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Teach English in Daiwan Zhen - Liaocheng Shi

Do you want to be TEFL or TESOL-certified and teach in Daiwan Zhen? Are you interested in teaching English in Liaocheng Shi? Check out ITTT’s online and in-class courses, Become certified to Teach English as a Foreign Language and start teaching English ONLINE or abroad! ITTT offers a wide variety of Online TEFL Courses and a great number of opportunities for English Teachers and for Teachers of English as a Second Language.

In this course, we took a closer look at what it takes to be successful in teaching English to young learners. Young learners being defined as anyone between the age of five years and thirteen years. While this course covered many different topics, there was one specific topic that I found very interesting, namely the use of games in the classroom. In this paper, I will answer the question: 'do games provide teachers with a helpful tool to facilitate the learning process of young learners?'. When reading through the units of this course, it became clear to me that the teaching of a foreign language to young children can provide a real challenge. This is especially true for the inexperienced teacher. Young children have a much shorter attention span than adults. When teaching young children, it is therefore crucial to create and maintain an active atmosphere in the classroom and to keep any activities short in duration. I learned that a perfect way of engaging children is to challenge them in a playful way. This can be done by playing certain children-friendly games with them. As long as you keep the instructions simple and allow the children to be themselves and to enjoy the activity, there is a good chance that they will participate and thus not lose focus during the lesson. Another reason for making use of games in the classroom is that children love to be entertained with visual materials that are easy to interpret. Young children get excited about working with pictures of cartoons or funny and entertaining songs and video-materials. An activity in the form of a game will generally provide the teacher with a perfect opportunity to make use of such materials. A third reason for teachers to make use of games in the classroom is that games can ensure that everyone in the classroom is involved. The idea is that every student will have a certain role to play during the activity. In this respect, it is important to point out that children are very sensitive and can become emotional more quickly than adults. It is your responsibility as a teacher to make sure that all children feel like they belong. By including everyone in the game, you show that you genuinely care about them. Another benefit of using games in the classroom is that they provide the teacher with many opportunities to give a compliment to students when they are doing well. For example, when a student is able to link a picture to the correct name of the animal portrayed on it. Young children often lack some self-confidence. It is therefore important to reward them when they are doing well. This will not only stimulate the person who is doing well to do even better, it will also provide the other students with an incentive to do the best they can. Providing the students with positive attention or feedback will also help you to create a positive and fun atmosphere in the classroom. To conclude, it is fair to state that games serve many purposes in the classroom. In a class of young learners, it is quintessential for their learning process to keep them excited and motivated to participate. There is no doubt in my mind that young children will be eager to participate if you challenge their intelligence during a fun, yet educational, activity. Games also provide for an excellent opportunity to build rapport with the students. They also allow you to incorporate many fun materials, such as pictures of animals or goofy cartoons. Furthermore, they can ensure that all students are engaged and that the teacher’s speaking time is brought to a minimum.


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