English Teaching Children

Activities for Teaching English to Kids: Aged 6-12

More advice on teaching English to kids.

ESL Activities for teaching children

by Kevin Burns

English Teaching Children: Question/Answer Tag

I like to have active classes and I take the kids outside whenever I can.

Indeed one of my most popular activities with children is this one.

Each week I pre-teach a new question and example answers. ie) Where do you live?

I live in ___________.

or

What`s your favourite colour?

I like ______________________.

After a few weeks the children have learned a few questions and a few answers. In a short while they will have built up quite a few questions and answers.

You can do this activity outside (weather permitting or inside if space permits. In a class of 6 two people should be "it."
In larger classes, many students should be "it."

When the student(s) who are it touches another student, she or he must ask that student a question, the student touched answers, and then he or she is then it. They must count to 5 or 10 to give the person a chance to get away.

So it is simply a game of tag, where you ask questions everytime you touch someone. The person touched must answer. The children absolutely love it! And it is a great way to reinforce questions you have pre-taught them in a very fun way. Classes with lots of energy can burn it off, while practicing English.

I usually play too. I have found that the parents seem to enjoy it as well. I think most Japanese parents are aware that if their child is enjoying class, they will want to continue to study English.

Vocabulary Teaching

If the neighbourhood is safe enough and your school allows it, take the children outside to teach them new vocabulary. Point out things like a house, a car, the sky, a tree or a flower to them.

Then you can follow this up with a TPR (Total Physical Response) activity ie)
Teacher: "Show me a flower." etc

Students: point to a flower

or

Teacher: "Touch a yellow flower."

Students: touch a flower.

Note: Make sure you don`t let anyone get killed. This always makes for a bad classroom atmosphere.

Taking young children five years old and under, outside is probably too risky unless there is a very safe area you can do this in.

Activities like this add to the class, improve their motivation, and make students more open to traditional ESL activities. Activities like these of course can reinforce tradtional ESL activities too.

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This page has lots of toddler development information including toddler speech development and toddler language development.