Teaching young learners can be a huge amount of fun. As teachers we can introduce all sorts of games, projects and variations on traditional exercises. All this needs careful structuring if the resulting activity is to be manageable and, more importantly, if it is going to help students learn and practise words and sentences in English. In Structuring Fun for Young Learners you'll learn about the principles behind that structure with a roller coaster ride of colourful ideas, examples and anecdotes as their vehicle. There are over three hundred diagrams and photographs to help explain exactly how the described activities work and give you the flavor of ELT classes at primary level. When fun in the classroom is properly structured, everyone is a winner. Your students will remember those activities for years and you will still be able to cover your course content without compromising on classroom management. In order for all this to happen, important questions such as: 'How do children behave in classrooms?' 'Why do they want to do some tasks and refuse to do others?' 'What is learning anyway and how can we tie our target words and sentences to the activities we do?' have to be asked. These fundamentals are covered in the first five chapters of the book. The second part of the book explores movement, text, space, novelty objects, teacher-student dialogue, personalisation, clips, images, support for learners, use of coursebooks and your own professional development as a young learner teacher. So, whether you are a new teacher, a seasoned veteran or teacher trainer with young learners classes this is the book for you.
Chris Roland is a teacher, trainer and 'ideas man', well-known for his lively but practical sessions on the international conference circuit. He has taught in both the private academy sector and mainstream education system in Spain as well as holding posts with the British Council in Damascus and Barcelona. He works with teachers across a wide range of contexts, including in-house training at ELI and with teaching associations around the world. He is the author of Understanding Teenagers in the ELT Classroom (Pavilion Publishing, 2018) and has contributed many articles to English Teaching professional and Modern English Teacher magazines.
Introduction Part 1 Chapter 1: Working with groups of young learners - the basics Chapter 2: Classroom management - some more little tricks Chapter 3: What is creative young learner teaching? Chapter 4: Language content 1 - Teaching words and sentences Chapter 5: Language content 2 - Scripting events Part 2 Chapter 6: Exploring fun 1 - Novelty objects Chapter 7: Exploring fun 2 - Using space, our senses and time Chapter 8: Exploring fun 3 - Playing with text and truth Chapter 9: Exploring fun 4 - Movement and moving tasks Chapter 10: Task design for games, stories and crafts Chapter 11: Personalisation and agency Chapter 12: The massive potential of clips and images Chapter 13: Themed lessons - Potatoes, turmeric and stickers Chapter 14: Providing support in the classroom Chapter 15: Making better use of the coursebook Chapter 16: Observed lessons and professional development Bibliography
