Welcome to TEYL course reading units

Course 1: Day 1 and 2 (please focus on how language skills

develop in YLs and age differences)

Different types of young learners

While young learners might all look quite similar from the outside, there
are some important differences that you should be aware of before
walking into a young learner class. Not all students will be studying English
for the same reasons.

Common types of young ESL student:

Bilingual families
Some students might have parents from different countries, each with their
own native language. This is something we refer to as being from a
“bilingual” family.

Such students might be facing the task of learning two languages for
intensive use at home. These students are likely to progress much quicker
than other students as they will have more exposure to the language.

It’s rare to find full classes made up from these types of students. Instead,
it’s common to have just one or two students from such families inside a
normal ESL class, with the rest of the students being from monolingual
families. This presents certain difficulties in terms of managing the
different rates of progression. Having activities with a degree of flexibility
can help in these situations.

Pro-teaching tips
Imagine giving your students a fill-the-blank worksheet suited for the
overall skill level of your class, and 15 minutes to complete it.

Most of your students might take between 10-15 minutes to complete it, and
some might need a little longer. However, students from bilingual families
might be able to finish it in perhaps five minutes. This would leave them
bored and restless.

Instead, it could help to finish the worksheet with a more open-ended

question, something that would require more freely writing down an answer
instead of filling a blank.

This could have the potential to engage both types of students for the
whole time period. The majority of the class might spend 10 minutes
completing the fill-the-blank activity and writing a simple 1-2 sentence
answer for the final question, while the bilingual students could produce a
much more complex answer, perhaps a short paragraph of writing.

Using a mixture of activities, or giving the potential for students to add

more to an activity can be a helpful way of managing this dilemma.
Immigrant families
Contrasting with bilingual families, you might also have students whose
families have recently immigrated to the country that they now live in.

It’s relatively rare to find such students in your average class in China,
Vietnam, Japan, etc. This type of student would be more likely to be found
in native English-speaking countries such as the US, Canada, the United
Kingdom etc. It’s common for families to relocate for work or perhaps
asylum reasons, and then need to build up their English-language skills in
order to integrate with their new communities.

If you find yourself teaching an ESL class of immigrant young learner

students, your lessons will more than likely focus on teaching language
skills that can help the students directly in their daily lives.

Native students
Perhaps the most common scenario would be that of a student in their
native country (for example China, Korea, Japan etc.) with native parents,
and learning English either in their ordinary schooling or through
additional private tutoring lessons. The vast majority of students around
the world fall into this category, and most teaching approaches are
tailored towards these kinds of students.

However, when teaching such classes you shouldn’t automatically assume

all students will fall into this group. Keeping in mind the two groups above
can help you to identify any unusual patterns of behavior so that you can
adjust your lessons accordingly.

How language and cognitive abilities develop

The mind and body develop rapidly when we’re children. Within just a few
years we move from absolute dependence on our parents to being able to
walk, talk (in multiple languages), and form social bonds. We learn to
express ourselves in different ways, and also learn how to select certain
language in order to influence situations in our favor.

While it’s true that everybody learns in different ways and at different
paces, there are general paths of development that can be observed.
Understanding these can help us to adjust our teaching styles and deliver
more effective lessons.

Stages of Development
Here’s a rough breakdown of how children tend to develop mentally and
socially from ages 1-12.
While this is a rough overview and will not apply to all students, it gives an
overall understanding of the progression that you will commonly see.
Knowing how students progress in this way can help you to plan
appropriate activities for their language classes.

Theory 1: Jean Piaget’s theory of cognitive and moral

development
The first theory we’ll look at is Jean Piaget’s theory of cognitive and moral
development. Before doing so, it might be useful to first make sure that we
understand what is meant by the words “Cognitive” and “Moral”.
 Cognitive definition: “Cognition” refers to the mental processes in
our brain – the acts of thinking, reasoning, and remembering.
“Cognitive” simply means development relating to cognition.

Moral definition: Morality refers to the understanding of how we

determine what is right and wrong. The principles that can shape
our decisions.

