Learner Centered Teaching for Kindergarten EFL

"Student-centered learning, also known as learner-centered education, broadly encompasses methods of teaching that shift the focus of instruction from the teacher to the student". Wikipedia

                Students are the focus of our lesson plan.

Hands on activities for reviewing the unit is a lot more fun than just watching a video over and over again. I always have several games available for each unit to give students the chance to pick ones they want to play as the wrap of the lesson.

For example, for the Circus unit here are four games that students can play alone or with a partner. Just walk around and give guidance.

Students learn at their own pace, give them time to acquire the new language. Give multiple opportunities to learn with different materials with active participation.Plan different activities for the different levels that you might have in your class. For example, the worksheets can be done by themselves following simple instructions using their imagination and creativity.

Some students might want to do even more with the animal’s face and cut it up. There is space for students that are more advanced in the same classroom and would like to do more things. I am just providing an example.

Engage students into projects or crafts to enhance creativity. Students can color or design the clothes to put on each character. They get to choose the color of each clothing and how they want to dress them.

I am sure that you can think of more ideas and activities for teaching your students by keeping them as the focus of learning.

                   All the resources are here at my TPT store:

·         STORE: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Holistic-English-Resources-By-Rosa-Amelia

For more ideas check my other blog for Kindergarten English Language Learners. Click here:   https://eflpreschoolteachers.blogspot.com/

Calculated Risk for ESL Teachers

                 What is a  calculated risk? It's a noun defined as:  

1 : a hazard or chance of failure whose degree of probability has been reckoned or estimated before some undertaking is entered upon

2: an undertaking or the actual or possible product of an undertaking whose chance of failure has been previously estimated

              https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary

For us teachers,a calculated risk is giving ourselves and our students a chance to try something different that is defined in the text book.

Find new activities to try. There is a lot of activities to search for on Pinterest, for example. I always find inspiration to create the resources. Instagram is also a great place to see what other teachers are doing, I am happy to find new ways to use the resources. In a personal level, I loved creating the booklet with my students. Now, I include a booklet in all the units, it's fun and creative. It's nice to have a personal collection of books to read over and over again in class or to send home. 

Innovate in your classroom. I know, sometimes it's hard to find innovation for our class. You might say, I have tried everything, but there's always more to give it a try. I love to bring in a new resource to the young learner's class. The feed me box are so cute and I am sure that your students will light up when they see it. It's easy to assemble and carry around with you. This one is made out of a cereal box.

Change practices. A little twist in our lesson planning works wonder with the little ones. I love to include crafts. Yes, it's messy but organization is key. Make the craft yourself and bring it in already done and you will notice the steps to make it easy to recreate with your students in an easy way. 

Try a new method. A new way to do things in class with your preschoolers,to move on to the next activity faster is important.Those extra 5 or 10 minutes are horrible if you don't have anything in hand. That's where games will help you. I have lots of printable  games for you to keep in a bag just for those extra minutes, students can play by themselves and speaking English. I have dominos, game boards, file folder games, Bingos, half card games, puzzles and more.

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Tailor to your English Language Classroom

 As we write the lesson plan for our specific learners we have to tailor the materials to the students that we have in front of us, to their specific needs, to their abilities and to where they are in their English abilities.

David Nunan "It has been realized that there never was and probably never will be a method for all, and the focus in recent years has been on the development of classroom tasks and activities which are consonant witn what we know about second language acquisition and which are also in keeping the dynamics of the classroom itself"

As a materials writer I keep in mind that each school year your students are completely different from the ones you had last year. I add different resources for different abilities for the Preschool and kindergarten students so you can choose the ones that you need. You can also adapt the materials to your specific group.

I suggest games, the more games that you have the better. Here are the ones available for the transportation unit. Print and have them available for each class. Games usually meet students to the stage they are at their language abilities. Adapt your games to your specific group, challenging them.

The text books for English Language Learners sometimes are short in Practice materials. I used to copy lots of extra worksheets and even made them to suit my students needs, even more for the younger students. I like to include review of previous units, such as numbers, shapes, colors and more.

I got hooked on printable books when I was teaching English to kindergarten in my hometwon, there weren't many English books available and the ones around we so expensive, so I used to include printables as much as I could and send them home to read with their parents. Here is one of the printable book from my resources.

Crafts for each unit. A good way to add fun to any group and to keep their interest. Some groups are so bored and a craft just changes the pace of the lesson.

