Task 3.

What are themethods and techniques in teaching English for

Young Leaners?

Methods of teaching English to YL

The most popular methods on which teaching English to YL is based

are the methods listed, for example, by Larsen-Freeman (2000) – the
Audio-lingualism; Presentation-Practice-Production (PPP) and it‟s
alternatives; Communicative approach; Task-based learning; The Four
methods: Community Language Learning, The Silent Way,
Suggestopaedia, Total Physical Response (TPR); Humanistic teaching and
the Lexical approach. However, not all of them are fully used in teaching
English to YL.

Fixed methods like those listed above are usually used at schools
where children are older and have mastered their mother tongue in
speaking and in writing and are capable of understanding what grammar is.
Young learners in kindergarten are still developing their mother tongue
skills and are not able to capture the essence of grammar and so it would be
difficult to use Humanistic teaching where they are supposed to create
sentences concerning their lives in different tenses. The same with
Communicative approach. Young children are still learning how to use their
mother tongue correctly so they are not able to communicate in English in
any way. (Brown 2007)

Teachers in kindergarten are deriving their techniques from already

existing methods such as Audio-lingualism, Total Physical Response
(TPR), The Natural Approach or PPP which will be discussed along with
the used techniques and models in this chapter.
Audio-lingualism

Audio-lingualism is based on the behaviorist theory about stimulus –

response – reinforcement in other words about learning new behaviors. In
Audio-lingualism it equals engendering good habits in language learning.
This form of teaching includes mainly drills. The drill is designed to teach a
certain form for example a correct sentence in Present Simple. Small
changes are being performed on the drill so that the students would
constantly learn but also to prevent them from making mistakes. For
example:
Teacher: There‟s a cup on the table… repeat.

Students: There‟s a cup on the table.

Teacher: spoon

Students: There‟s a spoon on the table.

Teacher: Book

Students: There‟s a book on the table.

Teacher: on the chair

Students: There‟s a book on the

chair. Etc.

(Harmer 2003:79-80)

The methods has many drawbacks for example it does not allow the
student to experiment with the language. On the other hand, it is perfect for
YL for it shows exactly how a proper English sentence should look like and
it can be very useful in establishing some fixed sentences and phrases in the
student‟s dictionary.
 Total Physical Response (TPR)

The TPR originator James Asher (2000) based his theory on the fact
that children learn a foreign language from speech directed to them. TPR is
basically learning from oral instructions given to the students by the
teacher. The basic idea is that students are not being made to speak, their
main task is to listen to the teachers instructions in the foreign language and
respond to them and only if they feel ready they can start speaking in that
language. The examples of such instructions are (Larsen- Freeman
2000:111)
“Bring me chalk from the box that lies on the desk”, “Go fast towards the
door and hit it”, “Come to the blackboard and draw an apple” etc. The teacher
speaks to the students using commands till everyone respond correctly and then
one of the students can start giving instructions to his fellow students. This type
of teaching is appropriate mainly for the beginners.
The concept of only listening to the language originated
from Asher‟s observation of babies. Before it speaks, a baby is listening to
the people around it for a long time. The parents do not usually urge the
baby to speak so it chooses his or her own moment when it is ready. The
same way of interaction is supposed to occur during teaching English to
children using the Total Physical Response. (Larsen- Freeman 2000:109)
TPR is a key method to apply when teaching children for it respects
the „silent period‟ and does not require any previous language knowledge
from children. (Harmer 2003:90)
The Natural Approach
The Natural Approach is a method that methodologists advice to use
at the first stages of teaching to introduce the Total Physical Response. The
method concentrates on using the foreign language on the lessons nearly all
the time and helping the students understand it by showing them pictures
and being as expressive as possible.
Listening comprehension is a crucial goal in both TPR and Natural
Approach. In fact, it is so important that the teacher does not correct any
oral errors made by the students and allows them to use their mother tongue
along with the foreign language to communicate on the lesson. (Larsen-
Freeman 2000:110)
Songs

Songs are a powerful and almost inexhaustible source of English

vocabulary. They are a basic teacher‟s help in teaching in kindergarten
based on the Audio-lingual method. Songs are drills but sung. The form of
the drill is incorporated into the song and therefore more interesting for
children. Songs are even better than typical drills for they are easily
remembered and stay in children‟s minds for long (Cant and Superfine
1997). There are songs for practically every topic covered during the
English course in kindergarten. The best example would be Super Simple
Songs which is basically a set of songs grouped by themes which create a
ready curriculum. Below are the lyrics of one of the songs:

One little pumpkin smiling, smiling. (Hold up one finger and

then make a smiley face!) One little pumpkin smiling, smiling.