Getting these definitions out of the way should help to make it much easier
to understand the points covered in Jean Piaget’s theory – even if you were
already aware of these definitions.

Who was Jean Piaget?

Piaget was a Swiss psychologist who lived

from 1896 – 1980 and was famous for his studies into the mindset of
children.

While employed at the Binet Institute in the 1920s, he worked to develop

French translations of English tests that were used to assess intelligence.
Many of these tests use answers that require logical thought rather than
academic knowledge – assessing how well a person can examine a
situation and determine the correct answer from it.
He became fascinated with the reasons that children gave for answering
these logical questions, and began to research this topic in detail –
eventually publishing his first study in 1936.

What does his theory propose?

Piaget proposed that there were four sequential stages of learning abilities
that humans go through before reaching full development:

Theory 2: Lev Vygotsky’s theory of cognitive

development
The second theory we’ll look at is Lev Vygotsky’s theory of cognitive
development. This should help to provide a different view of cognitive
development than the one proposed by Jean Piaget.

Who was Lev Vygotsky?

Lev Vygotsky was a psychologist who lived between 1896 – 1934 in a region
of the Soviet Union known today as Belarus.

Early on, his focus was on law, graduating with a degree in law from the
Moscow State University in 1917, but he soon shifted his focus towards
psychology. He published work on many different topics in this field,
including completing a dissertation on the psychology of art, but his most
well-regarded concepts come from his exploration of developmental
psychology – how our minds grow and develop.

A key principle Vygotsky held was that in order to understand how the
mind works, it’s essential to start from the very beginning – infants and
children.

What did Vygotsky propose?

Vygotsky suggested that cognitive development comes from the
community and cultural contexts that children experience.

While Piaget proposed the concept of having 4 set stages that children will
go through, Vygotsky rejected such a notion, and instead suggested that
cognitive development is strongly linked to social learning, e.g. input from
others.
The Zone of Proximal Development
Vygotsky believed that learning happens when children are working within
what he calls their Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). The zone of
proximal development describes tasks that a child has not yet learned but
is currently capable of learning.
Course : Day 3 and 4

the topics in this module will include:

● How students learn their L1 language

● How students learn an L2 language
● Overall progression path
● Affective learning factors
● Fossilization in learning

Understanding L1 and L2 languages

When it comes to learning languages, it’s important to understand the
distinction between “L1” and “L2” languages.
L1 language
When most people are born, they’ll be raised by parents or guardians that
will use one main language to communicate with each other. As a baby,
they’ll hear this language being spoken, and will naturally pick it up over
time. Their parents will say “hello!” and “goodbye!”, and they’ll associate
these sounds with these concepts.

This is known as a person’s L1 language – their native language.

While some families will use more than one language to communicate with
each other, and a child might learn to speak both languages, there will
usually be more of a preference towards one.
L2 language(s)
An L2 language is a student’s second language – one that they’ll actively
study in addition to their L1 language.

L2 language examples:

If you picture a child growing up with Thai parents in Thailand –

they’ll more than likely pick up Thai as their L1 language, but will
study English as their L2 language in school.

Similarly, a child growing up in France with French-speaking

parents would likely learn French as their L1 language, and might
learn English as an L2 language.

Some students might learn multiple languages in addition to their L1

language. If we take the previous example, this French student could also
be learning Spanish or German in addition to English. Their least
dominant language might be considered their “L3” language, but in
practice, both English and Spanish/German would be referred to as an L2
language.
Why is this important?
The way we learn L1 and L2 languages can be quite different.
Understanding these differences can help you to plan lessons that are
more effective for your students. In the next few lessons we’ll learn more
about the differences between these two, and then look at additional
techniques to support young learners

Here’s a rough overview of the L1 language

progression path:
These materials can help young learners to gain an initial grasp of the
alphabet, basic words, and pronunciation (whether correct or not, they’ll
still be learning an approximate understanding of English pronunciation).

