Some Ideas of Teaching English to the Kids as Second Language Learners

Dear Teachers and Educators

The question is how to teach English for kids. Here I am talking about the kids who consider English is their second language. Surely, we will find out the obstacle to make them familiar with it. Considering, English is a part of subject that should be taught. Well, through this writing I would like to offer some ways to teach English for school age children as their second language.

As a second language, it is to be true that English need a lot practice, especially when it deals with pronunciation, it can be adopted from the video, or cassette, or even a soft song. Teach simple vocabularies like part of their body such as nose, ear, hand and etc. For more ideas you can see the following tips of teaching English for kids as second language.

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Well Prepared
Before English started, the classroom must be prepared so that when the students enter, there is something that make them interesting to learn English. The teacher ideally set up some English poster on classroom wall, so the student can detect earlier the English vocab relate to their activity. For more ideas of teaching English to kids as follow:

Cycling

Print and cut out a set of alphabet bicycle. You can write on thick paper and stick on the wall. After you draw a bicycle put the name under the spare part. First, you make “Cycling Time” from a poster. By the time the pupils come into class, you sit down with them and pay attention closely to the bicycle together. Point out the different colors. (“Look, a red bike! There’s a spare part that make the bike move on!” etc.).

Give them some clues how to learn bicycle to them, “I’m going to ride a red bike!” You can bring one of their bike in and ask them to demonstrate . Say, “It is time to ride!”. If you are introducing colors, point out the colors for them or if you want to count how many spare part of bike, just make them count until they all know the number. You may involve a simple conversation with the kids, “how many color are there,?” “Can I have a red bike, please?” You may not worry if the students do not understand you at first. When they bring their bike to you, note the colors, (“Oooh, a red bike!”) and thank you my student.

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Cleaning The Classroom

Cleaning is something that is usually done by students. It is the right time to teach them English throughout the their daily activity. Here, the action verbs are really working to them, "Clean your classroom, please". When they do, you can also say, "pick a trash and put into the bucket," You point out the rycycle bin that is set outside of the class. One student will pick the trash with different color, and you asked them "what color did you pick?" Children love to clean while learning English.

Identity Card

Make “identity card” for each of students in class. Before the class begins, the teacher says, “ID, please!” As the children hand over their ID, encourage them to say, “I got you now!” Count the identity card together. Make them always count (How many?) and naming colors of their ID. Call each child's name one by one and let them choose a sticker for their Identity by asking, “What color of your card do you want, my dear?” After, they pick the color, then all the identity card must be kept on the teacher’s table until the end session of study.

Symbol Song

Begin every class with a symbol song. Symbol song can make student easily guess the symbol through the song they listen. It begins with simple symbol like their point finger, if the song says "one" and the other lyric that they found in the song. Make sure, the song consist of simple lyric so that they can detect easily.

As we know, school age children will stick their ability through listening. A song usually made them easy to memorize the words along with meaning. Student will feel happy while we are teaching them English through the song. Symbol song is part of acknowledging them a new series of English. By the time they complete, the teacher may ask them to look up the difficult words in dictionary.

Telling Time

In this session, the student is asked to mention some numbers that are found in the clock. Learning how to tell time is a fun activity by showing a real clock to students. Before you begin making your clocks, make sure the students know the basics. Once the clocks are already made, you can start teaching them the different number of time. Through telling time, student is also encouraged to pay attention to disciplinary management. The teacher also may ask their student to draw their own clock. Once they finished, ask them to show to their friend and say louder about each number around the clock.

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Telling Story/Story Time

Next is telling story. Help students providing a simple story like a fable,“A Lesson for Tiger” which lets students know about the moral message in the story. Be sure to read and gesture each words to give the students time to settle down. Commonly, the story is related to narrative but it does help student to increase their capability to be a good story teller. School age children are fond of telling a narrative story which contain a lot of fun words like “The Fly That Forgot Its Name?” “The Horse and Snail?” or “Foolish Lion and the Clever Rabbit." Many other stories that can be taught to the kids.

The teachers must be flexible! If one activity is not working as expected, the teacher must prepare to move on to another activity. When teaching school age children whose age 6 above, remember that you are not their first language teacher, but you may be their first teacher of English. Being a teacher, you are not teaching them a cognitive side but you also have a great opportunity to help your students form positive attitudes toward the learning . As the second language teacher, it is surely needed an extra patience to teach English to the students and being a creative teacher is highly recommended to make them become English fast learners.

There will be many more tips of teaching English to the kids. The tips that can enhance student's ability in mastering the second language. I only offered you some tips above as the simple ways to teach English to kids. Hopefully, they will be useful for all us in teaching them English as their second language.

Thank You @abduhawab