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Getting Started with English Language Learners

by Judie Haynes
Table of Contents

THE SOCIOLOGY OF SECOND LANGUAGE

ACQUISITION* John H. Schumann University of
California at Los Angeles While success in first
language acquisition is inevitable in all normal
individuals, success in second language acquisition
is highly variable. The effects of aptitude and
motivation on proficiency in second language
learning have been examined, but relatively little
has been said about what social factors might also
influence the degree to which a second language is
learned. Within the construct of social distance,
this paper explores societal factors that either
promote or inhibit social solidarity between two
groups and thus affect the extent to which a second
language learning group (2LL group) acquires the
language of a particular target language group (TL
group). Social distance pertains to the individual
as a member of a social group which is in contact
with another social group whose members speak a
different language. The assumption is that the
greater the social distance between the two groups
the more difficult it is for the members of the 2LL
group to acquire the language of the TL group.
The following issues are involved in social
distance: In relation to the TL group is the 2LL
group politically, culturally, technically or
economically dominant, non-dominant, or
subordinate? Is the integration pattern of the 2LL
group assimilation, adaptation, or preservation?
What is the 2LL group's degree of enclosure? Is
the 2LL group cohesive? What is the size of the
2LL group? Are the cultures of the two groups
congruent? ~lat are the attitudes of the two groups
toward each other? What is the 2LL group's
intended length of residence in the target language
area? In terms of political, cultural, technrcal or
economic status, in a language contact situation,
one group may be either dominant, nondominant,
or subordinate (see Dennis & Scott 1975). If the
2LL group is dominant in relation to the TL group
such that its modal status' (standard of living, level
of education. degree of technical development.
political power) is higher than that of TL group.
then social distance will prevail between the two
groups. In such a situation the 2LL group will tend
to learn little of the target language and a class of
interpreters will usually evolve to mediate
communication between the two. If the 2LL
group's modal status is lower than that of the TL
group, then the 2LL group will be subordinate in
the relationship. and once again social distance will
prevail. This situation will limit contact between
the two groups such that the 2LL group may have
little -This is a revised version of an article that
appeared in Language Learning 26. Reprinted by
permission. 12 opportunity, need or desire to learn
the target language. If, however, the modal status
of the 2LL group is roughly equal to that of the TL
group, then the former is considered non-
dominant in relation to the latter and social
distance becomes minimal. Such a situation should
facilitate intergroup contact and thus promote the
acquisition of the target language by the 2LL
group. Of course there may be differences of
opinion between the TL group and 2LL group as to
the relative modal status of the latter; therefore,
the dominant, non-dominant, subordinate
dimension has to be assessed by viewing it both
through the eyes of the TL group and the eyes of
the 2LL group. In terms of cultural patterns
involving life-style and values, there are three
general integration strategies which the 2LL group
might adopt: assimilation, adaptation or
preservation. If the 2LL group decides to
assimilate, then it gives up its own life-style and
values and adopts those of the TL group. If it
chooses to acculturate, then its members adapt to
the life-style and values of the TL group, but at the
same time maintain their own cultural patterns for
use in intragroup relations. Preservation, as
defined here, is a strategy in which the 2LL group
completely rejects the life-style and values of the
TL group and attempts to maintain its own
cultural pattern as much as possible. Assimilation
fosters minimal social distance and preservation
causes it to be maximal. Hence, second language
learning is enhanced by assimilation and hindered
by preservation. Adaptation falls in the middle.
Again, the TL group and the 2LL group may have
conflicting goals with regard to assimilation,
adaptation and preservation, therefore, these
strategies must be examined from both the point of
view of the TL group and that of the 2LL group. It
should be noted that conflicting goals are likely to
generate hostility between the two groups. Such
hostility would perhaps foster even greater social
distance than would be caused by both parties
being comfortable with the 2LL group choosing
preservation as its integration strategy.
Shermerhorn (1970, see also Paulston 1975) uses
the term "enclosure" to refer to structural aspects
of integration as opposed to cultural aspects (life-
style and values). Enclosure involves factors such
as endogamny, institutional separation, and
associational clustering. If the two groups have
separate schools, churches, clubs, recreational
facilities, if they have restrictions on marrying
outside their specific group enforced by either
custom or law, if they tend to have separate
professions, crafts or trades, then the degree of
enclosure is considered high. On the other hand, if
the two groups share the same social institutions,
are free to marry outside their group and engage
in the same professions, crafts and trades, then the
degree of enclosure is low. High enclosure
maintains social distance, limits contact between
the two groups and thus hinders acquisition of the
target language. Low enclosure has the opposite
effect. Cohesiveness is another factor affecting
social distance. If the 2LL group is cohesive, then
its members will tend to remain separate from the
TL group, thus producing social distance. A factor
closely related to cohesiveness is size. If the 2LL
group is large, then intra-group 13 contact is likely
to be far more frequent than inter-group contact
and in certain cases may even exclude the latter.
Congruence or similarity between the culture of
the TL group and that of the 2LL group also
affects social distance. If the two cultures are
similar, then integration is facilitated and social
distance is reduced. Congruence, of course, is a
relative term and therefore we speak of cultures A
and B as being more congruent than cultures A
and C. Another factor that affects social distance is
the attitude of the two groups toward each other.
Attitudinal orientation refers to the cUltural
expectations maintained by the 2LL group towards
the TL group and vice versa. Such expectations
involve ethnic stereotypes by which one
community either positively or negatively values
the other, these favorable views will be
communicated to the learner and will enhance his
acquisition of the target language. This is
especially true if both groups hold the belief that
the acquisition of the target language by the 2LL
group is both possible and desirable. On the other
hand, if both communities hold negative
stereotypes about each other and/or feel that the
acquisition of the target language by the 2LL
group is either unnecessary or undesirable, then