In the modern home, it’s also increasingly common for parents to play
entertaining educational videos to children on their phones, tablets, and
computers. Examples here can be seen with Peppa Pig, or other similar
children’s cartoons:

https://freekidsbooks.org/bookview/
In the classroom
Aside from some initial exposure from parents and siblings, most L2
instruction will come in the form of prepared and structured lessons.
Students will either attend ESL-focused kindergartens, lessons at school,
or additional private language classes.

By having structured and timed interactions in English, it can be quite a

distinct shift from what they’ll be used to. Children will naturally be focused
more on their own interests such as engaging with friends and playing
games. It’s natural for them to resist paying attention in ESL lessons unless
the teacher has a few tricks up their sleeve.

To counteract this, teachers can use fun and engaging lessons that
combine play with techniques that helped the students to learn their L1 in
the first place. Such techniques can include:

● At an early stage through repetition, immersion, using their senses.

● At a later stage through asking questions, being taught (direct
instruction), influencers/idols (parents).

We’ll cover these in more detail in the next module of the course, but two of
the key topics here can be seen with immersion and instruction. We’ll cover
these in more detail on the next page.

Immersion and Instruction

Immersion and instruction are two approaches to learning, and will be
especially important for EYL lessons.
Immersion:
Before explaining what immersion is, we’ll run through a quick mental
exercise:

Quick exercise: Picture yourself stood in a foreign fruit market somewhere

overseas. There are traders all around, people bustling, and a lively
atmosphere.

You pick up a fresh pear and smell it, the fruit seller says “Lizi” in his native
language. The trader then gestures towards a basket of oranges and says
“Juzi”, you repeat the word back to him “Ju-zi?“, he smiles and gives you a
thumbs-up.

Through this verbal interaction and by engaging your senses, your brain
will form connections around the sounds of “Lizi” and “Juzi“, and you’ll
potentially be able to recognize those words as being replacements for
“pear” and “orange”.

As we can see with the example above, immersion is an

approach that involves learning through an environment
that lets students develop skills without any specific
explanations or translations.
With ESL, this can be done in many ways. The most obvious
is by ensuring only English is used in a classroom:

When the students walk into class the teacher will say
“Hello! How are you?” instead of greeting them with their L1
language. In the same way, when students do well they’ll be
praised with “Great job! Well done!“.

This will be continued throughout the whole lesson. If a

student forgets their pen when leaving, a teacher might say
“Jake! You forgot your pen“. While they might not
understand the whole sentence at first, they might build a
connection with their pen and the English word for it.

Over time, with more exposure, they’ll piece together more

and more of the English language through such
interactions.

Another example can be seen with Peppa Pig as mentioned

in the previous lesson. The cartoon doesn’t stop to explain
what each English word is, but by watching this cartoon
over time, students will begin to pick up words and phrases.

Pro-teaching tips
Using activities that engage a range of physical senses can help to create
a more powerfully immersive environment.

Aside from engaging only sight and hearing, if your activities can include
realia – touching physical objects, your students will be able to form
stronger mental bonds with the new vocabulary.
Instruction:
This approach is much more direct, and focuses on actively introducing
new words and vocabulary, explaining their meaning/form/pronunciation,
and then practicing them with set activities. This is what many new
teachers think about when they imagine an ESL lesson.

Examples here can be seen with presentation and drilling – picture a

teacher standing at the front of the room, presenting new words on
flashcards, and having students remember these new words.

With more advanced lessons you could picture the teacher writing out
sentence examples on the board to demonstrate new grammar patterns,
and then having students fill the gaps in the sentence to produce their
own variations. Another example could be seen with homework
assignments that will give students a list of 20 words to study, remember,
and then use in a test at the start of the next lesson.

Which approach is best?

Course: Day 4 and 5

Overall progression path:

Now that we have an understanding of how students learn their L1
language, and we know how they’ll first start to develop an L2 language, it’s
time to look at what they’ll actually study.

It’s important to have some idea, a roadmap in your mind, of how a young
learner will develop their L2 from the very first lesson, right through until
they can continue with independent self-study.

