Fun and Play with Very Young Learners

Desislava Terzieva and Zhivka Ilieva, Bulgaria

Zhivka Ilieva is an associate professor at Dobrich College, Shumen University. She has a PhD in Methodology of English Language Teaching. As part of her research she has classes at primary schools and at kindergartens. She presents at conferences dedicated to language teaching and teacher training in Bulgaria and abroad. E-mail: zh.ilieva.bg@gmail.com

Desislava Terzieva is a freelance English language teacher, working primarily with pre-school children. E-mail: desislavat75@gmail.com

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Introduction
Teaching very young learners
Games
Rhymes
Songs
Conclusions
References
Resources

Introduction

Children love playing games, they learn by play and interaction. Successful teaching is full of positive emotions for young learners. In order to remember, they have to like the material (a song, a rhyme, a game, a story), the activities and the experience during the foreign language (FL) lesson as a whole. As Krashen (1987) states, one of the conditions for learning is lower affective filter. With young learners the affective filter is usually low or easily lowered when the lesson is fun. So we need a wealth of short activities that are funny, raise positive emotions in children and are often changed because young learners have a very short attention span. Such activities are singing a song, playing a game, saying a rhyme, physical and other activities. These activities raise children’s motivation, they are funny, emotional, active.

Teaching very young learners

Hammond (2011: 42) claims that when teaching young learners we need “knowledge about children as individuals and as learners: knowledge of the significance of affect in constructing supportive learning environments and knowledge of the impact of expectations on children‘s educational achievement; knowledge of intercultural understandings.“ The materials and the activities we use are suitable for the target age group, they all bring positive, cheerful, supportive atmosphere in the FL classroom. They are part of children‘s daily life and repond to children‘s needs and expectations. The authentic (not created for FL teaching especially) ones bring cultural and intercultural information.

In Read‘s (2001: 23) opinion “We can motivate children by communicating enthusiasm, optimism and a belief in their abilities, by setting (or helping children to set themselves) realistic goals, by providing activities with a suitable level of challenge, by explicitly modelling the process needed to reach goals and by providing the necessary frameworks and support to allow for successful outcomes.“ Games, songs, rhymes inspire enthusiasm and inspiration. When children act as a group they are not afraid of failure. First we sing or recite together, next the teacher stops at certain key places (where the same line is repeated) and the learners have the sense of achievement coping as a group without the teacher. Gradually they learn the whole text and are willing to say/ sing individually in order to boast. This aids building their confidence. When the learner stops in hesitation, the teacher is there to support and give a clue. This activity provides challenge (to say/ sing the whole text) and sense of achievement. According to Read (1999) these two are very important in teaching very young learners together with fostering and maintaining children‘s curiosity since they “make the act of learning interesting, relevant and enjoyable in its own right“ (Read 1999: 35).

Games

Bland (2012: 20) accentuates that “At the beginning it is utterly important that the language work involves all the senses, with a rich context of story, action, gestures and mime, facial expressions and inventive repetition. It must be fun so that, like mother tongue games for young children, it can be repeated again and again without becoming boring. Learning begins, like L1 acquisition, with ‘collecting’ through listening carefully. It becomes ‘real’ through Total Physical Response, and is recycled playfully, even theatrically, until the children can begin to use some of the language productively.“

As Birova (2013: 11) states „game in its traditional and e-version has to be considered and explored not as an additional device but as a main strategy in language education both for children and adults.“ She claims that (Birova 2016: 2-3) games „support students’ interest and motivation and transform the educational process into a real intellectual challenge and a positive emotional experience.“

We use games that are available on-line or in various methodological books (e.g. Lewis and Bedson 1999, Reilly and Ward 1997, Phillips 1993) some of them are connected to songs or rhymes.

An example of such a game is Ghost (for the rhyme see Dark, dark wood). One of the children is a ghost and stands in the middle of the circle. The others walk around the circle saying the rhyme. When the children say GHOST, they start running and the child named Ghost has to catch one of them. The child caught becomes a ghost and the game starts again.

Fish can fly is a true or false game: children have to react with an action: either stand up if it is true or stand up if it is false

This game is usually followed by questions and answers: e.g. Can you... run/ jump/ swim/ read. Through it we revise animals and reinforce certain verbs.

Name a ... animal
Name a brown animal (bear, squirrel)
Name an animal that is black and white (zebra)
Name a grey animal (hippo, rhino, mouse, wolf)
Name a white animal (rabbit, my bunny, polar bear)

This game makes children think, it reinforces animals and colours and the word animal.

Riddles

I am big, I am strong, I am grey. Who am I? I’ve got a very long nose that is called a trunk!
I am the king of the jungle
I am long and green and very dangerous
I swing through the branches and I like bananas. (from The Lion is the King of the Jungle song (Ward www))
I am very dangerous and it is not easy to find friends; I smile (The Smiley Crocodile (365 2004: 122-123)).

