Yes, we can talk about inclusion, differentiation, translanguaging, emotional development, critical thinking skills, gross or fine motor-skills, creativity and rhythm and all these things are very important BUT the common denominator of all our English classes is an underlying question that that we don’t want to overlook or to forget. It is how can we get more words and sentences, in English, coming out of our young learners’ mouths.

Here, I offer four techniques to help you in this endeavour and a precautionary consideration as well.

Come on then, say it… !

This one may sound brutally simple, but sometimes it really is just a case of encouraging a learner to repeat a sentence after us. If they were trying to say: “Can you help me hang my jacket up teacher?” but didn’t have the language, we can model the sentence for them and ask them to repeat - repeating the model several times if needed, and perhaps splitting it up into more manageable chunks such as: “Can you… help me… hang my jacket up… teacher?”

This may also involve holding their classmates off for a moment or two, who will be eager to ask their own questions and  will be clamouring for our attention, in order to free up a few brief seconds to give that first learner a safe space in which to listen, repeat and be heard.

Taking multiple answers

Imagine that your learners have all completed an exercise in their workbook and you are now going over the answers with the whole class. Perhaps you have half a dozen or more little hands in the air at any one time, all straining to give you the answer. Once you take the correct answer from one child and confirm it is correct, you will often hear a collective sigh or groan from the others, signaling their disappointment or frustration at not being asked and not being able to show you that they know.

One way we can involve more learners in the same question is by withholding our confirmation of the correct answer until several of them have answered. In class, this pans out like this:

Teacher:        “So what did you get for number 4… Pedro?”

Pedro:           “It is… the fish.”

Teacher:        “Maybe yes, maybe no. Alicia?”

Alicia:            “…the fish.”

Teacher:        “Maybe yes, maybe no. Clara.”

Clara:                         “…the parrot.”

Teacher:        “Maybe yes, maybe no. Let’s wait and see. And.. Pablo.”

Pablo:            “…It’s the fish.”

Teacher:        “…and the correct answer is… the fish. Good try, Clara, better luck next time.”

Of course, some of the time it might be the minority that get the answer right, in which case, here, it would be Clara who is fist-pumping the air in victory.

It’s quite difficult to get out of the habit of confirming a correct answer the moment we hear it, but if you can do so and use this micro-strategy sometimes, more learners get the chance to be involved in giving a reply to each question.

Shared snippets

Young learners often share aspects of their lives with us at unexpected moments. What can we do when a learner comes tells us in L1 that their cousin just got a puppy, or that their aunt is taking them to the waterpark later?

One option is to use a student’s use of L1 as an entry point to English (here’s that translanguaging again!) by recasting their sentence in English and writing it on the board (as long as it’s not a private matter – I like to check by asking “Can I share that with the class?”). By writing it on the board we make that language accessible to the whole class. For example:

Héctor’s cousin’s going to get a puppy.

or//

Gema’s aunt is going to take her to the waterpark later.

We can ask the original student to repeat the recast, and then the whole class to repeat it. We can also look at what individual words mean, either just using English with questions like:

“Which word means a baby dog?”

and

“Which word is a place where you can swim?”

Or, by using L1 to further explore the lexis and grammar as in:

“Which word means primo or prima?”

and

“Which words mean va a llevar?”

Obviously how much you use your learners’ L1 will depend upon your own particular teaching context and approach. In this regard, I would simply say that there are no absolute right or wrongs, rather, there are options.

Letting learners take control

Let’s go back to that imaginary workbook or worksheet exercise your class has just finished. One option, with slightly older primary learners, is to invite a student to the front of the class (if they like the idea), provide them with the correct answers to the exercise (perhaps on a Post-it note) and allow them to nominate their classmates to answer.  The student-teacher themselves can confirm the correct answers or offer their classmates another attempt.

To this end, I normally provide them with a mini-script along the lines of:

? Marta/Andrés etc., can you tell me the answer to number __ please?

✓ That’s right. Well done.

✗ Sorry. Try again.

? Anyone else?

Allowing our learners to take turns being the teacher in mini-slots like these not only increases their practice of functional language, like that contained in the scripts above, but also increases their level of agency.

If my experience of doing this sort of thing for the last 25 years is anything to go by, most of your learners will very much want to have their moment in the limelight. For this reason, it’s best to make a note on your class list or register of who has been the teacher and to let everbody know that there is a list and that everyone will get their fair turn at the front, if they want it.

Do they actually know what they are saying?

For several years during my own primary education, I happily sang the nonsensical line Sona lena tina during our renditions of Frère Jacques. Nobody told six-year-old Chris that it was actually: Sonnez les matines! (Ring the morning bells).

If at any point I had actually seen the lyrics and been asked: “Hey, do you know what Sonnez means?” or “Which word means the morning bells?” then my own personal version of this this song might not have been so distorted and, in this small respect, I would have learnt a little more French.

Similarly, I’ve had four, five and six-year-olds in my classes happily ask each other during pairwork or class mingle activities (sometimes accompanied by a class survey in table format): “[H]owareyou?” or “Gauchonein?” without necessarily knowing that the first words of these questions are How and What’s respectively, that they mean Como and Qué and indeed where each of those words ends and the word following them starts.

My point here is that even whilst encouraging our learners to sing, chant and repeat set questions and answers, we also have to stop sometimes and ask ourselves: Do they actually know what they are saying?

One way to address this issue is to present learners with the written form of a line, statement or question and help them identify the separate words and map sound to text.

 Another is to sometimes ask questions (and have them repeat those questions) more slowly, as in: “How… are… you?” and “What’s… your… name?” so that they can appreciate where one word ends and another begins (known as word segmentation).

A third option is to simply ask now and again: “Do you know what How means? It’s the first word in How are you?.” and “Do you know what are means etc. etc.”

Good luck with getting your young learners saying more and knowing what they are saying!