• Home
  • Login
  • Registration
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • RSS
ESLarticle.com
Tweet
  • Home
  • Articles
  • Blog
  • Members
  • Add Article

Top Categories

Teaching 509
Other 210
Classroom Management 138
Career Development 135
Learning Methodology 121
Study Skills 91
E-Learning/CALL 87
English Language Learning (ELL) 78
Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) 77
Teaching Methodology 76
English Language Teaching (ELT) 74
English as a Second Language (ESL) 64
Teach in Shanghai
Home / Articles / English Language Teaching (ELT) / View Article

Publishing

  • Articles
  • Add Article
  • Articles Archive
  • Latest Articles
  • Popular Articles

Latest Articles

Jan 5, 2019

Metacognition in Reading Competency

As related to the reading process, metacognition can be defined as contemplation concerning one's own thinking processes or knowledge of one's own...

Jan 5, 2019

Mass Media Literacy Reflections for Language Instructions

"You cannot teach a man anything, you can only help him find it within himself." Galileo Galilei Mass media forms thrive today. As development...

Nov 30, 2018

Ideas for the First Class with New Learners

~~The first class with new learners can be an anxious one for all concerned – teacher as well as learners. Below are some tips to make that first...

Nov 19, 2018

10 Amazing Hacks for English Learners

10 Amazing Hacks for English Learners It is estimated that there are over a billion English speakers in the world, including native speakers,...

Nov 15, 2018

Building Reading and Writing Knowledge with Very Young Children at Hom

Education Today, December 2013 Building Reading and Writing Knowledge with Very Young Children at Home  Timothy G. Weih University of Northern...

Popular Articles

1113586 Views

5 Creative Ways to Decorate Your Classroom Bulletin Board This Winter

Back to school, fall leaves, Thanksgiving and Christmas all easily lend themselves to great decorating themes, but what to do when those are over...

353008 Views

Three Unique Ideas To Make Your Bulletin Board More Useful

Bulletin boards have long been existent in campuses. They have proven to be such versatile and useful aids in both the learning and teaching...

126623 Views

History of the Chalkboard

Walk into just about any classroom and you will find one: A dark green board on the wall, lined with pieces of chalk and felt erasers. Chalkboards,...

60139 Views

Report Card Comments

For a small minority, writing report cards isn't a big deal. But most teachers generally dread report card writing time. Completing the comment...

39632 Views

The Most Useful American Business Words

The Most Useful American Business Words: Here's a list that will come in handy for any student enrolled in an English as a Second Language (ESL)...


How to Effectively use Games in the Preschool and Elementary ESL Class

by Shelly Vernon

Aug 12, 2008 English Language Teaching (ELT) 7728 Views

_notregistered/art_83_3e27fe4c0b~.jpg

Organization. The first thing you should do when start teaching a preschool or elementary school ESL class is to figure out how to organize your class. For the younger students you'll want to change your activities every five to ten minutes because they have shorter attention spans. If you don't change your activities, they'll soon start losing interest. As you get towards the higher elementary grades, you can expand the time you spend per activity. The best way to gauge this is to pay attention to your class for the first few days to see what length of time works the best for them. Additionally, try to have everything ready to go before the students enter the classroom. That way you can go from activity to activity with minimal downtime.

Expectations. If you notice that your class is getting noisy or rambunctious, it's time to change activities. Kids of this age are active and like to be active; in order to balance out the energy levels in the classroom, alternate between active activities and quiet activities. If you have a large class you will need games that do not degenerate into chaos. This will leave you exhausted and the children ignorant! Also important is that the language in the game should be well within the grasp of the children. Start simply and increase the difficulty of the language, or increase the amount of vocabulary in a given game gradually. If you see that the children are hesitating too much in a game switch to an easier game immediately.

Be careful how you use activities that require fine motor skills - or more importantly pay attention to your expectations for activities that require fine motor skills. Children in preschool and early elementary are just learning to write in their own languages. This is not the best time to bog them down with writing in English as well. It is better to spend the bulk of the lesson time on listening and speaking skills for the younger children. As they progress through elementary school, however, you can begin using games and activities that require them to write small amounts.

Variation. You want to make sure your activities appeal to all sorts learning styles, so even when you are using games to teach grammar you'll want to vary the types of things you expect your students to do. For preschool and early elementary grades, stick to games that use talking, listening, looking and moving. For middle and high elementary, you can continue to use games that use talking, listening, looking and moving and add in some games that use writing and reading.

Going along with this same idea, think about what children learn from the easiest. Television commercials are short and catchy and the most memorable are the ones that are repeated often. Keep these characteristics in mind when you are teaching grammar to your students - incorporate these characteristics into your daily activities.

