III Language School of the Universidad Autónoma de Chiapas since 2000, Virginia Calhoun has taught Teaching Methodology for Kindergarten and Primary School, Introduction to Didactics and other subjects in the B.A. Program there, as well as presenting talks at several national English Language Teaching conferences. Along with her colleagues Maria Luisa Avila Losada and Ivan Perez Roman, Professor Calhoun is also coauthor of The Long and Winding Road: A life story of the English Language (UNACH, 2010).

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      Book preview

      Kiddie English - Virginia Calhoun

      Kiddie English

      A Guide To Teaching Kindergarten and Primary School Children

      Prof. Virginia S. B. Calhoun

      Copyright 2011 Virginia S. B. Calhoun

      Smashwords Edition

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the au. thor.

      Contents

      Introduction: Teaching Kids

      About The Author

      Presentation

      Glossary

      Unit 1: Lesson Planning and Classes In English

      Unit 2: Stages of Childhood Development – Kindergarten & Primary School

      Unit 3: Feedback, Testing and Grading

      Unit 4: Control of the Group

      Unit 5: Drawings, Songs, Games and Stories

      Kiddie English Songs Online

      Bibliography

      Introduction: Teaching Kids

      Most English teachers work with children at some point during their teaching careers, due to preference or to necessity. For some teachers, it is a wonderful experience. They enjoy children’s spontaneity, playfulness, humor, curiosity, and affectionate natures. Children are often enthusiastic about learning, full of energy, quick to imitate the teacher’s pronunciation and proud of their new vocabulary. Some teachers have a natural affinity, understanding and empathy with children, or relate to their students in the same way that they relate to their own sons and daughters.

      However, other teachers hate working with children. The didactic techniques that teachers learned in the university don’t seem to apply, the children get bored easily and are difficult to control, and testing illiterate kindergarteners seems impossible. While English language teachers are trained to give classes in English from the beginning, using cognates and examples to help students understand, young children often don’t have enough vocabulary in their native language or knowledge of the world to recognize those cognates and examples. Teachers may give boring classes in the native language, shout at the children, fail many students or give arbitrary grades, and feel frustrated because students don’t learn. If frustrated teachers have to continue working with children because of limited job opportunities, they may hate both their work and their students. Such teachers can see a 30 year professional career in teaching children like a 30 year prison sentence!

      This situation is not necessary. Although having a natural affinity with children is an advantage, many of the new teachers’ problems working with children can be solved if future English teachers learn appropriate techniques for planning children’s classes, relating to children, motivating them, finding appropriate activities for different stages in the child’s life, presenting new material in English to children who don’t yet understand the language, testing children who can’t read or write yet, controlling the group and engaging children’s interest.

      This manual is designed to help English teachers and students of didactics with these techniques. In addition, there is a section with songs, games, stories and pictures which teachers can incorporate in their lessons or use as rewards. Most of the ideas and all of the drawings come from the author’s 20 years of teaching experience or from observing other successful teachers. Many of the songs and games are traditional parts of U.S. or British folk culture from the public domain; a few are original works by the author or the author’s adaptations of traditional songs and games. Some articles of further interest easily available by Internet are recommended at the end of each unit. It is the author’s hope that this manual will help future generations of EFL teachers to be effective, creative and satisfied in kindergartens and primary schools around the world.

      Return to Table Of Contents

      About The Author

      Virginia Stuart Blair Calhoun, a native of Wooster, Ohio, U.S.A., received her B.A. in Liberal Arts from Kenyon College in Ohio in 1980 and her ICELT (English language teaching certification) from the British Council in 2006. She has lived in Chiapas, married to Francisco Millán Velasco, since 1982. With over 20 years of English teaching experience, Professor Calhoun has taught at all levels from kindergarten to university. Professor at the Campus III Language School of the Universidad Autónoma de Chiapas since 2000, Virginia Calhoun has taught Teaching Methodology for Kindergarten and Primary School, Introduction to Didactics and other subjects in the B.A. Program there, as well as presenting talks at several national English Language Teaching conferences. Along with her colleagues Maria Luisa Avila Losada and Ivan Perez Roman, Professor Calhoun is also coauthor of The Long and Winding Road: A life story of the English Language (UNACH, 2010).

      Presentation

      Can you remember when you were a child? Look at the picture, read the phrases, then close your eyes and try to remember how it felt to be a child. Do you remember your favorite clothes? A special toy? The things that made you feel good? What did you like best about school? Did you have any teachers that you loved? What did they do? Most children have some negative experiences, too. Were there any children who were cruel to you? Did you ever feel frightened or angry at school? Did you have any teachers who made you feel bad? If you can remember being a child, it will be easier for you to identify with your young students. You were once a little child like them, and one day they will be an adult like you. Children are not an alien species. They are people like you. When you teach children, you can help people who feel the way you did. Did you have a teacher who inspired you? You can be that teacher for the next generation of children.

      You have the most exciting job in the world. When you know how to work with children, you will enjoy your teaching career immensely. I dedicate this manual to all the teachers, past, present and future, who genuinely enjoy children and sincerely want to help them. You have inspired and guided me.

      Good luck and enjoy your teaching,

      Virginia Calhoun

      Glossary

      Atmosphere: The feeling of a classroom (peace, tension, friendliness or aggression) caused by the relationships between teachers and students, and among students.

      Christmas carols: Special songs for Christmas time.

      Circle games: Simple games that children stand or sit in a circle to play.

      Corporal punishment: Hitting or hurting children when they behave badly.

      ESA (Engagement, Study, Activation): Technique for capturing students’ interest in the material first, then letting students analyze the material, and finally asking students to use the material.

      Finger games: Simple games with rhymes: children move their fingers to imitate objects.

      Forcible pressure: When an adult physically moves or obligates a child to obey by force.

      Isolation: The child cannot participate in classroom activities with his/her classmates.

      Pacing: How quickly the teacher changes activities to maintain children’s interest.

      Peer pressure: The pressure that friends and classmates exercise on each other.

      Realia: Real objects (school supplies, clothing, food, etc.) that can be used for teaching.

      Stages: Periods in a child’s maturation.

      Return to Table Of Contents

      Unit 1: Lesson Planning and Classes In English

      Vocation

      How much of teaching ability with small children is learned technique and how much is natural aptitude? Much of being a good teacher depends on your vocation: your basic love of teaching, love for kids and love of your subject: English. Your character, including your emotional side, is very important. Just as professional singers must have a natural talent for music or professional football players must have a natural ability for sports, so professional teachers must have a natural enjoyment of students. If you have a natural empathy with children and you genuinely enjoy their company, you will probably be a good teacher with them. If you share common ground with children—you enjoy playing, you like games and songs, you are active and kinesthetic (physical), you have a sense of humor and you are enthusiastic, you can become an excellent teacher.

      However, even if you do not have natural empathy with children, you can develop that empathy if you have the motivation to do so. If you want to understand and like kids, if you observe them and practice interacting with them, you can find your vocation as a primary school or kindergarten teacher. Obviously, your training is very important. Training and experience will give you techniques that will improve your teaching, make you more efficient,

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