Educating very young children

EDUCATING VERY YOUNG CHILDREN


Are you daunted by the prospect of teaching English to very young children? Sheona Gilmour, lead educator on our new online course for teachers and parents, offers a few tips.
Teaching English to very young children can be challenging, especially if you haven't done any training for the early years classroom. The first time I walked into a kindergarten, I didn’t want to go back the next day. I came from a background of teaching older children, who sat at desks and whose attention I could hold more easily. So the new environment, full of young children with much shorter attention spans, felt overwhelming. This is a common reaction among teachers new to classrooms of children ranging from two to six years old.
But if you take on board a few essentials, there's a good chance you'll end up cherishing the experience. Here are five tips that helped me when I started out.
1. Build your understanding of how young children learn
It is vital to get the approach right for children of this age. You soon realise that children learn and develop at different rates and in different ways. If we don’t understand the age group, we can end up doing more damage than good.
You need to understand what to expect from the children and make sure that what you do in class reflects where they are in their development. For example, in a total physical response activity, don’t get them to hop if they can’t yet balance on one leg, and don’t ask them to write if they can’t hold a pencil.
As Tina Bruce outlines in her book Early Childhood Education, we can’t separate learning into compartments with this age group because there’s so much going on. Children are all developing socially, emotionally, physically and linguistically as they try to understand the world around them.
Understanding this is essential and it helps us recognise that changing and mixing activities is the best way to keep children motivated. Conversely, expecting young children to pay attention for extended periods in a teacher-centred lesson only leads to frustration and behavioural issues. So plan your classes, but be prepared to let go and adapt activities based on the needs of the children.