This kind of riddles can be created by any song or rhyme or story. This way children develop their thinking. Listening to the same phrases repeated in another context learners remember them. Some of them make their own riddles quoting phrases from songs, rhymes or stories.

TPR

Children accept TPR activities as another kind of a game. Ivanova (2017: 54) describes TPR in the following way: “It is based primarily on listening and acting in response to teacher directions (and later directions from the students themselves) usually phrased as commands for the students. It is kinetic, fun and lends itself best to younger students and lower levels.“

We offer activities of the following type as TPR activities that serve to quiet the group, to renew concentration, to provide quick and short change at any time of the lesson. Children accept them as a game and as a rhyme at the same time.

Touch your knees
And touch your shoulders x2
Touch the sky
And touch the ground x2
Touch your knees
And touch your shoulders x2
Now you jump
And turn around x2
Touch your nose and clap your hands!

1, 2, 3, jump with / like me!
Count to ten and try again!

Rhymes

Rhymes are rhythmic, funny, emotional, therefore children easily remember them. They are kept in the long-term memory (Manizheh 2008). They develop children‘s thinking skills and their memory (Alonso 2012, Zsusza and Valeria 2008).

Through rhymes about the body parts (see Hands (My hands upon my head I'll place) from Rhymes for Self and Family Themes; Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes; Ten Little Fingers; Body Parts; Hands on Shoulders) children make difference or start making difference between arm and hand which are both translated with the same word in Bulgarian and usually are problematic. They are useful for differentiating fingers and toes, leg and foot etc.

Through If You're Wearing we practise the colours and the imperative, also some social and cultural peculiarities can be acentuated – the Queen and bowing to the Queen.

Songs

Children love singing. In FLT with very young learners songs can be the basic material for learning and a basis for follow up activities, not just a reward for the hard work or time for fun. This opinion is supported by Reilly (2012), Elley (1989), Mol (2009). Hilyard (2013) accentuates the importance of repetition in a song in language acquisition. Songs develop pronunciation, good intonation and accentuation (Rockell and Ocampo 2014, Ara 2009), they ensure vocabulary development throgh whole chunks acquisition (Lorenzutti 2014, Davis and Kryszewska 2012, Murphey 1992), contribute to the development of all types of inteligence and mostly the emotional (Goodger 2015, Mourao 2012).

We use free access materials from the internet (e.g. from supersimplelearning.com or from learnenglishkids). In some of the examples (The Pinocchio from supersimplelearning.com) the phrases are repeated up to 7 times. If we sing such a song twice, the phrases are remembered from the very first day. In Pinocchio there are prepositions IN and OUT presented in a way that children will understand and remember. Memorable are the phrases TURN AROUND and SHOUT Hey! Through this song we remember Here we go and Let‘s do... phrases that can be included in communication. Children remember parts of the body arm, leg, chin. They remember right and left and the imperatives

Turn around! and Sit down!

We All Fall Down is a kind of a game and also teaches imperatives, a few verbs connected to motion (gallop, walk, tip toe), the -ing form.

The Skeleton dance teaches parts of the body and builds positive attitude to anatomy knowledge. Children show parts while singing and after singing it a few times they can name the parts when they are shown on a picture. There are a few versions of the song (Dem Bones 1 and 2) they can be enriched by the materials on learnenglishkids (e.g. The scary skeleton by Holmes).

Conclusions

When the FL lessons are fun and positive experience, connected to positive emotions, children have positive attitude to languages, language learning, to speakers of that language for life. What is even more important, in this case they are positive about learning foreign languages in the future and consider it as easy as playing a game, as pleasant as singing a song.

These activities ensure cross-curricular links in the foreign language classroom, reinforce key phrases and words and give the children pleasure from the achievements. Some of these texts and activities aid children in remembering phrases above their actual level of linguistic development (Vygotsky 1983).

References

Alonso, M. L., (2012). A poem a day keeps the boredom away: Please, English teachers don’t forget about children’s poetry! In A. R. Torres, L. S. Villacanas de Castro, B. S. Pardo (eds). I International Conference Teaching Literature in English for Young Learners. Valencia: Reproexpress, S.L., pp 14-19.

Ara, S., (2009). Use of Songs, Rhymes and Games in Teaching English to Young Learners in Bangladesh. The Dhaka University Journal of Linguistics, 2 (3), pp 161-172.

Birova, I. L., (2013). Game as a Main Strategy in Language Education. American Journal of Educational Research, 1 (1), pp 7-11.

Birova, I. L., (2016). Game as a Method in Language Teaching: Findings of a Teacher Survey. British Journal of Education, Society & Behavioural Science, 16 (4), pp 1-9.

