TEFL Pequot Lakes Minnesota

The approach to teaching young children any subject should be to make it fun. That is not always easy, however, different strategies exist that help teachers to learn the best methods to introduce foreign languages to young children. The how, when and where of teaching efl to kindergarten age children are the biggest concerns to being successful. To make esl learning fun, there are many suggestions online, in workbooks and other resources that include games, stories, songs and many more. It is also important that children learn english that they use with their peers while having fun. One method is known as the Total Physical Response method (TPR). The TPR method involves a more physical approach to carrying out activities, stories songs and dances that are focused on key english lessons such as tenses, imperatives, and instructions (Vocis, n.d.). The content, delivered in pre-school themes, are based on fun esl activities that are adapted to Kindergarten age and social environments. International schools use methods such as Language Immersion and the Series Methods (Vocis, n.d.). Teaching esl to young children in mainstream kindergarten classes is a method that integrates social english. Social english is the child-to-child language spoken in informal settings such as playing on the playground. It is important that children learn to communicate with their peers in these social settings. Mainstream esl teaching is important to eliminate this barrier (Turtenwald, n.d.). Some other strategies for inside and outside the classroom exist for esl teachers. It is suggested that a good strategy for teachers is that they should form relationships with the children they are teaching and their families. The more information that they know about each other, the more successful the child will be in learning english. It shows a level of respect for the child's culture which creates a strong bond between the teacher and student (Tutenwald, n.d.). In addition, teachers should consider strategic arrangements of the classroom for the best learning environment. Placing students together that come from the same cultures or have the same level of english could be beneficial. The arrangement of these groups should make it easier for the children to help each other, interact easier and polish their skills. Placing one or more advanced english student in each group could also be a good strategy for modeling social english to these young learners (Tutenwald, n.d.). Some other important strategies resonate in the materials that I found for this research article. teachers should keep concepts simple and make them funny or fun to keep kids interested. If a teacher can hold the child's attention, then the child will learn. A child's early experience can carry on into their future learning of a foreign language. It is important also to keep in mind that whatever concepts a child is being taught must be something equivalent to a concept that the child would be taught in their native language. Keeping ideas and concepts at the correct level is not easily done, but possible. Periodic individualized evaluations are important to see what adjustments need to be made for a child's esl learning success.