How to teach English to beginners
Posted: Saturday, December 26, 2009
by Mako Fisher
24 hour English
When teaching beginners or very young students we recommend you break the lesson into several 'bite size' pieces of about 10 minutes. That is, don't spend any longer than 10 minutes on one particular topic unless the student maintains interest.
Young students especially, have short attention spans and quickly lose concentration so in order to keep lesson momentum and the student interested in the topic at hand, break the lesson time down into ten minute module blocks.
Compliment the lesson with Flashcards with words starting with the letters you are teaching. For example Apple, Airplane, Air Conditioner, Ape, etc etc. To round out the lessons you could introduce a simple song, even make one up yourself if you are musical enough.
A game related to the topic at hand is also a good option towards the end of the lesson. There are a variety of board games on the market relate to English learning or again you could design one yourself. Simple memorizing or guessing games using playing cards can be very entertaining to students if approached correctly and for the right duration. Use Flash Cards to gradually build your students vocabulary.
If you have a group of students, divide them into teams and play a "who knows" game. Quickly display a Flash Card (either number, letter or photo). The student who answers correctly earns a point for their team. An incorrect answer loses a point for the team.
These types of games are ideal for larger groups as you can also build English repetition around the set up of the game and how you divide the students. For example. Surrounding dialogue: "Ok we're going to play a Do You Know Game. Put all the tables to the side of the room. Put all the chairs in three lines from the front of the room to the back of the room. Make three lines. The first line is all students who were born in either January, February, March and April. The middle line is all students who were born in either. May, June, July and August. The third line is all students who were born in WHAT MONTHS? That's right. September, October, November and December. Ok, form the lines and let's start. Who's going to go first?"
In summary: Present material in ten minute "bite size" blocks. Have all material for the class prepared in advance and in order of use during the lesson. Have additional material ready in case you need it. In some instances you might get through material faster than anticipated. Some of the material may be of very little interest to the student and even spending ten minutes on it is far too long. In another instance you may overestimate your students ability and the material being studied may be far to difficult for the student to understand. In all lessons it's important to have extra materials and resources to help you when unexpected dilemmas happen/occur.
Have fun with your students and they'll enjoy learning from you.
This Article has been viewed 840 times. (Not updated in real-time.)
Top-level comments on this article: (5 total)Thank you for this informative article! And Welcome to the Community!
My compliments to you for this very informational piece. Welcome to Search Warp.
Hi Mako,Interesting and informative article this one. I agree with what you put here. In fact, it is easier to teach older students than younger ones as the latter have less patience to follow suit.Welcome to SW!Hilda
This is a useful article particularly for those whose English is a second language. Another point may be considered is children tend to want to translate literally from their first language which is perhaps something that could leave the student confused later on.
Very informative... thanks Mako! Welcome to Search Warp!
We want your comments! If you can read this, you don't have javascript enabled, so you can't use this comment system. Please enable javascript.