Respect. To make games work for you and your class, be sure to operate your class with the utmost respect - both to and from students. This includes teaching your students from the very start that you expect respect at all times. This includes giving encouragement and following the rules.

That said, you'll need to make sure the rules for all of the games are clear and manageable. When possible, explain the rules in the students' native tongue so that they all know what is expected of them. When there is an environment of respect in the classroom, the students will feel safe enough to participate in the games so that they can get the most educational value out of them.

Towards the end of elementary school, you can start introducing competitive games, but only if the class is respectful and it shouldn't be the main focus of the game.

Routine. Even if you only have your students for a short time every week, establishing a routine will help the class go smoothly. Children of this age (preschool through elementary school) thrive on routine and if they know what to expect next, they will be more able to participate in what's going on now. Set up a schedule for the type of activities you'll be doing at any given time throughout the class whether it is a game, story or song or whatever you want to do. Then, when you are planning your class, plug in the appropriate activities to each section of time. You should also leave a little time at the end of the class period to allow the students to clean up and gather their things as well as time for you to recap the class, praise the students and tell them good-bye.

You can also designate a "sign" to use to signal to the students when it is time to change activities such as clapping or signing a specific song so that they know it's time to return to the circle, table or desks.

Nurture. Perhaps the most important thing you can do with your students is to nurture them everyday. For each child in your class, find something you like about him or her and be sure to tell him or her. Be encouraging, patient and kind while playing games and participating in activities and they'll like you as a teacher and a person which will in turn help them get excited about your class and what you have for them to do everyday.

Just by keeping these tips in mind, you'll be able to teach children grammar with ease. You'll be having fun and they'll be having fun - so much fun, in fact, that they might not even realize they are learning in the process!

Article source: http://eslarticle.com/pub/english-language-teaching-elt/83-how-to-effectively-use-games-in-the-preschool-and-elementary-esl-class.html

  • General Information
  • Pictures
Author Info

Author Name: Shelly Vernon

About Author: Shelley Vernon inspires thousands of esl teachers with her games. Get her free games to make your teaching fun here: http://www.teachingenglishgames.com/ and http://www.teachingenglishgames.com/3-5.htm\\r\\n

General

Pictures:

Most Recent Articles

  • Oct 23, 2018 Teaching how to say and Write Words to Students in Grades 4-6 by Shelly Vernon
  • Oct 17, 2018 Activities Ideas for Teen Classes by Shelly Vernon
  • Mar 29, 2018 What are the Basic English Grammar Rules? by Shelly Vernon
  • Jan 8, 2018 An Introduction to PTE Academic and Some Basic Facts by Shelly Vernon
  • Nov 29, 2017 How Certificate IV in EAL Helped Me by Shelly Vernon

Actions

  • Print Page

Articles Archive

  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019

Random Articles

Reading

Tips and Strategies For Decoding Words in Early Literacy Lessons

The classroom procedures for introducing new vocabulary involves, to a great extent, the three R's: review, repeat, recycle both on sound and...

Teacher Training

Engage Learners by Integrating Funny Quizzes to Courses

Making good eLearning courses is a developing art. A funny quiz can energize almost any content and produce powerful new understanding for your...

Young Learners

Learning Difficulties in Preschool Children - The First Steps to Early

In my first years as an early childhood teacher in a small private preschool, if one of the children in my care was not following the 'norms' of...

Career Development

Critical Appraisal of Continuing Professional Development

CPD or not CPD? That is the question. The aim of this essay is to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of Continuing Professional Development...

Classroom Management

Launching Your Teaching Career Part 3 - Rules and Procedures

Are you feeling great about the excellent progress you have made as you prepare for that first, enchanting day with real students in your own...

About ESL Article

ESL Article is a private ESL/TEFL site designed and maintained by educators and educational administrators. It was launched in August 2008 with the aim of bringing ESL/TEFL students, parents, teachers and schools information and articles about the teaching profession and learning community.

Icon Group Member

ESL Article is a member of Icon Group Thailand (IGT), a group of ESL TEFL TESOL websites providing educational resources and information to teachers, schools and students around the world. The group was founded in 2003 and now includes 15+ websites covering educational information services, teaching resources and e-learning.

What is ESL?

English as a second language (ESL) is the use or study of English by speakers of different native languages. It is also known as English for speakers of other languages (ESOL), English as an additional language (EAL), and English as a foreign language (EFL).

  • Home
  • Registration
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Use
  • Help
  • Partner
  • Contact Us
  • About Us
​

© 2019 ESLarticle.com.
Member of Icon Group Thailand - Educating the Future:
TESall All TESOL  Total ESL  ESL Job Feed
TEFL World  TEFL Jobs Overseas  Teach Overseas
Asia TEFL  ESL Powerpoint  Teacher Training