social distance will prevail and acquisition of the
target language will be inhibited. Of course, it is
possible that the two groups evaluate each other
differently. For example, the TL group could have
positive attitudes towards the 2LL group while the
2LL group holds considerably less positive or even
negative views towards the TL group. Attitudes
usually cannot be accurately assessed by
observation but must be measured using
socialpsychological instruments such as semantic
differential scales, matched guise procedures, and
cultural preference scales (see Gardner and
Lambert 1972; Gardner et ale 1974). The final
factor involved in social distance is the 2LL
group's intended length of residence in the target
~anguage area. If the 2LL group intends to remain
permanently (or at"least for a long time) in the
target language area, then it is likely to develop
more extensive contacts with the TL group than if
it were just passing through or remaining for only
a short time. Therefore, an intended lengthy
residence in the target language area would tend to
reduce social distance. There are two important
points that must be made regarding the social
factors described above. The first is that these
factors are not independent; they often interact
such that one will affect another. For example, a
group's desire for preservation is likely to make it
cohesive and also produce high enclosure. The
second point is that the social factors within each
grouping are treated as though they were discrete
categories, but in reality each grouping is a
continuum. In other words, the categories
dominant, non-dominant and subordinate
represent the terminal and middle points on a
continuum rather than discrete designations into
which all groups can be neatly classified. Using
these SOcial factors we can describe good and bad
second language TABLE 1 Analysis of social
distance characteristics for good and bad language
learning situations Political, economic, technical,
cultural Culture Structure TLgp views 2LLgp
views TLgp desires 2LLgp desires TLgp desires
2LLgp desires 2LLge itself of 2LLge for itself for
2LLg[! for itself Q) Q) s- s- ~ ~ III III Q) 0 Q) 0 s-
r- Q) s- r- Q) c: c: c: c: ~ u s- ~ u s- Q) Q) 0 0 0 0 III
c: ~ III c: ~ +l +l c: .,.... c: .,.... 0 Q) III 0 Q) III ro
ro +l 0 +l +l 0 +l r- 0 r- 0 +l +l c: +l +l c: ro .,.... ro
ro .,.... ro u Q) r- U Q) rc: c: .,.... c: c: .,.... r- +l > r-
+l > c: +l U c: +l u ro ro "C ro ro "0 .,.... ro s- .,....
ro s- Q) ro c: Q) ro c: c: c: s- c: c: s- E +l Q) . E +l
Q) s- Q) s- Q) .,.... .,.... 0 .,.... .,.... 0 0- III '.'- 0- III
..c Q) ..c Q) E E .0 E E .0 III ro Q) III ro Q) en "0
::: en "0 ::: 0 0 ~ 0 0 ~ III "0 s- Ill" "0 s- .,.... 0 0
.,.... 0 0 "0 "0 III "0 "0 III ro ro 0- ro ro 0- ..c E r-
..c E r+=- A. Bad language learning Situation I * *
* * * * B. Bad language learning Situation II ..; v
V- I/' ./ ../ C. Good language learning Situati on X
X X X X X D. American living in ·Saudi Arabia * *
* * * * E. American Jewish immigrants to Israel X
X X X X X 15 learning situations based on the
extent to which social distance is promoted. This is
illustrated in Table 1 where rows A and B indicate
the characteristics of bad language learning
situations and row C those of a good language
learning situation. Row D illustrates the social
distance profile of Americans living in Saudi
Arabia and row E that of American Jewish
immigrants to Israel. The matching .'s in rows A
and D and the matching X's in rows C and E are
used to show the similarity of the social distance
profiles in both columns. One of the bad situations
(row A, Table 1) would be where the TL group
views the 2LL group as dominant and the 2LL
group views itself in the same way, where both
groups desire preservation and high enclosure for
the 2LL group, where the 2LL group is both
cohesive and large, where the two cultures are not
congruent, where the two groups hold negative
attitudes toward each other, and where the 2LL
group intends to remain in the TL area only for a
short time. This type of situation is likely to
develop for Americans living in Riyadh, Saudi
Arabia(row D, Table 1). The population of Riyadh
is about 300,000(Paxton 1973). There are currently
8,000 Americans in that city and within a few years
the number is expected to reach thirty thousand.
The Americans will most probably be viewed as
technically, economically and perhaps even
culturally dominant, and they will most probably
have the same view of themselves. Because the two
cultures are so different (congruent) in terms of
religion and social customs, both parties will
probably desire high enclosure. Thus the
Americans will live in certain parts of the city,
have their own medical facilities, schools, and
recreational activities. In addition, most of the
Americans will probably be on two or three year
contracts such that their intended length of
residence in Saudi Arabia will be short. The
attitudes of the two groups towards each other
cannot be judged a priori and would require
careful assessment. The second bad situation (row
B, Table 1) has all the characteristics of the first
except that in this case, the,2LL group would
consider itself subordinate and would also be
conSldered subordinate by the TL group. This has
been the traditional situation of Navajo Indians
living in the Southwest (and of American Indians
in general). For years, by their own view and that
of the Anglos, they have been politically,
economically, technically and culturally
subordinate to the dominant English-speaking
majority. The fact that they have been forced to
live on reservations and at the same time desired to
preserve their own culture, which is quite different
from that of the Anglo majority, has produced high
enclosure and cohesiveness. In this contact
situation it is probably safe to assume that
attitudes of the two groups towards each other
have been more negative than positive. All these
factors have placed the Navajos at considerable
social distance from English-speaking Americans
and have made their acquisition of English
difficult. Similar political, economic, technical and
cultural subordination has existed for first
generation immigrants to the United States from
allover the world. The concomitant social distance
was often only overcome by the second generation,
who learned English while their parents did not. 16
A good language learning situation (row C, Table
1) would be one where the 2LL group is non-
dominant in relation to the TL group, where both
groups desire assimilation (or at least
acculturation) for the 2LL group, where low
enclosure is the goal of both groups, where the 2LL
group is small and non-cohesive, where both
groups have positive attitudes towards each other,
and where the 2LL group intends to remain in the
target language area for a long time. Under such
conditions social distance would be minimal and
acquisition of the target language would be
enhanced. An example of such a situation would be
American Jewish immigrants to Israel (row E,
Table 1). They consider themselves politically,
economically, technically and culturally equal to
the Israelis, and this view is reciprocated by the
Israelis themselves. Since low enclosure is desired
for the Americans both by themselves and by the
Israelis, Americans do not remain cohesive. Since
both cultures have similar religious beliefs, the