Here’s a chart to show the road map for learning

English:
We’ll cover the specific language component/area of study in the first
column, with a range of teaching techniques in the second. This will give
an overview of how to tackle each topic, so that you know what types of
activities to research for yourself.
When studying this table there are two important things to consider:

1. This path isn’t set in stone: Not every student/school will follow this
path exactly in this order. In practice, you’ll likely move forwards and
backwards through certain topics over time, and will likely even
tackle a few different topics at the same time (perhaps not in the
same lesson, but within the same semester). However, overall, this is
how students will generally build up an understanding of English.
2. Students can move through at different rates: Students may
progress through this path at different ages based on factors
 mentioned earlier in this course. You could potentially come across
8-year-old students that have mastered different tenses and all of
the conditional sentence structures, just as you might find
10-year-old students that are still learning to form simple sentences.
As a teacher, you’ll need to base your lessons on your students’
current English abilities, while also considering their cognitive
development.

Fossilization in L2 learning

Fossilization is the lack of progress in learning an L2, despite regular

exposure to and interaction with the L2. It can be seen even with motivated
learners, and is commonly described as ‘reaching a plateau’.

It’s generally considered as something that’s unique to L2 acquisition, and

is rarely seen with students that are developing their first language
abilities.

Though this can happen at any stage in a learner’s journey, it commonly

occurs when reaching certain aspects of the language, for example:

● Phonological (the sounds in a language)

● Morphological (the forms of words)
● Syntactic (arrangement of words in a sentence)
● Semantic (the meaning)
How can you identify it in your students?
When fossilization sets in, students might struggle to develop any further,
and no amount of additional studying will make a difference. No matter
how much additional exposure is given to the L2 language and how much
help is offered in error correction, the learner may seem to reach a point in
their path of development – the plateau – which seems set in stone.

There is no particular stage along the progression path which can be

pinpointed as the step where a learner may appear to fossilize. Still, it’s
safe to say that this is more often observed in intermediate proficiency
levels onwards.

Possible causes of fossilization:

Though there’s no single thing that causes fossilization, various
suggestions have been put forward, all of which can have at least a
contributing factor.

Contributing factors:
Transferring language rules from the L1 to the L2: Students might get stuck
with the habit of trying to transfer existing grammar/speech rules from
their L1 language into English, thereby causing confusion. Each language
has its own approach towards grammar and forming sentences. If a
student doesn’t break free from their habit and start developing new
schemas for language, they’ll struggle to progress further than basic
vocabulary learning.

Using some learning strategies to too great an extent: e.g.,

overgeneralization, simplification, paraphrasing for the lack of linguistic
knowledge. Simplifying and paraphrasing can help beginner students to
get their point across using their L2, or to reply to questions with an
approximate answer, but if they rely on this too much, they’ll never develop
a strong enough command of English to truly and accurately express
themselves.

Communicative pressure: If a learner is pressured to communicate ideas

above their linguistic competence it can cause an anxious reaction that
makes it difficult to engage with activities or develop further. With such
instances, it would be necessary to take a few steps back, build a more
solid foundation of understanding of more basic topics, and then start
increasing in difficulty again at a steady pace.

Weak teaching and a poor learning environment: If students are given too
much negative feedback, if there’s no sense of classroom community, and
if there are no opportunities for praise/reward, then students can lose the
inner drive to push through their current learning boundaries.

The lack of desire to articulate: Learners may make no effort to adopt

target language norms because of various social and psychological
factors. This could be partly due to the learner’s mind reaching incorrect
subconscious conclusions that are difficult to unlearn. Examples here
could include with the learner assuming there’s no use for this language,
or that they don’t have the intelligence to learn a new language.

Breaking a student out of this stage in fossilization can be possible with

the right approach, a lot of patience, and some active participation by the
student.

Think of some suggestions: to help overcome fossilization.

