Teaching toddlers, 2-3 year olds
11/15/09 • -1 min
This show was recorded back in the summer and a few shows got bumped up, so if you feel we’ve gone back in time, I guess we have But first, we of course have some new things on the web to talk about ... Check those out at the end of the show notes.
Teaching toddlers:
This show goes over some basic problems that come up in teaching classes with 1-3 year olds: short attention spans, running around the room, eating your materials, high expectations of the parents and more. Each problem is addressed and a few ideas for dealing with each are discussed.
More advice and focus is given to the actual planning and running of the classes:
- language production and what to expect
- handling zero production
- eliciting language from this group
- activities: what do they like
- activities: what qualities do they like
- vocabulary: how to introduce it
- working with music and actions
- play and explore vs. teaching at them
- how to motivate them
Quite a bit in this show and we hope some of it is helpful if it’s not all applicable.
If you have anything to add to the show, your own advice or questions, please let us know. Post them here or over at the ESL Teacher Forums. We’d love to hear from you!
Thanks for listening!
New materials from Matt and Mark:
Matt has a new phonics section with Touch and Say phonics over at Dream English. There are chants to download, worksheets, flashcards and more. Check those out!
Mark has a new site, 123 Print Calendars.com. You can make custom calendars for you classroom or for home. Enter events, class schedules, vacations, students’ birthdays, whatever. All the text is 100% customizable.
There are all kinds of themes to choose from. I hope you are able to find something you like.
This show was recorded back in the summer and a few shows got bumped up, so if you feel we’ve gone back in time, I guess we have But first, we of course have some new things on the web to talk about ... Check those out at the end of the show notes.
Teaching toddlers:
This show goes over some basic problems that come up in teaching classes with 1-3 year olds: short attention spans, running around the room, eating your materials, high expectations of the parents and more. Each problem is addressed and a few ideas for dealing with each are discussed.
More advice and focus is given to the actual planning and running of the classes:
- language production and what to expect
- handling zero production
- eliciting language from this group
- activities: what do they like
- activities: what qualities do they like
- vocabulary: how to introduce it
- working with music and actions
- play and explore vs. teaching at them
- how to motivate them
Quite a bit in this show and we hope some of it is helpful if it’s not all applicable.
If you have anything to add to the show, your own advice or questions, please let us know. Post them here or over at the ESL Teacher Forums. We’d love to hear from you!
Thanks for listening!
New materials from Matt and Mark:
Matt has a new phonics section with Touch and Say phonics over at Dream English. There are chants to download, worksheets, flashcards and more. Check those out!
Mark has a new site, 123 Print Calendars.com. You can make custom calendars for you classroom or for home. Enter events, class schedules, vacations, students’ birthdays, whatever. All the text is 100% customizable.
There are all kinds of themes to choose from. I hope you are able to find something you like.
Previous Episode
Teaching communication strategies
Happy fall everybody!
We’ll get back to fall and Halloween for the games of the week, but Matt has some great news for you. He’s finished and launched Dream English volume 3. There is a download pack on his website and it contains all of the songs from the 3 CDs plus a few bonus songs (over 45 songs.) You can also just get the new CD from there as well.
This show deals with teaching communication strategies. We discuss ideas and tips to teach to students, especially teens, about how to be a better conversationalist. So while it’s not really teaching them English, you will be teaching them how to involve themselves better in conversation and keep conversations going. The main points Mark covers in the podcast are:
- using questions
- follow up questions
- feeding the conversation content
- not killing, but keeping the conversation
- keeping everyone involved
- how to move forward from negative responses
- attacking the conversation and not being passive
There are bits and pieces in there about how to adapt these ideas to children’s lessons. We also discuss some ideas and advice for helping quiet students.
There are 4 activities mentioned toward the end of the show to help apply some of these concepts in your lessons.
If you have any questions of comments about the show, please post them here or over on the ESL Teacher Talk Forums at MES-English. We’d love to hear from you.
Games of the week:Â It’s a mummy. You’re it!
I just made that name up, but this week Matt has a Halloween theme game that uses some flashcards and game cards from MES-English’s Halloween set. Using a few cards and playing some Halloween music, you can have a lot of fun selecting students for different language tasks or it can be a knock out game you use at a Halloween party.
There are two more games mentioned that are just party games and might be fun for you to use with your students.
Thanks for listening!
Next Episode
Motivating students
Christmas is upon us ... ho! ho! ho! Merry Christmas everybody! Tis the season, so Matt has a new Christmas Song for you to download and use in your classes: Merry Christmas! It’s a play-like song with speaking, actions and a matching picture book! There are a few more resources discussed that are available for download from MES. You can find all those here, MES Christmas, if you are interested.
This week’s show is about motivating your students. Matt goes over his three keys for motivation your students and Mark comments and adds two more areas to think about in your lessons.
- self motivation
- when to encourage and when to challenge
- setting up the right classroom environment
- choosing an appropriate theme and format
- using testing to motivate
If you have any other tips or advice for other teachers out there about motivating students, we’d love to hear from you. Please post your comments here or over on the ESL Teacher Talk forums!
Game of the Week: the Knock Out Race
This is a new board game from Tools for Educators that you can completely customize with images, text only or a mixture of both. It’s different than most board games out there in that it’s a loop. So you can practice your content several times and even increase the difficulty or add new tasks with the same content. It has been a big success in my classes and I hope your students enjoy it!
Thanks for listening!
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