other cultural differences which may exist are
minimized and the two cultures can be said to be
reasonably congruent. In this case we can
generally assume that the two groups have positive
attitudes towards each other. Finally, since the
Americans are immigrants seeking Israeli
citizenship, they obviously intend to remain in
Israel for a long time. All these factors facilitate
the acquisition of Hebrew by the Americans.
Certain 2LL groups lack a modal tendency and
therefore are difficult to classify in this system. As
is noted in Shermerhorn (1970), there are at least
four ways subordinate minority groups can react
to their subordinate status. They can assimilate
and abandon their life-style and values for those of
the TL group. They can seek a pluralistic situation
in which they make certain adaptations to the
target language culture, but essentially choose to
maintain their own life-style and values. They can
attempt to secede and separate themselves
politically from the dominant group or they can
become militant and attempt to seize political
power from the dominant group. Thus in cases
where a 2LL group has several subgroups with
different modal tendencies, each subgroup would
have to be catagorized separately in assessing its
social distance from the TL group. The social
distance classificaton system presented above can
sometimes produce contradictions, but at the same
time it can provide a basis for explaining these
contradictions. For example, we have noted that if
the 2LL group is dominant its acquisition of the
target language will be hindered. However, Jill de
Villiers (personal communication) has pointed out
that there are white farmers in Africa who are
certainly dominant but who nevertheless speak the
local language fluently. This can be explained by
the fact that the farmers must know the local
language to maintain their dominance. In this case,
the apparent contradiction of a dominant 2LL
group acqulrlng the language of a subordinate
group could be the result of the dominant group's
lack of cohesiveness. In order to experimentally
test these ideas about social distance one might
choose a population such as Americans in Saudi
Arabia and compare its success in the acquisition
of Arabic to the success in the acquisition of
Hebrew experience by American immigrants to
Israel. This research strategy would require
finding comparable samples of subjects 17 from
both populations and finding comparable
measures of language proficiency. To examine
social distance phenomena a questionnaire might
be developed which would be filled out by
experimenters doing research in second language
acquisition. In it they might attempt to classify the
subjects with whom they were working (either
groups of individuals) on social distance
dimensions. The questionnaire would be designed
to permit the researcher to rate a particular 2LL
group's dominance, cohesiveness, enclosure, etc.,
on a numerical scale, to compute a social distance
score for the group and then to relate that score to
the extent of development found in his subject(s),
speech. However, there are several problems
associated with a numerical quantification of a
group's social distance. For example, we cannot
assume that each characteristic (cohesiveness,
attitude, subordination, etc.) is equally powerful in
promoting social distance nor, as mentioned
earlier, can we view these categories as necessarily
being independent of each other. As the
classification of 2LL groups in either the bad or
good language learning situations becomes less
determinant (Le., if a group stands somewhere
between the bad and good situations), then success
in acquiring the target language becomes more a
matter of the individual as an individual rather
than of the individual as a member of a particular
social group. In addition, in either a good or bad
language learning situation, an individual can
violate the modal tendency of his group. Thus an
individual might learn the target language where
he is expected not to, and not learn the language
where successful acquisition is expected. In these
cases it is psychological distance (or proximity)
between the learner and the TL group that
accounts for successful versus unsuccessful second
language acquisition. Schumann (1975a and b) has
delineated the factors which create psychological
distance between the learner and the speakers of
the target language. These factors are affective in
nature and involve such issues as the resolution of
language shock, culture shock and culture stress,
integrative versus instrumental motivation'~nd
ego-permeability. REFERENCES Dennis, J. and
Scott, J. 1975. Creole formation and
reorganization. Paper presented at the
International Congress on Pidgins and Creoles,
Honolulu, Hawaii. 1975. Gardner, R.C. and
Lambert, W.E. 1972 Attitudes and Motivation in
Second Language Learning. Rowley, Mass.:
Newbury House Publishers. Gardner, R.C.,
Smythe, P.C., Kirby, D.M.and Bramwell, J.R.
1974. language acquisition: A social psychological
approach. Final Second Report, Ontario Ministry
of Education, Grant-in-aid to Education, London,
Ontario, Canada. Paulston, C.B. 1975. Ethnic
relations and bilingual education: Accounting for
contradictory data. Working Papers in
Bilingualism 6:1-44. Paxton, J.(ed.). 1973. The
Statesman's Year-Book 1973/1974. New York: St.
Martin's Press. 18 Schermerhorn, R.A. 1910.
Comparative Ethnic Relations: A Framework for
Theory and Research. New York: Random House.
Schumann, J.H. 1915a. Second language
acquisition: the pidginization hypothesis.
Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Harvard
University Graduate School of Education.
Schumann, J.H. 1915b. Affective factors and the
problem of age in second language acquisition.
Chapter 1. Key Concepts of Second-Language Acquisition
Many popular beliefs about second language acquisition are perpetuated in our society. The
following statements are related to six key concepts of second-language acquisition. Check the
ones you think are true.
□ My newcomer should be referred to the child study team. He is often disruptive in the classroom
and kicks and hits other children. There is something wrong with him aside from not knowing the
language.
□ The more time students spend soaking up English in the mainstream classroom, the faster they
will learn the language.
□ Children who have the ability to memorize grammar rules and complete pages of grammar drills
will learn to speak and write English more quickly.
□ Children learn a second language faster and more easily than teenagers and adults do.
□ The emotional state of the learner doesn't interfere with the acquisition of a new language. As
long as English language learners (ELLs) receive instruction from classroom teachers, they will
learn English.
□ Students should be strongly encouraged to speak English from the first day.
Did you guess that all the above statements are false? To provide a successful learning
environment for English language learners, classroom teachers and administrators need to
understand six essential concepts that are directly related to the statements listed above: culture
shock, comprehensible input and output, language acquisition versus language learning, the
optimum age for learning a second language, the affective filter, and the silent period. As we
explore these concepts, we will also look at classroom scenarios that exemplify each belief.

