Teaching English to Children
Lesson Plan - a fun 45 minutes!
On this site are loads of ideas, but how do you actually put them together
to form a lesson? Well, over the last few years this type of structure
"evolved" in my lessons to great success!
1. Warm Up/Review - 3/10 minutes
The idea is to get the kids back into a "Genki"
way of learning, to get used to you again,
to warm them up and to review the previous
time's language.
Start off with a quick go of the Warm Up game. Time depends on the class, from 30 seconds to 5 minutes.
Review the song from the previous lesson. They are singing and dancing and remembering
the previous work all at the same time. The songs are quick, genki and
get to the point!
2. New material -
(Digital) Picture cards and Song - 15/20 minutes New vocab A capella CD
Using the Genki English songs to make it easy to introduce the new language, and for the kids to remember
it.
Review often! After every 3 or 4 words, review
the others.
8 words is a good quantity to teach in one lesson.
Questions and answers are better. Say the question, point to a card
and the kids answer. This is better than simply learning the vocab in isolation.
Try tricking them by pointing to a card and saying a different question
e.g. "What's your name?"
To save time, try singing each word when introducing it. The melody and
actions help the kids remember them more quickly. Plus when you've finished
the words, they already know the song.
Teach the song "a capella" using the "Mini Lesson" several times without the music. Keep practising till they know
all the words!
If they don't say things loud, do a competition between you and them to
see who can say the word the loudest. Even the shy kids will be then saying
the words!
Sing the song with the music to make sure they know the vocab and have some fun! Keeping the music
till the end makes sure the kids know the words and keeps the energy high.
3. Practice of new material - Game - 15/20 minutes
The purpose of the classroom game is for the kids to practise the target
English. It's also good for the teacher to see if the kids have mastered
the language or if they need more practice.
Only English is allowed for the kids, but the teacher should explain things
in whichever language is most efficient. The less time you spend explaining,
the more time the kids have to practise.
Most of the games on this site can be used for almost any vocab.
But each lesson also has it's own recommend game. Pick a lesson from the curriculum and scroll down that lesson's page.
Explain the games by acting them out. All the games on the site can be
explained in 2 or 3 minutes or less. If team teaching, try giving a translation
of the game to the other teacher who can then explain the rules in the
kids' native language.
If there is no end to the game - do a big
countdown!
Important Point: Remember to teach your kids that "Losing doesn't
mean losing. It simply means you get another chance to try again"
If everyone is having fun, everyone wins! If they don't win, it's simply
another chance to try again next time. Do this and every kid will be wanting
to keep going and learn more, especially if they actually lose a game!
4. "Thank you"s and "Goodbye"s
If you have time ....
Sing today's song again and then the Thank You song (from CD1) to finish.
Tell them how good they were
Do a few claps and cheers (try raising
your hand to vary their volume like we do
in the shows, very fun!)
End the lesson on a high so they are looking
forward to the next lesson!!
So there you go, a nicely structured lesson with plenty of chance to speak
English and learn new language! Of course there are different ways to do
this, and please feel free to vary, but this is the one that I used most
often. You can see a lot of this in action in my free Online Video Workshop.
Thoughts, comments or suggestions? Give me a mail.
OK, choose a theme from the curriculum and get started!
A capella