The Holidays are always there to integrate culture to language. I have seen that the most celebrated Holiday in the English class around the world is Halloween. I love to do Halloween along with specific units.

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Day 13 and 14 of the 31 days of Halloween

 LINK to the Halloween  resource: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/31-days-of-Halloween-for-Kindergarten-and-Elementary-ESL-6087756

Day 13.  Haunted Houses to review the prepositions !! 

I added opened clips behind each Halloween charácter and paper towel tubes behind the house to make everything stand.

Place the Halloween People in different places in the house and ask questions.
Teacher: Who is this?
Students: She is the witch.
Teacher: Where is the Mummy?
Students: The Mummy is on the Haunted House.

Teacher: Who are in front of the house?

Students:The Vampire and the Witch.

Teacher: How many people are in front of the house?
Students:five!

 There is a black and White versión for the studenst to color and make their own Haunted House and a lined paper for them to write sentences according to their level.

Day 14.  stuffed Halloween Characters !!

I had done this activity years ago with the school unit and thought that the Halloween faces would look cute. It is fun and besides helps out with the motor skills for the Little ones. Review the parts of the face and the emotions. Use the stuffed characters to play games as you would play with beanbags. 

As a listening activity dictate the parts of the face of each Hallowen Character to color the template.  You can assign a carácter to each student, they don’t have to do them all, they can do their favorite one. 

Teacher: Look at the witch ¡ Her hair is Brown. Her nose is orange and her mouth is red. Is she happu, sad or angry?
Students: She is angry!!

Have the students trace the charácter onto any recycled cardboard.

                                        Cut!

                               And check the steps.

Another example on how to assemble the charácter.

Use torn paper to assemble the character as well.

Finished product!

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St. Patrick’s Day for Elementary ESL

Link to the St. patrick's Day resource: 

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/St-Patricks-Day-for-Elementary-ESL-4428537

I have always liked this Holiday. In the 90’s I was teaching after school ESL and this is an old picture of what we did with the children.

Now, let’s start with the resources that I have prepared.

Puppets. Make puppets with the clovers to review colors.

Teacher: What color is this?

Students: red!

Teacher: It’s a red clover.

Worksheets. Have the students complete their worksheets to review color words.
Then place the worksheet in a clear plastic sheet. Students can trace the words using whiteboard markers and then erase. Save for future worksheets.

I made these colored plates once. I just colored a paper plate in a different color to do sorting. I am recycling them to sort the clovers.

I love the scrabble letters that I made for a product months ago. I am putting them here, you can use them for every single lesson just for making words or for making a crossword.

Or use the color letters printables to make the color words.

Use the writing pad or notebook for writing the color words.

The bottle caps printable is free. I made it years ago and have used it a lot. Here is the link. https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Number-Bottle-Caps-2155938

More worksheets. Students color and trace the words in the worksheet. Then, cut and paste on their notebooks and write a sentence. 

Or the students can color and cut each item and glue them alphabetically.

Listen and color worksheet.

Teacher: Color their hats green, black and yellow.

Teacher: Color his shirt orange and her blouse orange.

Teacher: Color their shoes black.

Review colors and numbers at the same time. Say the color of the numbers in random order.

Teacher: Number seven is orange.

Then, have the students write the color and number words next to each picture.

They can cut each number and dictate the order to put them.

Teacher: six, ten, nine, seven.

I found these cute gnomes images and I had to create something and thought that it could fit for prepositions. Students can color them and make a gnome village per group. I used toilet paper rolls, paper towels rolls and carton eggs. I glued the gnomes onto craft sticks and then made a slit onto the carton egg and placed the gnomes and the rest of the pieces.

I used them for prepositions. Students listen and place the gnomes and other items as they listen or they can give the instructions and the other groups follow.

Teacher: The gnome is next to house number 1.

The gnome is behind house number 3.

The gnome is in front of house number 4.

The clover is behind the yellow house.

A craft. I grabbed a black plastic plate that I had around the house, cut the middle of the plate to make a wreath. I glued all the pieces.

Let’s dress the leprechaun. Dictate the color for each clothes piece.

That give directions for gluing them.

Teacher: Color the hat green and the belt is black with yellow.

Glue the socks on the leprechaun. 

More clothes and body.  Color the pictures and label the parts of the body and the clothing pieces.

And flashcards! Yes, again… use for many games for those dreaded 5 minutes left.

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