Culture Shock
True or False?My newcomer should be referred to the child study team. He is often disruptive in
the classroom and kicks and hits the other children. There is something wrong with him aside from
not knowing the language.FALSE.
Newcomers who act out in the classroom are most likely suffering from culture shock.
Anthropologist Kalvero Oberg first used the term “culture shock” in 1960 to describe the feelings
that people have when they move to an unfamiliar culture. What does culture shock look like in
immigrant children? They may become withdrawn and passive or they may be more aggressive.
The greater the difference between the student's new culture and the student's primary culture, the
greater the shock (Levine & Adelman, 1993). Newcomers have usually left behind family
members, friends, teachers, and pets. They are no longer surrounded by a familiar language and
culture. Children often do not have the full support of their parents because the parents are
experiencing culture shock, too. In the following example, Eduardo, an ELL from Mexico, shows
his frustration with his new environment.
→ Eduardo, who is a Mexican newcomer at his elementary school, hits and kicks his classmates. He is
frustrated and cries easily. One day, the only other Spanish-speaking student in his class was absent and
Eduardo couldn't communicate at all. He threw himself on the floor and screamed. His anger and
unhappiness were apparent. His teacher feels that there is something wrong with him beyond the language
barrier.

While Eduardo was very affected by his new environment, every child reacts
differently to moving to a new place. Most English language learners go through four
stages of culture shock before they become comfortable with their new language.
1. Euphoric or Honeymoon Stage. During this stage, newcomers are excited about their new lives.
Everything is wonderful and they are having a great time learning about their environment.
2. Rejection Stage. At this stage, the differences between the new culture and the old one become more
apparent to newcomers. They reject their new surroundings because there is so much that they do not
understand. ELLs can feel overwhelmed and may seem sleepy, irritable, uninterested, or depressed.
Students at the rejection stage may refuse to learn the new language. Some students may become
aggressive and act out their frustrations like the students in the next example.
→ Ilya, a 10-year-old boy from Russia, clings to his mother's car door and screams when she drops
him off at school. Eight-year-old Amir from Lebanon gets sick every day before lunch and has to go
home. Rosa, a six-year-old from Puerto Rico, runs wild in her 1st grade classroom because she
doesn't understand the classroom rules and expectations.

3. Regression Stage. English language learners are frustrated because they cannot communicate and
are bombarded with unfamiliar surroundings, unreadable social signals, and an unrelenting barrage of
new sounds. They are homesick and miss their family, friends, and familiar sights and sounds. They
spend their leisure time socializing with friends who speak the same language or listening to music and
watching videos from their home country.
Teenage newcomers often feel angry and helpless because they have had no say in their families'
move to the United States. They have lost control of their environment because they don't speak
English. Student essays give us a further glimpse of how newcomers feel when they first come to the
 United States. One student exclaimed, “I didn't want to leave my country. My parents decided to come
here. I didn't have a choice.” Another asserted, “I miss my friends and school. I had to leave my
grandparents behind.” A third student complained, “I eat lunch alone every day. I don't have any
friends in this school.” Newcomers in this stage of culture shock need time and patience from their
teachers.
4. Integration Stage. At this stage, newcomers start to deal with the differences between the old and
new cultures. They learn to integrate their own beliefs into their new environment and begin to find
ways to exist with both cultures. Many immigrant parents become alarmed at this stage because they
do not want their children to lose their primary language and culture, such as the Nakamuras in the
next example.
→ The Nakamuras are a Japanese family with four children. They came to the United States for a five-
year job-related stay. Because the nearest Japanese school was over an hour away, the children were
enrolled in the local public school. Mr. and Mrs. Nakamura did not want their children to become
“Americanized.” They did not allow them to socialize with classmates after school or join any school
groups or clubs. The children were required to come home every day to complete a few hours of
homework assigned by the Japanese Saturday School. Needless to say, the children never got past
the integration stage, and they were never comfortable with American culture.

5. Acceptance Stage. Newcomers are now able to enter and prosper in the mainstream culture. They
accept both cultures and combine them into their lives. Some students will adopt the mainstream
culture at school and follow the values of the home culture outside school. During this stage, many
immigrant parents make it clear to their children that they do not want them to abandon their primary
language and culture. Their concerns are valid, as demonstrated by the family in the following
example.
→ Guadaloupe and Francisca, two sisters from Venezuela, feel pulled between American and
Venezuelan cultures and are angry that their parents restrict them from participating in after-school
social activities. Guadaloupe was not permitted to attend a school dance and Francisca was not
allowed to go to a sleepover party. The girls are also losing their native language. When family
members come from their home country, they can understand what is said in Spanish, but they can no
longer speak the language.

Comprehensible Input and Output

True or False?The more time students spend soaking up English in the mainstream classroom,
the faster they will learn the language.FALSE.
Students do not simply “soak up” language. Learners must understand the communication that is
conveyed by their classmates and teachers. Comprehensible input is a hypothesis proposed by
Stephen Krashen (1981) that is widely recognized by today's researchers and practitioners. He
suggests that English language learners acquire language by hearing and understanding
messages that are slightly above their current English language level. For example, an English
language learner may understand the phrase “Put your book in your desk.” By slightly changing
the phrase to “Put your book on the table,” the speaker scaffolds new information that increases
the learner's language comprehension. To do this, the teacher must provide new material that
builds on the learner's prior knowledge. When newcomers spend most of their day in a
mainstream classroom, it is especially critical for them to receive comprehensible input from their
teachers and classmates. If teachers use a lecture style for instruction, the English language
learner will not receive as much comprehensible input.
Research shows that English language learners need opportunities to practice language at their
level of competency (Pica et al., 1989, 1996; Swain & Lapkin, 1995). When ELLs are able to refine
their English skills with their English-speaking peers, this process is called comprehensible output.
Many researchers assert that comprehensible output is nearly as important as comprehensible
input. Cooperative learning groups are one way for newcomers to receive ample input and output.
A small-group setting allows ELLs to have more comprehensible input because classmates modify
or adapt the message to the listener's needs. There are more opportunities for oral practice and
for repetition of information as peers help newcomers negotiate meaning. Student conversation in
a small group is centered on what is actually happening at the moment as the task is completed.
Feedback and correction for ELLs are nonjudgmental and immediate. In the next scenario, one
history teacher's cooperative learning groups helped his ELLs soar.
→ English language learners in the 7th grade were placed in Mr. Garcia's American History class. He
divided the class into cooperative learning groups and the ELLs blossomed. They were assigned tasks in
their small groups that were at their level of English language ability. Many of these students felt that this
was the first time they were really a part of the academic life of a content class. Mr. Garcia observed that
his ELLs worked much harder in their content-area subjects so that they could be an active part of their
group.