One little pumpkin smiling, smiling.

One little pumpkin is happy. (Smile and put your fingers on your cheeks.)

Two little pumpkins pouting, pouting. (Hold up two fingers and

then frown and look down.) Two little pumpkins pouting,
pouting.
Three little pumpkins yawning, yawning. (Hold up three fingers and then
cover your mouth with your hand as you yawn.)

Three little pumpkins

yawning, yawning. Three
little pumpkins yawning,
yawning.

Three little pumpkins are sleepy. (Stretch and yawn like you are falling asleep.)

Four little pumpkins crying, crying. (Hold up four fingers and pretend to
wipe a tear from your eye.) Four little pumpkins crying, crying.

Four little pumpkins crying, crying.

Four little pumpkins are sad. (Wipe tears from both eyes with both hands.)

Five little pumpkins laughing, laughing. (Hold up five fingers and then
hold your tummy as you pretend to laugh.)

Five little pumpkins laughing, laughing.

Five little pumpkins laughing, laughing.

Five little pumpkins are playing. (Run around the room!)3

Usually each song has a choreography for the children to understand

the lyrics better and to have more fun singing. Songs, as a technique of
teaching, are a very effective way of teaching kids. They teach
pronunciation, vocabulary and phrases.
Chants

Just like songs chants are another sort of drills. The text of a chant is
rhythmical and often rhymed. Chants also can be divided into themes and
they sometimes have a simple choreography. The main difference between
songs and chants is that chants focus mainly on pronunciation or just
„making‟ English sounds. Here is an example of one:
Hickory dickory dock

A mouse runs up the

clock The clock
says one

The mouse
runs down
Hickory
dickory dock

(Cant and Superfine 1997)

This chant is a traditional chant and it was chosen because it shows

how chants can be used to teach children. For example, the one above
could be used to present what
„up‟ and ‟down‟ means and by saying it children will practice some
English sounds, for example „r‟.
The fact that chants are rhymed makes them almost as easy to learn as
songs. By remembering chants the students are able to memorize the lexical
items better.
Puppets

As it was mentioned before young children have a short attention

span (Harmer 2003) so every inventive technique of teaching is
welcomed. Puppets are one of such techniques. They are used in stories,
songs, chants, roleplay and pairwork.

It is true that what teachers say to the children with the help of
puppets and how they interact or lead short dialogues could be easily done
without using any extra help but this form of leading a dialogue is more
interesting and more engaging for children than if they were just talking to
the teacher. It triggers their imagination and because of the slight sense of
unreality they feel more comfortable to interact with the puppet using
English language. (Reilly and Ward 2003). They are also listening more
intently to understand what is going on in the classroom. The fact that the
puppet is out of the ordinary in the classroom makes the children
interested and eager to speak English with it.
To teach with the help of puppets, the teacher does not necessarily
have to have them made; the other way of teaching with the use of puppets
is to make them with the students and teach them such expressions as
“draw”, “cut”, “stick” etc. (Cant and Superfine 1997:49)

Flashcards

Flashcard‟s main goal is introducing vocabulary. Working with

young learners a teacher must own a huge amount of colorful flashcards
concerning all the themes covered in the syllabus. They can be used to
introduce vocabulary from the songs before children sing them and in
various exercises such as guessing the name of the thing on the flashcard,
describing the color of the thing, as a memo game etc.
Flashcards are a useful tool also because they are easy to make and
relatively cheap. Teachers can make their own flashcards or simply buy
them. They are so useful because with their use the teacher can show
nearly every piece of vocabulary that is taught to YL. (Cant and Superfine
1997:38)

Working with children requires creativity and energy. Apart from

the methods and techniques listed above children love any type of active
tasks containing jumping, clapping, shouting, running, walking and
dancing.
Games
Games are by far the most joyful of all the techniques already listed. That
fact makes them also very effective since the students forget that they are
learning because they are totally focusing on having fun and winning the
game. In other words, games provide positive classroom atmosphere and
an effective learning environment (Cant and Superfine 1997:9). What is
also important, is that games are a useful tool on many stages of the
lesson. They can be used as:
 A warm-up at the beginning of the lesson
 An introduction of a topic
 A review of lexical items
 A kind of a drill making the students to repeat and learn lexical and
grammatical items
 A cool-off in the end of the lesson
Here is a list some important criteria that a proper game used in teaching
English should meet:
 The games should have linguistic relevance.
 They should have an aim and a purpose.
 All the children should be able to participate.
 The games should be easy and quick to set up and carry out.
 They should be fun for the children.