The secret of working with children

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 introduce flashcards (read the next blog where I explain them). 

Once they have say all the fruits names, the teacher give each flashcard to a student and we are going to sing a song about them all together. When a fruit appears in the song, the child have to hold up his card. The aim of this activity is to match our fruit with the words. 

Then, we are going to use the vocabulary that we learn in context. The teacher will give to each student a worksheet where appears half of each fruit. Children have to complete the draw with the other part and say the fruit name. The have to look, draw and say. 

We can integrate real content learning for example real pictures of fruit, and we can also talk about where it grows. Play a game to strength the new contents might be a good idea. For example, the teacher says the name of a fruit and children have to raise one hand if it is grown in a tree or do nothing if it’s not. 

Show them the things that we are talking about could be very helpful for them. Each student can bring a fruit to class and watch which fruit have bring their partners. Multi sensory activities are always a good choice. 

Introduce cultures with songs, rhythms and games talking about fruits is another possibility. How is my life compare with other country. Talking about children language sometimes is not necessary avoid vocabulary from songs that we thing as adults is not appropriate for children because they won’t have any problem with this words. 

It’s time to think in all the criteria that we are using to choose this activities:

• Children need to move.
• Provide visual support.
• They need to be engage in participate.
• They need to understand what is happening. 
• Real life connections. 
• Have fun.
• Include challenge in the activities.  

ACCELERATED LEARNING CYCLE 

Connect: learning and children.

Activate: with multi sensory activities (using the language they can relate to).

Demonstrate: give children opportunities to show they know.

Consolidate: review

WHAT IS IN THE SECRET? 

Sensory acuity: do it with all the multi sensory information and be aware how children respond to us (voice, eye contact, gestures).

Emotions: emotional intelligence. We need to be constantly thinking in self position, where others came from and observers (stand back and watch). 

Communication: body language is very important. 

Rapport: be emphatic with children.

Evaluation: own evaluation of ourselves as teachers.

Talk: Talking in ways that offers children choices. 

In the last part of the speech, Carol ask people to think again in the story of the fly. If you have problems don’t blame them, just find other way to reach to your aim. 

Link to the video: carol-read-secret-working-children