Language Acquisition and Language Learning

True or False?Children who have the ability to memorize grammar rules and complete pages of
grammar drills will learn to speak and write English more quickly.FALSE.
Krashen (1988) makes an important distinction between language acquisition and language
learning. Children acquire a second language through a subconscious process during which they
are unaware of grammatical rules. This process is similar to how they acquire their first language.
They get a feel for what is and what isn't correct. To acquire language, the learner needs a source
of natural communication. Young students who are in the process of acquiring English can get on-
the-job practice by communicating with their classmates.
Language learning, on the other hand, is not communicative. This type of learning comes from
direct instruction about the rules of language. Learners have conscious knowledge of the new
language and can talk about what they know. They can memorize the rules of the language and
perhaps succeed on a standardized test, but they still may not have strong speaking or writing
skills. The next example shows how ELLs can perform in the classroom but fail to translate that
success into English comprehension.
→ Yiming is a 4th grader who attended “cram” school in the evening. She learned to read and write by rote
memorization. She could sound out words phonetically, fill in grammar pages, regurgitate information in
English, and speak without an accent. With this kind of performance in the classroom, Yiming's parents
were surprised when her teacher told them that her reading comprehension was low and her creative
writing was unintelligible.

The Optimum Age for Language Learning

True or False?Children learn a second language faster and more easily than teenagers and
adults do.FALSE.
This statement is more complex than it seems. In reviews of controlled research (Collier, 1988;
Samway & McKeon, 1999) where young children were compared with teenagers and young
adults, the teenagers and young adults learned a second language more readily. Children under
the age of 8 may outperform adults in the areas of social language and pronunciation because
they usually have more occasions to interact socially. The requirements for communication are
lower for younger students because they have less language to learn when they interact in a
school setting with their peers. Teenagers and adults, on the other hand, have acquired language
learning and study skills. They use both acquisition and learning strategies to become fluent in
their new language. Compare the English language learning of Priyanka and her younger brother,
Nahir.
→ Seventeen-year-old Priyanka and 7-year-old Nahir arrived from India one year ago. Nahir speaks very
fluent social English. His accent is near native. He has made an excellent social adjustment to his 1st grade
class and has many friends from different backgrounds. Because he had just begun learning how to read in
his native country, he has limited language literacy skills in his first language. Despite his fluent social
English, he is experiencing difficulty reading and writing in English and is not doing well in his content-area
work. Priyanka, on the other hand, is shy and does not speak much. She has only a few friends and they all
speak Gujarati, one of the major languages spoken in India and Pakistan. Her spoken English is heavily
accented. Priyanka was an excellent student in India, and she continues to study diligently. She is very
successful in her academic studies in the United States and is receiving good grades.

The Affective Filter

True or False?The emotional state of the learner doesn't interfere with the acquisition of a new
language. As long as ELLs receive comprehensible output, they will learn English.FALSE.
Although comprehensible input is necessary for language acquisition, it is not sufficient by itself.
The learner's emotional state or affective filter can interfere with acquiring a new language
because it involves public practice and speaking in front of others. These skills require that the
learner take a risk. This risk can produce embarrassment and anxiety that can block the learner's
ability to process new information (Krashen, 1981; Krashen & Terrell, 1983). To counteract
students' affective filter, classroom teachers can create an effective learning environment for ELLs
that helps them integrate into the life of the school. They can provide a classroom experience that
is nonthreatening and demonstrate to their students that they understand their needs. The key is
to make ELLs feel welcome and comfortable so that their affective filter does not impede their
learning. In the next example, Ms. Lautz helps one of her ELL students become acclimated to the
school environment.
→ Ms. Lautz immediately pairs her new English language learner with a buddy and encourages her
students to become friends with him. She arranges for classmates to stay with the newcomer at lunch,
hang around with him on the playground, and help him on the school bus. She also encourages her ELL to
participate in extracurricular activities such as sports and music programs.

The Silent Period

True or False?Students should be strongly encouraged to speak English from the first
day.FALSE.
Most new English language learners will go through a silent period during which they are unable or
unwilling to communicate orally in the new language. This stage may last for a few days to more
than a year, depending on a variety of factors. The silent period occurs before ELLs are ready to
produce oral language and is generally referred to as the preproduction stage of language
 learning. ELLs should not be forced to speak before they are ready. Teachers shouldn't embarrass
these students by putting them on the spot. ELLs need time to listen to others speak, to digest
what they hear, to develop receptive vocabulary, and to observe their classmates' interactions.
This silent behavior does not mean that students are not learning; however, it may be that they are
not ready to speak.
Teacher instruction is an important factor in how long the silent period lasts. If the teacher provides
hands-on activities and encourages students to interact in small groups, ELLs will be able to
participate in the classroom sooner and be more confident about speaking with their peers.
Teachers should not assume that young ELLs would not be embarrassed or shy when attempting
to speak a second language.
Another factor that may influence the length of the silent period is the child's personality. If the
child is shy or self-conscious, he or she may be reluctant to speak. On the other hand, an outgoing
child will speak more readily and will advance more quickly from preproduction to early production.
There are also cultural factors to consider. Students, like Arlana in the next example, do not like to
make mistakes and will not speak until they have a good grasp of the language.
→ Arlana, a Muslim student from Lebanon, is in the 2nd grade. She has frustrated every teacher she has
worked with since kindergarten. She rarely speaks in English and she has been in school in the United
States since the age of 3. When she does respond to her teacher's questions, she whispers. She doesn't
talk much to classmates and spends most of her time outside school with family and other Muslim children.
Arlana understands oral directions, and she reads and writes on the 2nd grade level. Nothing her teachers
have done has made her comfortable about expressing herself orally. Her teachers encouraged her
parents to arrange play dates for Arlana with her native English-speaking peers. Her parents were also
encouraged to seek professional help for Arlana, but the family moved at the end of 2nd grade and her
teachers never saw a resolution to her reticence to speak.