Course Day 6 and 7

Teaching different age groups
Now that we know how young learners will develop L1 and L2 language
skills, it’s time to look at some important information surrounding different
age groups and how you can adapt your lessons to meet their needs.

The topics will include:

● Teaching pre-school/kindergarten students

● Teaching 5-7-year-olds (young learners)
● Teaching 8-12-year-olds (older young learners)

By learning about these topics you’ll have a better understanding of how

to adjust your lessons according to the age ranges of different students.
You’ll know what kinds of activities might/might not work with them, and
should gain some insight into how they view lessons.

A note before we start:

It’s important to understand that language development doesn’t just occur
on its own, and that students can develop at different paces from their
peers. As we’ve covered in the course, when a young learner is developing
their language, other areas will affect their abilities and progress:

● Cognitive development
● Emotional/social development
● Physical development
● Exposure to English

It’s important to reflect on the various characteristics of development that

we might expect to see in children at certain stages. These general age
ranges can serve as largely effective guidelines, but the content inside
your lessons will vary depending on your students and their individual skill
levels.

Keeping this in mind, in this section we’ll be looking more at techniques to

help students at different ages and the considerations to keep in mind as
a teacher.

What are pre-schools and how do they work?

What are preschool/kindergarten students like?

Think of them ahead.

Preparations for kindergarten classes

Pre-school and kindergarten classes can be lots of fun, but they can also
be quite a handful if you’re not prepared. We’ve already covered some
advice to help you deal with crying in the classroom, but there are other
things that you’ll also want to be prepared for.

Here we’ll cover different things to prepare for: (if

you are not a kindergarten teacher, skip reading this
part)
Kids needing the toilet:
What’s your school’s policy about toilet time? You’ll need to know what to
do in this situation. You can’t leave the classroom as you’ll be leaving the
rest of your class unattended. Similarly, you can’t tell the child to wait as
that might not end well. You’ll most likely have a classroom helper who’ll be
able to assist with taking children to the toilet while you continue the
lesson. If you don’t then you’ll want to clarify with the school what the
protocol is – there should be somebody in the school that you can call to
help during these times.

You can also minimize the chance for these situations to arise by using
any spare time before your lesson to ask if anybody hasn’t been to the
toilet yet. With a quick show of hands, you should be able to find who might
need to go, and then keep the other students engaged with a warm-up
game while you wait.

Kids not making it to the toilet quick enough:

No matter how hard you try, this is bound to happen at some point. A
student might be too shy to let you know before it’s too late, or they might
still have issues in this department. It’s important to know that these things
happen, and it’s not something to scold the child for.

You’ll want to avoid drawing too much attention to the child as other
students might start to laugh. The best-case scenario would be that your
assistant could help to take the child out of the classroom while you keep
the rest of the students distracted. Your school should have some kind of
lost property box, and should be able to help provide some temporary
clothing for the child. It would be useful for you to know where this is
located, and to find out from your school if they have any other
procedures to follow.

Kids making a mess with paints:

It’s common for children to make a mess during their activities. You’ll need
to carefully consider any activities you might want to introduce to your
lesson and think of the worst-case scenario – what can you do to avoid this
happening or limit the potential damage if something goes wrong.

If you consider a painting activity. Students could get paint all over
themselves, on your clothing, on the floor, the walls, or the ceiling. Ways to
limit this could be to ensure you have plenty of newspaper to line the desks
with, protective aprons for the children, and to ensure that the students
wash their hands if they get messy. You’ll also want to make sure to use
non-toxic child-friendly paints, ones that are thicker to avoid splashing,
and rationed to the students in small amounts to limit the potential for
spillage. You can apply this kind of preparation and logic for any creative
activities that you plan to use.
Kids getting hurt/sticking a rubber up their nose:
At some point during your lessons, you’ll find yourself with a child that has
some form of injury or situation that requires medical attention. This could
be that the child tripped over and banged their head/knee/elbow, they
might have swallowed something they shouldn’t have done, there could be
a rubber/coin/toy stuck in their nose/ear, or they might just be feeling
unwell.

