How to Teach English to 8-12 year-old learners

by Helen Hu 11/3

1. Find topics which are related to children’s experiences or interest them a lot

1.     Animals

2.     Appearance

3.     Home appliances

4.     Clothing/Accessories

5.     Colors

6.     Computers

7.     Customs & lifestyles

8.     Daily routines

9.     Eating out

10. Environment & pollution

11. Friends & personal relationship

12. Gender equality

13. Health

14. Holidays & festivals

15. Houses & apartments

16. Human rights

17. Occupations

18. Parts of the body

19. School life

20. Shapes, sizes & measurements

21. Shopping

22. Special events

23. Sports & exercises

24. Study habits or plans

25. Time, date, month, seasons & years

26. Transportation

27. Traveling

28. Weather & climate

29. Science & technology

30. Families, family relationships & kinship terms

31. Famous or interesting people

32. Famous or interesting places

33. Food & drinks

34. Interests and hobbies

35. Manners

36. Money & prices

37. Nation & languages

38. Nature

39. Neighborhood

40. Numbers

2. Establish the teaching goals

l         Let students realize the practical value of English by putting it into the real life practice

l         Maintain the interest of learning English

l         4 skills integrated( Speaking, Listening, Reading, Writing)

l         Encourage them to communicate with others in English

3. Follow 3P 2W

(Warm up, Presentation, Practice, Production, Wrap up)

I. Warm up

1. Greetings

l         Say “Hello” to Ss by using a rhythm

2. Set up the context & pre-teach vocabulary.

l         Use a puppet to introduce the situation: GiGi is going to see her boyfriend. But she just fell down and looked so dirty.

II. The presentation stage

1. Present the vocabulary with TPR.

2. Explain the marker sentences.

“Do you need to _________?”

“Yes, I do” / “No, I’m fine.”

III. The practice stage

1. Controlled practice

(1)Repetition drills (Whole class--group-- individual)

“Do you need to wash your face?”

“Yes, I do.”/ “No, I’m fine.”

(2)Substitution drills

l         Activity-Guessing Game

(1) Prepare a toy windmill.

(2) The teacher rolls the windmill and grasps one piece of the wings. And then, the teacher asks Ss “ Do you need to ?” Ss answer according to the hint on the piece of the windmill that the teacher grasps.

(3) The teacher asks Ss to write down the verb phrase they guess in groups on the white boards.

(4) The teacher checks Ss’ guessing by asking “ Do you need to ?”

(5) The teacher or Ss roll the windmill and check which group gets the right answer by saying, “ Yes, I do.” “ No, I’m fine.”

2. Free practice-

l         Activity-Find your honey

(1) Ss write down 3 daily activities.

(2) Try to find out the one who gets the same activities by asking the question “Do you need to ______”.

IV The production stage

1. Review

Review today’s lesson.

V Wrap Up

1. Homework

(1)Give Ss a worksheet.

(2)Explain how to finish the worksheet.

4. Provide exciting and challenging activities

1. Letter boy & Letter girl

2. Fingers up and down

3. DIY ABC

4. Paper cups

5. Oops!

5. Create interesting atmosphere, contextual environment and suitable activities

l         Fruits stands

l         Shopping for clothes

l         Ordering

l         Let’s go bowling

6. Use five senses

l         Music

l         Magic bag or box

l         Let’s write on the back

l         Musical instruments

l         Paper cups ( In, on, under, behind,)

l         M&M chocolates (color, shapes, abc)

l         Let’s smell

l         Flashcards ( I spy)

Watermelons

1. What do you see? What color is it? How many pieces are there?

2. What do you hear when I eat the watermelon?

3. How do you feel about the watermelon?

4. How does the watermelon smell?

5. How does your watermelon taste?

7. Classroom management

l         songs, chants and body movement

l         secret code

l         group work, pair work

l         team leader, class leader

l         rules

l         Classroom language

l         encouragements

l         scoring systems

8. Select and make good use of the textbook,

l         Learning outcomes should reflect the essential skills and knowledge that students should gain during the course.

l         Easy for students to find key points, develop chapter summaries, practice their skills, test their knowledge, and apply the information to real-life experiences

l         Supplementary study materials provided, such as exercise books, study manuals, websites

l         4.The textbook should be visually attractive, with an appropriate balance between text and illustrations

9. Make good use of the teaching materials and board plans

l         picture cards

l         flashcards

l         DVDs, VCDs, CDs, tapes,

l         Posters/ wall charts

l         magents

l         word cards

l         Bingo cards,

l         paper puppets,

l         realia

l         pocket charts

l         dice

l         pointers

l         storybooks

l         sentence strips

l         figure drawings

l         drawings,