Although this is an extreme example, girls from some cultural backgrounds are not
encouraged to speak. Being very quiet in the classroom is often viewed as culturally
appropriate behavior for girls.
Native language also plays a role in students' willingness to talk. If the sound systems between
their native and second language are similar, students will usually speak earlier.
Differences in language styles among social classes also influence how quickly students speak.
Urban middle-class parents tend to speak more, teach verbally, and give oral instructions to even
very young children. Newcomers from less industrialized countries teach their children by showing
them what to do. They are less likely to verbalize their instructions.
Should mainstream educators know the factors that affect second-language acquisition? If the
above beliefs are not dispelled, educators cannot provide an optimum learning environment for
English language learners with rich language acquisition opportunities and supportive teachers
and classmates.

***
Let's take another look at these beliefs and review what we learned from this chapter:
 A newcomer who exhibits disruptive or odd behavior may be suffering from culture shock.
 English language learners need comprehensible input. They cannot learn English by “soaking up” language
in a mainstream classroom.
 To acquire a new language, children need a source of natural communication. Memorizing grammar rules
will not help them learn to speak and write English quickly.
 Children do not learn a second language faster and easier than adults. Their only advantage is in
pronunciation.
 The emotional state of English language learners affects how they acquire a new language. ELLs need a
comfortable environment in which to learn.
 Newcomers will go through a silent period during which they will not speak. They should not be forced to
speak until they are ready.
In this first chapter, we looked at six beliefs about second-language acquisition and explored the
key concepts that disprove these beliefs. We examined the concepts of culture shock,
comprehensible input and output, language acquisition and learning, age differences, the affective
filter, and the silent period. Implications for teachers' instruction were also discussed. Each
concept was illustrated with a classroom scenario.

Risk taking is about getting out of one’s comfort zone. Charlie (‘Bird’) Parker is one of
the most influential jazz musicians who ever lived. The first time he played in a jazz
club, he got booed off the stage, and the drummer even threw a cymbal at him in sheer
anger. Parker’s sin had been to venture into new territory: he wasn’t interested in
playing mainstream music, and that’s the risk he chose to take. He persevered and
contributed to the birth of a whole new chapter in the history of jazz. Bird was prepared to
be wrong; he had the guts to challenge the establishment, and that’s perhaps the lesson for all of
us: creativity takes courage.
Taking risks doesn’t come naturally to a lot of us; it makes us feel uncomfortable and edgy.
This comes from a fear of being wrong. As children, we feel free to experiment with
reality and we don’t care about the results. By the time we are adults, we lose that
capacity and become frightened of doing things differently. This is largely because we
stigmatise mistakes. So, what we do, according to Sir Ken Robinson, is to ‘educate
ourselves out of creativity’.
However, there is only one alternative if you don’t want to take risks, and that is to play
it safe – to give in to the sirens of routine, an approach which never really pays
dividends. Risk taking in the classroom is about assessing the situation, daring to try
different approaches and entering the discomfort zone. The outcome won’t be
spectacular at first, but taking risks is a necessary step if one intends to engage oneself
seriously on this path.
Picture this
Level: Intermediate and above
By understanding the culture shock experience, and its inherent stages, teachers
can better support the experience of the immigrant children in their classrooms.
After all, educators don’t just work to help ESOL children build an “interlanguage”
between their first and second languages, but also work to build an “interculture,” or
a learner’s bridge from a child’s first cultural understanding toward a second cultural
knowledge. The more scaffolding and support children have from their hosts or
community, the faster they can bridge the misunderstandings.
What are symptoms of culture shock?
Be alert for signs of culture shock in your students. Symptoms can include flashes of
anger over minor frustrations, excessive sleepiness, unexplained crying, changes in
appetite, withdrawal, aches and pains, and even depression. Helping students
manage culture shock can be crucial to maintaining individual and classroom
morale. The key to overcoming culture shock is to give students the tools to adapt to
their new life and to help them retain their appreciation of their native culture and
family traditions.
How to help your ESOL students:
 Teach students about culture shock. Knowing what to expect can give students a sense of
recognition and control.
 Encourage students to continue learning their native language.Make a dual language
book library in the classroom and encourage students to borrow materials to share at
home. Because knowledge transfers from one language to another, the more students read
in any language, the faster they will connect to new content and skills. Also, as young
students often excel at language learning, reading together with parents can help ease the
detachment some immigrant children feel at home because their parents may lag behind
in acquiring English. This disconnect can add to a student’s level of stress. Making an
excuse to cuddle up with a book can re-energize sagging spirits.
 Establish and carefully explain classroom routines to newcomers. By doing this, you
create a classroom culture that students can settle into quickly, thus reinforcing their sense
of safety.
 Plan for projects where students can teach you and their classmates about their
culture. This will foster a feeling of mutual respect in the classroom. Each member will
feel she has something valuable to contribute to your promotion of global understanding.
 Help students connect to activities that might interest them outside of school. Art classes,
sports teams, and hobby programs can help students feel part of a new community
network.
 Encourage students to find or form support groups with other students who may be at the
same point in the U-curve of culture shock.
 Allow time for reflection. Teach students vocabulary for feelings. Using pictures of
children showing different emotions can be helpful in teaching expression. If students are
old enough, let them journal. You might encourage them to compare and contrast their
old life and their new life. Also, have students explore how to handle frustrating situations
and to examine moments of success.
 Teach and model conflict resolution skills. Have students role play scenarios, so when
difficult real-life situations occur, they will have the tools to react in a healthy way.
 Periodically remind students how to get help at your school if feelings of homesickness
become overwhelming.

Classroom Strategies: Helping Your ELLs Adjust to New

Surroundings
Although there are no specific teaching techniques to make ELLs feel that they
belong in a new culture, there are ways for you to make them feel welcome in
your classroom:

Learn their names

Take the time to learn how to pronounce your ELLs' names correctly. Ask them to
say their name. Listen carefully and repeat it until you know it. If a student's
name is Pedro, make sure you do not call him /peedro/ or Peter. Also, model the
correct pronunciation of ELLs' names to the class so that all students can say the
correct pronunciation.

