08/10

In today's class we covered topics that will allow us to do activities later that can be useful for future projects.

Our term ‘very young learners' refers to children between the ages of three and seven, who are just setting out on their educational journey. They are still making the transition towards being part of a group and understanding the meaning and structure of their educational life. They may or may not attend school daily and many of them have not learned to read in their own language yet.

Human beings start learning from the moment they are born and are naturally inclined to pursue activities which help them make sense of their world and their place in it. Play is central to this process, in that a child's desire to be doing things and choice of tasks is directly linked to how and what they need to learn. Learning at this age includes developing fine motor skills (for example, picking things up, colouring and cutting) and gross motor skills (for example, running, throwing and catching). For children in their early years, the huge task of understanding the natural and social world can be overwhelming, without adult guidance. We can enhance their play / learning to help them develop their confidence, co-ordination, understanding of logical sequences and thought processes by setting developmentally appropriate tasks.

How do very young children start using language?

The psychologist Jean Piaget stresses the idea that very young children are active learners. They interact with the world around them, and learning occurs because they want to solve problems posed by the environment. This is how a child's thinking is formed, and this is how a need to use language develops. The theories of the developmental psychologist Lev Vygotsky go further: they stress the important role of social interaction and language in the child's development. When a child says *apple”, for example, this one word represents a whole sentence. It is through the interaction with an adult or older sibling - through the child listening to a fluent speaker's response to their utterance ‘apple’ that the child is learning language. This is illustrated in an authentic example of child-caregiver language quoted in Peccei (1999, p.100):

 Child: (picks up red bean bag in shape of a frog) Santa Claus. 

Mum: Santa Claus? That's a frog, honey. That's not Santa Claus. That's a frog. A red frog. 

Child: Frog (points to frog on car). Sits.

 Mum: Yes, he's sitting down. That's right. 

What we can see from the example above is how the adult almost 'speaks for the child', thus modelling important language. The mother says what the child might say if she could express herself more fully. Wood, Bruner and Ross (1976) call the support the child gets through such intervention 'scaffolding', and we will see below how the experienced language teacher can use a similar technique in the language classroom to extend what the child is able to say.

A key quality in child development is the intimate relationship between thinking and talking. Whereas older children have learned to think before they talk, very young children form their ideas through talking. For them, speech is a way to actually work out what is in their minds, and helps them to learn to understand it.

Another feature of the way very young learners start using language is that they are at an early stage of literacy development. Some may recognize a few letters – those found in their name or the first letter in some familiar words. Some may also have learned to read a few words in a holistic way - words they frequently see in their surroundings, such as the name of their favourite breakfast cereal. Although some very young children's reading skills may be more developed, they are still only just embarking on the exciting journey of making sense of the written word. This means that reading and writing are not central to the learning process in the way they will be in later years.

 

How do very young learners develop cognitively?

 According to educational philosopher Kieran Egan (1997), a person's intellectual growth happens naturally, through certain developments deeply rooted in our cultural history. In order for a child's intellect to grow appropriately, the development of certain ‘cognitive tools’ is essential. It is obvious that if we want to cut a wooden board in half we need a saw – a physical tool. Likewise, if we want to solve complex problems we need tools of the mind'. But the fundamental difference between physical tools and tools of the mind is that the former help us to manipulate the world around us, while the latter are about controlling ourselves, our body, our thinking and our emotions. The ability to use tools of the mind is an important step on the way towards learning socially acceptable behaviour.

2. TEACHING TOOLS IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE CLASSROOM

Below are a few of the building blocks of language that form important cognitive tools in early child development and that are important teaching tools in the English language classroom too:

 

Rhythm and rhyme

In pre-literate days people had the ability to remember texts of sometimes epic length. Rhythm and rhyme were important mnemonic devices in this process of remembering. In our modern age it is still through rhythm and rhyme that children start remembering chunks of language. They also experience enormous joy through repeatedly hearing (and later joining in with) the rhythms and rhymes of language. Exposure to and playing with rhythm and rhyme help children develop an understanding of the patterns of language (sound patterns first) and also form cognitive tools they will later need for the understanding of structures,

 

Images and imaginative thinking 

For young children, there is often no borderline between reality and imagination. For example, if the teacher uses a hand puppet in class, a four year-old recognizes that it is a puppet, and yet as soon as the puppet starts talking (with the help of the teacher), the child reacts to it as if it were alive.

Such imaginative processes lead to the creation of images in the child's mind. Understanding oral language not only requires the knowledge of words, but also the ability to create and use mental images. There is clear evidence that learners who are at ease with creating lots of images while listening to a story, for example, remember more language from it.

 

Storytelling

Stories play an essential role in the cognitive development of children. The story form is something people enjoy in all cultures. However, telling stories in class, as well as entertaining children, helps them develop an understanding of the world and their own life experiences. Stories communicate information and at the same time help us to understand how we feel about it. That's why they are such a powerful form of language. Engaging very young children with stories is a time-honoured tradition which holds a central place in their language learning.

 

Small talk

For the very young, learning to engage in small talk is not just about getting used to an exchange of linguistic formalities. It is an important building block of cognitive development, and it has a key social function for the child. Learning to participate successfully in small talk strengthens the child's self-concept and gives him/her a feeling of security and acceptance in society. Being accepted by their teacher and classmates is an extremely important experience for the child, and at the same time it is a precondition for developing social relationships and friendships.

2. TEACHING TOOLS IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE CLASSROOM

2.1. Rhymes

RHYMES AND NURSERY RHYMES

Nursery rhymes not merely tell stories. They help children to learn the wonderful sounds of the language. Simple words that rhyme add a magical touch to these little poems for little ones. You are sure to find many popular nursery rhymes for your child to learn, recite and cherish for years to come. You can even use our rhyme dictionary to introduce your child to a vast vocabulary of rhyming words from A-Z. Choose from either contemporary or traditional nursery rhymes to help your child wander gleefully into the never-never land of sounds and language. 

Example:                                                                   

Number rhymes

One for the money,

And two for the show,

Three to make ready,

And four to go.

2.2. Limericks

LIMERICKS

A limerick is a silly poem with five lines.  They are often funny or nonsensical.  Limericks were made famous by Edward Lear, a famous author who wrote the "Book of Nonsense" in the 1800's.  This was an entire book of silly limericks.

How to write a limerick:

The first, second and fifth lines rhyme with each other and have the same number of syllables (typically 8 or 9).
The third and fourth lines rhyme with each other and have the same number of syllables (typically 5 or 6)
Limericks often start with the line "There once was a..." or "There was a..."

Example of an 8,8,5,5,8 syllable limerick:

STAR by Kaitlyn Guenther

There once was a wonderful star

Who thought she would go very far

Until she fell down 

And looked like a clown

She knew she would never go far.

One thing I enjoyed about today's class, in my opinion, was being able to create our own limerick with my partner. It was fun performing it in class with all my classmates.

Here's the one we made:

There one was a little blue bird

who couldnt fly through the sky

one of his leg was broken

but his wings was open

a duck help him to back to the sky