Bland, J., (2012). A Lively Repertoire for Very Young Learners. In C&TS Young Learners and Teenagers SIG, 2012: 1, pp 20-25.

Davis, P., Kryszewska, H., (2012). The Company Words Keep. Peaslake: Delta Publishing.

Elley, W., (1989). Vocabulary acquisition from listening to stories. Reading Research Quarterly, 24 (2), pp 174-187.

Goodger, C., (2015). Music and Mime, Rhythm and Rhyme: The FunSongs Approach to Language Teaching http://www. funsongs.co.uk/assets/pdf/music_and_mime_rhythm_and_ rhyme.pdf

Hammond, J., (2011). Working with children who speak English as an additional language: an Australian perspective on what primary teachers need to know. In S. Ellis, E. McCartney (Eds.) Applied Linguistics and Primary School Teaching. Cambridge: CUP, pp 32-43.

Hillyard, S., (2013). Varied Repetition of Songs in EFL Kindergarten Contexts. In C&TS Young Learners and Teenagers SIG, 1:2013, pp. 19-22.

Ivanova, I., (2017). Becoming an English language teacher: from theory to practice. Shumen: Konstantin Preslavsky University Press.

Krashen, S., (1987). Principles and Practice in Second Language Acquisition. New York: Prentice-Hall International.

Lewis, G., Bedson, G., (1999). Games for children. Oxford: OUP.

Lorenzutti, N., (2014). Beyond the Gap Fill: Dynamic Activities for Song in the EFL Classroom. English Teaching Forum, 52 (1), pp 14-21.

Manizheh, A., (2008). Songs, Verse and Games for Teaching Grammar. http://malimoradi.blogspot.com/2008/05/ songs-verse-and-games-for-teaching.html

Mol, H., (2009). Using Songs in the English Classroom, In Humanizing Language Teaching, 11 (2), http://old.hltmag.co.uk/apr09/less01.htm

Mourao, S., (2012). Supporting the development of emotional intelligence. In C&TS Young Learners and Teenagers SIG, 2012: 1, pp 8-11, 34-35.

Murphey, T., (1992). Music & Song. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Phillips, S., (1993). Young Learners. Oxford: OUP.

Read, C., (1999) Towards Whole Learning. CATS, 1999: 1, pp 33-39.

Read, C., (2001). Emotional intelligence, CATS, 2001: 1, pp 22-26.

Reilly, P., (2012). Understanding and Teaching Generation Y. English Teaching Forum, 50 (1), pp 2-11.

Reilly, V., Ward, S.M., (1997). Very Young Learners. Oxford: OUP.

Rockell, K., Ocampo, M., (2014). Musicians in the language classroom: the transference of musical skills to teach “speech mode of communication”. ELTED, vol. 16: spring, pp 34-47.

Vygotsky, L., (1983). Mislene I rech. Sofia: Nauka I izkustvo. /in Bulgarian, translation Draga Rafailova/. (Thinking and speech. Sofia: Nauka I izkustvo.)

Zsusza, L., Valeria M.B., (2008). Sing a Song and Say a Rhyme. http://www.sulinet.hu/tanar/kompetenciateruletek/ 3_idegen_nyelv/modulleirasok/english/10-13-year-old_learners/a1_ /story-time/sing_a_song/sing_a_song_tanar.pdf

Resources

365, (2004). 365 Stories and Rhymes for Boys. Bath: Parragon.

Dark, dark wood https://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/en/short-stories/dark-dark-wood

Ward, S.M., (www) The Lion is the King of the Jungle

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNdHnlPyCcc&feature=related

Ten Little Fingers http://www.nurseryrhymes.org/ten-little-fingers.html

Hands. Rhymes for Self and Family Themes
http://www.preschoolrainbow.org/family-rhymes.htm

Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes
https://kidsongs.com/lyrics/head-shoulders-knees-and-toes.html/

Ten Little Fingers http://www.nurseryrhymes.org/ten-little-fingers.html

Body Parts http://www.english-time.eu/for-teachers/poem/265-10.-body-parts/

Hands on Shoulders
http://loving2learn.com/Books/RhymesandSongs/BodyParts/HandsonShoulders.aspx

If You're Wearing....
http://www.traditionalmusic.co.uk/childrens-songs/If_Youre_Wearing[Red_Black_etc].htm

The Pinocchio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JV-D_K4drsA

We All Fall Down https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRMAptlBgTk

The Skeleton Dance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e54m6XOpRgU

Dem Bones 1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dem_Bones

Dem Bones 2 http://www.songsforteaching.com/folk/dembones.php

Holmes, D., (http). The scary skeleton Song and lyrics

http://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/en/songs/the-scary-skeleton

Please check the Methodology and Language for Kindergarten course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Methodology and Language for Primary course at Pilgrims website.