Offer one-on-one assistance when possible

Some ELLs may not answer voluntarily in class or ask for your help even if they
need it. ELLs may smile and nod, but this does not necessarily mean that they
understand. Go over to their desk to offer individual coaching in a friendly way.
For convenience, it may be helpful to seat ELLs near your desk.

Assign a peer partner

Identify a classmate who really wants to help your ELL as a peer. This student can
make sure that the ELL understands what he or she is supposed to do. It will be
even more helpful if the peer partner knows the ELL's first language.

Post a visual daily schedule

Even if ELLs do not yet understand all of the words that you speak, it is possible
for them to understand the structure of each day. Whether through chalkboard art
or images on Velcro, you can post the daily schedule each morning. By writing
down times and having pictures next to words like lunch, wash hands, math, and
field trip, ELLs can have a general sense of the upcoming day.

Use an interpreter

On-site interpreters can be very helpful in smoothing out misunderstandings that

arise due to communication problems and cultural differences. If an on-site
interpreter (a paid or volunteer school staff position) is not available, try to find an
adult - perhaps another parent who is familiar with the school or "knows the
system" – who is willing to serve this purpose. In difficult situations, it would not
be appropriate for another child to translate.

ELLs can make unintentional "mistakes" as they are trying hard to adjust to a new
cultural setting. They are constantly transferring what they know as acceptable
behaviors from their own culture to the U.S. classroom and school. Be patient as
ELLs learn English and adjust.

Invite their culture into the classroom

Encourage ELLs to share their language and culture with you and your class.
Show-and-tell is a good opportunity for ELLs to bring in something representative
of their culture, if they wish. They could also tell a popular story or folktale using
words, pictures, gestures, and movements. ELLs could also try to teach the class
some words from their native language.

Use materials related to your ELLs' cultures

Children respond when they see books, topics, characters, and images that are
familiar. Try to achieve a good balance of books and materials that include
different cultures. Visit our recommended bilingual books section.

Post a visual daily schedule

Even if ELLs do not yet understand all of the words that you speak, it is possible
for them to understand the structure of each day. Whether through chalkboard art
or images on Velcro, you can post the daily schedule each morning. By writing
down times and having pictures next to words like lunch, wash hands, math, and
field trip, ELLs can have a general sense of the upcoming day.

Label classroom objects in both languages

Labeling classroom objects will allow ELLs to better understand their immediate
surroundings. These labels will also assist you when explaining or giving
directions. Start with everyday items, such as "door/puerta," "book/libro," and
"chair/silla."

Include ELLs in a non-threatening manner

Some ELLs may be apprehensive about speaking out in a group. They might be
afraid to make mistakes in front of their peers. Their silence could also be a sign
of respect for you as an authority – and not a sign of their inability or refusal to
participate. Find ways to involve ELLs in a non-threatening manner, such as
through Total Physical Response activities and cooperative learning projects.

Involve ELLs in cooperative learning

Some ELLs are used to working cooperatively on assigned tasks. What may look
like cheating to you is actually a culturally acquired learning style — an attempt to
mimic, see, or model what has to be done. Use this cultural trait as a plus in your
classroom. Assign buddies or peer tutors so that ELLs are able to participate in all
class activities.

Help your ELLs follow established rules

All students need to understand and follow your classroom rules from the very
beginning, and ELLs are no exception. Teach them your classroom management
rules as soon as possible to avoid misunderstandings, discipline problems, and
feelings of low self-esteem. Here are a few strategies that you can use in class:

Use visuals like pictures, symbols, and reward systems to communicate your
expectations in a positive and direct manner.
Physically model language to ELLs in classroom routines and instructional
activities. ELLs will need to see you or their peers model behavior when you want
them to sit down, walk to the bulletin board, work with a partner, copy a word,
etc.
Be consistent and fair with all students. Once ELLs clearly understand what is
expected, hold them equally accountable for their behavior.

What Is Total Physical Response?

Total physical response is an approach to teaching second language that was developed in
the 1970s by James Asher, professor of Psychology at the San Jose State University in
California.

Asher observed that traditional second language programs had a dropout rate of almost 95%.
He thought this could be due to flawed and ineffective methods used in the programs. The
professor still had another observation: While adults were dropping like flies in their second
language courses, children were easily acquiring first languages like sponges on a wet
countertop!

So he decided to create a method of teaching second language that mimics the process
children use when picking up their first.
TPR was born.

Asher saw that children’s early language repertoire consisted mainly of listening to adults
telling them what to do: “Pick up the ball.” “Sit down.” “Open your mouth.” “Look at me.”

The child would look to the parents for instructions, and then perform the movements
required. The child didn’t need to be able to say the words, only to listen and understand.
Comprehension was the first step to language acquisition, not word production.

Asher adopted this practice and the simple listen and respond technique now sits at the heart
of TPR. It’s been proven effective for teaching beginners of foreign languages. For example,
you could teach “¡Siéntense!” (sit down) in a Spanish class by repeatedly sitting down and
saying “Siéntense.” You can ask the class to join you in sitting down, even making a
game out of it, or commenting on the manner that some students sit.
The act of moving is memory-friendly. By virtue of seeing you sit down, or experiencing the
act themselves, your students will easily associate sitting down with siéntense. There’s
something about the pairing of movement and language that’s so innate that children—
without the help of textbooks—easily acquire language.
With TPR, not only do you have an approach that engages the energies of your students, you
have a tool that creates memorable meaning through movement.
Just as TPR borrowed plenty of techniques and insights from psychologists and linguists
like Dr. Krashen, it has also bequeathed a lot to approaches like TPRS (teaching proficiency
through reading and storytelling).
Of course, TPR should not be used in isolation, but as one of many teaching tools in a
language teacher’s bag.
The Philosophies Behind Total Physical Response
Listening Comes Before Production

TPR applies the learning processes of first language acquisition into teaching adults a second
language. And if you observe very carefully, babies don’t start off saying “Ball! Ball!” while
pointing to their toy. They started off all silent, their innocent eyes listening and observing
when adults say, “Get the ball, Robbie! C’mon, get the ball. Veeery good!”

