Teaching
efl in a Kindergarten (34) When I first started my teaching career, I was teaching high school students with classes ranging from 50-80 students. There weren't any available teaching aids, only a blackboard and I lived in a small village that was three hours train ride to the nearest modern city. There were no other foreign
teachers to share ideas with and many sites that give teaching examples were blocked by the government. This gives you a brief history of my teaching experience before stepping into a kindergarten environment. I had very little experience with
young learners. I had bri
efly taught students aged 3-5 only as a substitute and didn't feel very comfortable with such young students. I didn't understand how to communicate with them or even how to act around
young learners of that age. I took a teaching position for a training center my third year of teaching in
china and I was finally exposed to Kindergarten students. I took a part time position at a private kindergarten that had two other foreign
teachers. I had little experience with kindergarten students but was now quite familiar with elementary students. I felt more comfortable than before with small
children but I wasn't quite sure how to teach them and the other
teachers took a different approach. They would constantly play with students but with my observations didn't have any structure in their classes. At this time I was becoming more interested in teaching methodology and how to teach
young learners. I studied two books: Teaching
english to
children by Wendy A. Scott and Lisbeth H. Ytreberg and Teaching
english in the Primary Classroom by Susan Halliwell. I feel these books were quite invaluable to me and really sparked my interest in a quest to become a better
teacher. After this, I had looked into getting teaching
certification and I started my
tefl from
ITTT. Teaching
efl in a kindergarten setting can be quite stressful if you have no formal training or don't understand how to deal with
young learners. I feel that you have to be very patient and you must learn the student's strengths and weaknesses to really make a difference in the classroom. I have learned throughout my course that careful lesson planning and using different teaching methods really helps with structuring the lessons.
young learners need structure in their classes and if you are able to plan out lessons well with clear and precise goals, you will start to notice that you are much more successful in the classroom. Students in Kindergarten usually start out as complete beginners when they are introduced to
english. You really need to understand how to work with beginners, what types of activities to use with them and how to keep the students interested. You should be ready and willing to mix a lot of authentic materials with course work to find a medium that works for you in the classroom. I have found that trial and error is also a big part of teaching kindergarten students. You have to remember to be open minded and try not to get frustrated when planned activities don't seem to work. There are times that I have spent a lot of time planning an activity that the students had no interest in. I make sure that I plan extra activities for my classes and that really helped at that time. Working with Kindergartners has also showed me how the learning process works. I can see results quite quickly and I get a lot of gratification out of that. I feel that these students meet much larger milestones compared to my older students. They aren't afraid to experiment with the language and even enjoy practicing it. This is one of the things that I really like about
young learners. They are constantly developing, experimenting and learning. With little or no inhibitions, it really makes the class environment exciting. I have applied a lot of the things I have learned during my
tefl course to the classroom. When preparing lessons, I feel like I have so many more options with what I can do. I enjoy teaching my students more and feel like I have a better understanding of teaching theory as well. I really found the
tefl course beneficial to me as a
teacher.