As a teacher, you’ll be partly responsible for the well-being of your

students, and should ensure that you know the school’s policy when it
comes to such situations. There should be a well-known procedure to
follow depending on the severity of the problem, and a designated first-aid
responder.

Sleepy kids:
It’s common to find students that would prefer to take a nap than to
engage with your lessons. To help deal with lethargic students, you’ll want
to keep some lively and fun activities prepared. Games with movement can
be great ways to get your students’ heart rates flowing and to liven them
up before more relaxed reading/drilling tasks. A quick game of “Simon
says” can work well, or even just standing up and shaking out your arms
and legs.

By taking some time to consider these points, you’ll be better prepared to

handle potentially problematic situations if/when they arise. For the points
regarding bathroom visits (or accidents) and injuries, it’s good to inquire
about these during your initial orientation before you start teaching at a
school – asking about these procedures later on would show that you
hadn’t initially considered what to do.

5-7-year-old students
At this age range, students will usually start to enter into a national school
system – either in the form of a paid-for private school or a free public
school. This will be their first taste of the general education system that
they’ll be spending the next 10-12 years in, and the environment can be
quite a change from what they’re used to. As a teacher, you’ll encounter
these students either at primary/elementary schools, or in after-school
private language classes.

Primary/elementary schools
In different regions around the world, schools might follow different
systems. Two of the most common systems can be seen with British and
American schools.
*Reception class is usually taught at the same primary school.

If you’re teaching at a school that uses a system more like the one used in
the UK, then they might already be partly familiar with the school
environment that you’re teaching in. If you’re teaching at a school that
uses the American system, it’s more likely that they’ll be less familiar with
the school environment and more used to kindergarten still.

When they reach primary/elementary school, students will generally begin

wearing a school uniform, have their own backpacks with books for each
lesson, and will start to have expectations placed on them to study with
greater care. Just like when they first started going to
kindergarten/nursery, it can be another large change for young learners
to adjust to, but with patience and encouragement from a teacher they
should adjust to the school just fine.

Students at these ages

At this age range, students will often have better L1 language skills, which
help them with their English language studies. Their minds will have
formed a better understanding of basic grammar patterns (without
specifically having studied the subject of grammar) and through this
understanding, they’ll be better equipped to absorb phrases and simple
language patterns in English.

In terms of how they behave, as the youngest kids in the school, they’ll
often be shyer than older students. This means that they could still need a
degree of encouragement to partake in activities. It can be difficult to
motivate them to study, so games will still play a large role in their lessons,
but now there’ll be an underlying emphasis to do well with their studies.

8-12-year-old students
Moving on to the upper limit of young learners, we have the 8-12 year age
range. We would consider these to be “older young learners“, and students
from the 3-7 year range could be considered “younger young learners“.
Later in the course, we’ll examine different activities for young learners,
and will refer to these broadly defined categories. While students can vary
greatly within an age range, with some younger students performing much
better than older ones, overall their skills and cognitive abilities will
generally follow these separate ranges.
The oldest kids in school
At this age range, your students might be the oldest kids in their school.
You’ll start to see students have more independent ideas and a clearer
view of themselves. They’ll start to become less egocentric, and will likely be
able to participate in group activities with more ease.

As a teacher, you’ll usually find that students in this age range will already
have learned how to get to grips with new activities. They’ll have gone
through the process of sitting in a classroom, having a teacher present a
task, then follow the instructions given. This means that when you
introduce new activities to them, you’ll likely not need to spend quite as
much time repeating the instructions, and modeling the expected
outcomes (you’ll still need to do these things, but not to the same extent).

What would be the potential issues and how to deal with them?

General differences between younger and older

young learners
Now that we’ve covered kindergarten-aged students, those between the
ages of 5-7, and finally older students between 8-12 years of age, it’s time to
have a recap of the general differences that you’re likely to notice between
them.

Younger Young Learners Older Young Learners

- Limited concentration in - Concentration improves

short bursts

? think as many as you can.