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Listening for young learners

Develop listening skills of children is a very important task that we need to work in. Listening is an active operation; the mind is actively searching for the meaning of the words we hear.  The learning environment of our class is very important. It affects to our children because when there is a high level of anxiety, the acquisition progress is worse than when the environment is calm.  Is important to develop the listening skill because it has real meaning in life.  There are many authors like Piaget, Vygotsky and Bruner who believe that learning is making connections between what they already know and what they are able to understand. That’s why we need to take advantage of all their resources to focus in the activity of listening.  As teachers, we can improve student’s listening by giving them confidence, explain why they have to listen and setting specific listening tasks.  Also, we can help them to understa...
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The "Pygmalion Effect" and the power of positive expectations

There are a lot of studies that shows how teacher's expectations affect in each student.  Those students that doesn't succeed academicaly are related to teachers who treat them in a different way from the others that have good marks.  There are four factors that change between this students:  1. Climate factor: teachers tend to treat best students in a warmer way.  2. Imput factor: teachers give more material to students that have better marks.  3. Response opportunity factor: teachers give more opportunities to answer their questions to the students who have better marks.  4. Feedback: better students are positively reforced more often than the ones who don't have success.  As teachers, we have to think in how we treat our children and try to give every child the attention that he deserves. 
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Ideas for using flashcards

In this video, Carol Read explain different techniques to use flashcards in class:  1. TECHNIC "FLASH" First of all we need to get their attention. Then, we show the flashcard very quickly and children have to say what is in the card.  2. TECHNIC "SLOWLY, SLOWLY” Cover the flashcard with other flashcard (which is turned around) and gradually show the picture. Children have to guess what is in the picture.  3. TECHNIC “WHAT IS MISSING?” The teacher have to stick the flashcards on the board. Children have to close their eyes and cover them with their hands. After that, the teacher removes one flashcard from the blackboard and then the students open their eyes. They have to say what is missing.  4. TECHNIC “MAGIC EYES” We are going to use just six flashcards that is the number of names that children can more or less remember.  Flashcards should be stick at the blackboard in a line. Then, we repeat the name of the pictures in a rhythmic ...
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The secret of working with children

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In this video, Carol Read explain a range of primary issues and she gave tips about teaching with children.  In the first part of the speech, Carol tell a story about a fly. She ask the people to imagine a very hot sunny day, and a room with a window. Also, a fly who is desperately trying to go outside but it can’t. The fly never realised that there is another window in the other part of the room.  Working with children sometimes is stressful for many reasons: they move all the time, they constantly want new things, they keep their attention for a short time, a lot of children in a small place… As teachers, we need to try our best to provide them the best education we can.  Now, I’m going to explain some activities that Carol mention in her speech to do them with children in class. The topic of our activities is fruit. We will need flashcards.  In this activity, learners have to guess which fruit is in the flashcard. We can use different methods for ...
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