Children experiment and play with Utterances (which are made to form words and phrases)

Important aspect of child’s development Play Important aspect of child’s development

Children do with parents, siblings, etc. Experiment with their native language Children do with parents, siblings, etc.

What children learn about words Words can provide joy, be used as weapons (causing hurt feelings and bruised egos), and be used as a form of entertainment What children learn about words

Reflection (p.47) What do children in your country like to pretend to be? When you were a child, what did you like to pretend to be? What are some of the things you might have said while you were playing? What would you have said when you were five? What would you have said when you were ten?

Children make up their own verses or versions of songs and finger- plays (by taking a known pattern and putting their own twist on it) Innovations

Action (p.49) Make a list of your favorite English-language children’s finger-plays or songs. See course packet pages 96-98. Be sure to select ones where you know or have all the words for at least one of the verses. Rewrite one of the finger-plays or songs using your own words.

Contrary to a popular myth Younger children learning English as a foreign language do not develop English-language skills more readily than older learners (clear advantage with pronunciation if they begin early though) Contrary to a popular myth

Author’s advice about pronunciation Because non-native children have difficulty with some phonemes, teachers should not focus too much on sounds that are troublesome for children until they are 10 or 11 years old Agree (from your experience)? Author’s advice about pronunciation

MLU MLU stands for mean length of utterance – the number of morphemes found in a sample of a child’s utterance Children should not be expected to produce utterances that are beyond their stage of development

Chart (p.51)

Children’s tendency Overgeneralize (infer and derive) grammar rules when they are learning English as their native language Teachers should be aware of the development of their skills in their native language – to see how one language impacts another

Author’s advice > techniques/activities The specific techniques and tasks that teachers choose should be based on the aims of the program they’re teaching in coupled with the learners’ stages of development

Audiolingual Method (ALM) Drills with choral response and dialogues – which get learners to practice using the patterns that occur in language

Personalize the content Drills Personalize the content

Students respond in unison Choral response Students respond in unison

Dialogues They provide learners with grammatically controlled scripts that can be used in real life Whenever possible, role-plays should be based on the types of real and make-believe conversations that children have when they work and play

Puppets with dialogues Children often feel more comfortable talking with a puppet than with an adult – and it makes language-learning more fun

Fishbowl The teacher models an activity with a volunteer or puppet while everyone in the class watches – which clearly shows students what they are expected to do

Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) It is an approach and philosophical orientation that connects classroom-based language learning with the language that learners need in order to communicate outside of the classroom The focus is on getting the message across and helping children acquire fluency From the standpoint of teaching English to young learners, it is necessary to connect classroom learning to the real-life child- focused situations where children use language Teachers need to consider the type of language that children need in order to communicate in specific situations Communicative Language Teaching (CLT)

Games – appropriate technique Because play is a purposeful activity and games are a part of playing

Your favorite games for young learners *Opinion

Fun way to teach pronunciation Tongue twisters “She sells seashells by the seashore. The shells she sells are surely seashells. So if she sells shells on the seashore, I'm sure she sells seashore shells”

Error correction *Opinion

Level of control in classrooms Well-planned lessons (with several activities that children are interested in and help them stay on task) *See “lesson plans” (on my website)

Use visual clues (e.g. lights, hands, etc.) Manage noise levels Use visual clues (e.g. lights, hands, etc.)