Teaching Young Learners

source：Echo time：2024-11-25 14:35:43 read:290

As a TEFL teacher, there’s a very strong chance that you’ll instruct classes of young learners at some stage during your career. Whether you’re building experience right at the start of your career, or you’re decades into your teaching journey, the chances are you’ll either currently be teaching young learners, or you’ll have dealt with classes of youngsters at one time or another.

What do we mean when we say “young learners”? This can mean TEFL students from kindergarten age, right up to 10 years old - though in some settings, “young learners” can include teenagers up to the age of 16. That’s a vast range of proficiencies and ages, which means there’s a lot to learn for any prospective TEFL teacher who wants to inspire and motivate. 

That’s what we’re here for, though! Setting young learners on the path to English proficiency can set them up for success in academia, business, making friends worldwide and simply enjoying a language. It’s also a fantastic and endlessly rewarding way to make a living, so let’s take a deep dive into the world of teaching young learners.

How to teach young learners

Now, every group of youngsters will have different levels of English language ability, they’ll be different ages, and they’ll have different motivation levels. You’ll need to tailor each lesson you do, whether it’s for a class of 30+ or for one child. So, nobody’s suggesting there’s a tried-and-trusted method for teaching ALL young learners!

However, we do know a fair bit about the subject, and there are some general rules we’d advise you to keep in mind. Follow this advice, and you’ll find you’ve got a super-motivated student who’s whizzing through their lessons, or you’ve got a noisy class of engaged, excited kids who want to get better and better with each lesson.

It’s all about the atmosphere

Games, videos, stories, songs , podcasts - use whatever you need to maintain a positive, enjoyable atmosphere in your classroom, whether it’s for a large class or a one-to-one tutoring session. With young learners, keeping them engaged is half the battle (or maybe three-quarters of the battle?), and fostering an atmosphere of excitement and learning is extremely important.

Keep it direct

Young learners aren’t going to want to spend loads of time doing quiet, rote learning. Generally speaking, it’s not going to work. So, keep your lessons interactive, with plenty of activities that involve group work or direct participation, and make sure enough is going on to keep your learners focused.

Make it memorable

Sometimes, you’ll need to repeat yourself. Through repeating yourself, young learners will remember new words and phrases that are important to building their vocabulary and understanding of English. So, sometimes, you’ll need to repeat yourself .

Do you get the point yet? You will need to make your lessons snappy and engaging, yes, but you’ll need to cover the basics repeatedly so that your learners understand the absolute fundamentals of English. It doesn’t mean saying the same thing over and over, though - use the same lessons in different contexts, whether it’s games, arts and crafts activities, songs, or whatever you prefer.