Teaching Content, Teaching Life

Patrick Jackson

St. Patrick is remembered for bringing Christianity to Ireland (and chasing out the snakes). He was able to convey a simple message clearly and memorably.

To do this, clearly he must have had great teaching skills. So how did he do it?

St. Patrick used a shamrock leaf to explain the three parts of God.

He made a foreign and complex message relevant to his audience in a simple way.

This is a skill we need as English teachers. Making it REAL and RELEVANT!

So whatever your students are into, learn about it and share their enthusiasm. That’s an important link to make with young learners.

These students learn English in Thailand. Their teacher shares his enthusiasm for soccer supporters’ songs.

The kids have learned lots of English because their teacher shared his enthusiasm with them.

Let your students get to know what you are into.

Hands On! [Physical]

1 Hands On!

Children love to explore and move and do and that’s how they find out about the world. Let’s try and find ways of letting children be the way they’re meant to be and do what they’re meant to be doing.

Hands [Physical]

Heart [Emotive]

2 Heart

Let’s make language emotionally relevant to children through People Power, through Values Stories and through the power of Music and Song.

People Power!Fictional

Language is all about people, isn’t it? One way of making English emotionally relevant to students is by building interest in the characters that you’ll find in picture books or textbooks.

Role models

Or they can be real people, fellow students, friends, family or teachers. As an English teacher you are their most important role model. How much do your students know about the cool things you do with English?

Stars of the show!

Students want to be and should be the stars of the show. We should think of ways to let them feel famous!

Even adults like to feel famous sometimes!

This is a really simple activity but it makes students feel famous, gives them something creative to do and something to share and talk about. It’s called a My Famous Favourites Frame.

Values Stories

Teach values because it’s fun, important and will help your classroom management. It will also help students in the wider world beyond the classroom.

Stories demonstrate language in the context of real situations that students can identify with.

Functional language comes alive and opens up a world of great activities such as role plays.

be fair be healthy be safe be polite be nice be patient be friendly be on time be prepared be careful be thoughtful be resourceful be brave be responsible be kind be helpful

These are some of the values in the stories in Everybody Up

Music

Music is what feelings sound like. Unknown

When stories connect with great songs, magic really starts to happen!

Hands [Physical]

Heart [Emotive]

Head [Cognitive]

3 Head

We’ve looked at how important it is to physically and emotionally connect with students. Let’s also make our teaching more intellectually and cognitively interesting. Children are naturally curious and the big, wide world is an interesting place. We can use those facts and make our lessons more interesting.

The final lesson in each unit of Everybody Up explores wider world subject-linked content using the language learnt in all the previous lessons.

So while it’s fine to teach the names of the colors or animals, it’s important to make that final step into the wider world. For example, to look at how colors mix or what animals can do. The possibilities are endless and that’s when language comes alive.

Children are. . .

curious, imaginative, active, energetic, talkative etc.

Good language teachers are. . .

curious, imaginative, active, energetic, talkative etc.

“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.”

George Bernard Shaw

Hands [Physical]

Heart [Emotive]

Head [Cognitive]

“Whatever the problem, community is the answer.”

The best way to stay fresh?

Get connected to your local community of teachers.

Get connected to the global community of teachers.

The ideas in this presentation are behind Everybody Up, a brand new 7-Level primary course from Oxford University Press.