teaching english to young learners Archives - Kids English Theatre

5 Quick Ways to Teach Online – How To Capture Children’s Attention And Keep It

Miranda Legge — Thu, 27 Jan 2022 09:31:42 +0000

This video includes 5 quick ways to teach online – practical tips on how to capture children’s attention and keep it!

Teaching young language learners online is one of those things that you either love or you have to LEARN to love because you have no other choice right now.

But, it’s hard getting started and by far the biggest challenge is capturing young children’s attention and maintaining their focus (for longer than 10 seconds) through a cold, unfriendly pc screen!

Key factors that switch students off from learning effectively online are:

Not feeling directly involved
Unable to see and connect properly with the teacher
Feeling unenergized
Not being visually stimulated
Bored being seated for long lengths of time

So,

How can online teaching be made easier and less stressful for teachers?
How do teachers get students plugged- in and LIT UP to learning?

In this video lesson I share :

5 Quick Ways to Teach Online – How To Capture Children’s Attention and Keep It!

I hope you find it helpful to your online teaching:)

Don’t forget to like, share, comment, and subscribe so you don’t miss future videos!

The post 5 Quick Ways to Teach Online – How To Capture Children’s Attention And Keep It appeared first on Kids English Theatre.

7 Ways To Quickly Explain Game Rules to ESL Students

Miranda Legge — Sun, 21 Mar 2021 14:22:05 +0000

If you’ve been following Kids English Theatre for a while, then you know we love to use games during our lessons. They’re active, help with focus, release excess energy, and help students learn English along the way. Children adore games and are more receptive to learning through them. That said, finding a new game for your lesson can be complicated at times. To find the perfect games to incorporate in your ESL lessons, stick to these rules!

Rule #1- Quick to Teach, Simple to Play

The most important thing to remember when choosing a game is to choose one that’s quick to teach and simple to play. If you end up explaining too many rules for too long your students will get bored, and you will have lost them before you even finished explaining the game. You can maintain their attention much better if what you have to explain only takes 30 seconds to a minute.

Rule #2- Keep General Rules to a Maximum of Three

To avoid overloading your students with too many rules, keep it to a game that has 3-4 rules at the maximum. That is more than enough to get an activity started. If you find it’s still too easy, you can always add rules later, but for the beginning, three is a magic number for rules.

Rule #3- Explain Rules Using Simple Language

Use simple, short words that you are confident your students will understand. Long, complicated phrases might confuse them and it’ll get in the way of actually playing the game. You’ll spend too much time re-explaining rather than playing!

Rule #4- Be Theatrical!

There’s a reason this is the Kids English Theatre motto. It is vital in communicating with your students. Let actions, tone, strong inflections, and facial expressions accompany your words. It will help your students understand you better and help them pay attention. You’ll find that they will totally mirror your enthusiasm if you are the one coming in with high energy.

Rule #5- Test Drive the Game

This is a great tip if your game involves splitting up into team and scoring points. Once you’ve split up your students, run a test round to see that they understand the rules. Then you can play the game for real!

Rule #6- Use Keywords in their Native Language

If there’s some confusion about the game, use some words in their native language to explain the game. Don’t stress out over having to use English for the instructions. You want to dive into the game as quickly as you can. Playing the game is much more important for their learning, so the faster you get to it, the better.

Rule #7- Play Along With Your Students!

Your enthusiasm and involvement is crucial to having the students get involved as well. When they see you play along, they will magically just start doing it with you. If you’re having fun, they wil have fun as well.

For more ideas on how to teach English through drama, download the free e-book, Teach Children English Through Drama.

Visit the Kids English Theatre Youtube Channel for more drama games, language exercises, puppetting demos, and other fun ideas to make your lessons fun and unforgettable.

Be Theatrical!

The post 7 Ways To Quickly Explain Game Rules to ESL Students appeared first on Kids English Theatre.

What Makes a Teacher Unforgettable?

brandparvindarsaini — Tue, 24 Sep 2019 14:27:56 +0000

We have just completed this September’s 5-Day Intensive training course in Florence with some amazing teachers from around the globe, all with different backgrounds and teaching experiences. It was great fun!

I’m always super excited about meeting new groups and I usually start the first day of each teacher training course with a simple question:

– What qualities do you think make a good teacher?

Participants usually shout out things like- patience, passion, being a good listener, friendly, approachable, motivating, caring, fun, belief in their students… etc

My second question follows with:

– Did you yourself ever have a teacher at school who had these same qualities? A teacher who has had an incredibly positive impact in your life. An unforgettable teacher.

I’m always surprised (or rather shocked) when very few people ever raise their hands (sometimes none).

It’s strange how we all instinctively know what qualities a good teacher should have but very few of us have ever actually had one ourselves.

So how can we be different for our young learners?

For me, a good teacher is synonym to being an excellent communicator.

Sometimes we give great importance to becoming a theory expert (whether it be English, Maths, History etc…) but we give less importance to understanding HOW to deliver that knowledge in an engaging way that gets children excited about learning.

By learning how to communicate better and becoming more aware how our students communicate we can adopt different teaching strategies in any given situation.

So, for example if we see children falling off their chairs with boredom, we’ll know how to change our behaviour, energy, tone of voice, eye contact or facial expression to help instantly re-connect with them.

Successful communication skills don’t come naturally to most – they need to be learned, developed and practiced, practiced, practiced but the benefits are immeasurable.

What we teach and how we teach it can make a difference in young lives….forever!

Be theatrical! Be unforgettable!!
Miranda

Free E-Book Teach Children English Through Drama 4 Steps to Getting Started ==> https://www.kidsenglishtheatre.com/free-ebook/

The post What Makes a Teacher Unforgettable? appeared first on Kids English Theatre.

How to teach children English with Drama – Classroom Management TIPS// Kids English Theatre

brandparvindarsaini — Thu, 20 Jun 2019 15:49:24 +0000

Classroom management is a challenge most teachers face on a daily basis and the thought of bringing added excitement, fun and games into class and encouraging children to move and express themselves freely (dancing, singing, playing and acting) can be a little overwhelming for some teachers who feel their classes are already a handful as it is!

Effective classroom management is possible and it starts by structuring your English drama lessons in the right way.

Resources:

Free E-Book Teach Children English Through Drama

The post How to teach children English with Drama – Classroom Management TIPS// Kids English Theatre appeared first on Kids English Theatre.