TPR starts with the “silent phase.” Here, the job of your students is to listen (and understand)
what the command is and respond accordingly. No pressures are placed on properly
enunciating vocabulary.

In the early phase of TPR, you don’t see the teacher leading the class in pronouncing the
words loudly and urging the students to repeat after her.

TPR considers comprehension as the highway to language acquisition. So the first goal of
TPR is making the students understand what the word, phrase, command or expression is all
about. There’s no push to produce the correct sounds, but there’s an invitation for students to
listen and observe. Mouths are not opened, but eyes and ears are—just like how it happens
with children.
And this is one of the prime benefits of using TPR in the classroom. Listening is given its
due. Instead of being seen as a passive activity, TPR rightly identifies listening as a vital first
step in any linguistic endeavor. Because the normal human reaction to listening is, “Not
much is happening—when do we get started with the real stuff?” But if first language
acquisition is any guide, we’ll understand that we learned just as much (probably even more)
when we were silent than when we fumble words without comprehension.
“Acquisition” over “Learning”
Another benefit of TPR is that it favors the methods, techniques, resources and processes of
language acquisitionover language learning.

Language learning is often concerned with the form—the correct grammatical structures and
correct pronunciation of the target language. A grammar textbook, flashcards and vocabulary
lists are examples of learning materials. (Something that babies never had when they were
learning their first language.)

Language acquisition on the other hand is concerned with substance: the immersive
experience of using language in one’s everyday affairs. If you move to Korea and have to
speak Korean phrases in order to buy items at a store, you’re not really learning the
language. You’re acquiring it.
Or if you’re just crazy about Mexican telenovelas and watch them so frequently that you
actually know what “¡Ay! ¡Dios mío!” means, then you’re acquiring the language without
obviously trying to learn it.

Language learning is often conscious and formal. Language acquisition is more personal and
natural–almost an afterthought.

The benefit of TPR is that it provides language acquisition experiences for your students in
the classroom setting. TPR concerns itself with meaning, so your students will have
communicative use of the language, instead of just knowing rules of grammar.

Acquisition Should Be Stress-free

No toddler was sent to the principal’s office for bungling their first language grammar, right?
Adults just laughed it off and corrected it gently and made the kid feel that everything
would be all right.

Why should second language acquisition be any different?

When Professor Asher developed TPR, he made sure that the approach to teaching the
language was stress-free for both teacher and students. He posited that another reason why
students don’t learn is that they get emotionally overwhelmed by the language. It can be
a frightening experience that lowers self-esteem. Who would learn in that kind of
environment?
Stress kills motivation. And you know how important motivation is for language acquisition.
Without it, it’s basically game over. That’s why many students drop out; it makes the target
language out of reach. “I’ll never be able to memorize these conjugation rules,” they think.

TPR on the other hand, is judgment-free. It just wants the students to have fun. So that while
their mouths are open from laughing, their minds are unconsciously open for acquiring the
language. There are no affective filters, and no fear that they’ll fail.

As far as the students are concerned, they’re just playing a game, listening for the next
instructions–goofing around. But we know better than that. We know, as teachers, that
there’s something else going on behind the scenes. We know vocabulary words are
understood, appreciated and stored for the long haul.

We teachers often are looking for ways to make the lessons fun, engaging and memorable.
With TPR, you’ve got an approach where “stress-free” is philosophically embedded into the
whole thing.

So what actual TPR activities can you use in your own classroom? Here are five activities
that’ll set language acquisition into overdrive!

5 Total Physical Response Classroom Activities

That’ll Set Language Acquisition into Overdrive
1. TPR Storytelling Session

Tell a story to the whole class. It can be about anything: fairytale, adventure, even horror and
comedy. Tell it with plenty of gestures and actions, which you repeat often. (That’s the TPR
way!)

A TPR story shares all the elements of a great tale: a relatable main character, a captivating
plot and an ending that rewards the listeners.

But in addition to these, a foreign language teacher employing TPR must remember that the
story is used to teach meaning. So a TPR story would use a good mix of the students’ native
language and the target language. Especially for beginners, a healthy dose of the students’
native language might be used, with a peppering of the target language.

And because the story is a vehicle for teaching meaning, repetition of key phrases and their
attending movements are the order of the day. You should really focus on key phrases you
want to teach the class, not the story itself. The plot, the twists and turns of the story come
second to the meaningful and memorable words and phrases you want your wards to
integrate into their long-term memory.
 So for example, in teaching the Spanish words for the different parts of the body, you might
employ the tale of a young Billy who goes to the city for the very first time. And each time
about you talk about the many wonderful things he sees with his eyes (i.e. buses, buildings
and airplanes), you emphasize the word ojos (eyes) while at the same time pointing to your
eyes. It’s also important that you widen your eyes as you point to them.
Keep repeating “ojos” and pointing to your eyes as you go through the awesome things Billy
sees in the city. He sees a fleet of cars, “ojos.” He sees a dog walker, “ojos.”
There are ways you can employ repetition in the story without being repetitive. For example,
with ojos, you can do the following:
oint to your own eyes
sk the students to point to their own eyes
sk students to point to your eyes (or a classmate’s)

(And as a comprehension check, you can point to your tummy and see if your students try to
correct you.)

This technique also works for all the other parts of the body. The nariz (nose) for everything
he smells: freshly baked bread, flowers at the park and the smoke from cars. Orejas (ears) for
everything that catches his attention: the sound of cars honking, the tumult at the market and
the powerful blasts of a plane taking off.

You can actually set your story so little Billy, the main character, can interact and visit places
that will give you maximum opportunity to repeat the meaningful words and phrases. The
plot is but a vehicle, so don’t worry so much about it.

2. Simon Says with a Twist

A vocabulary-oriented game like Simon Says is analogous to the process that takes place as
children acquire their first language. Adults often give instructions to kids, like “throw the
ball” “come here” or “eat your chicken.” (By virtue of repetition and validation—and
gesturing—children are able to figure out what mommy wanted done.)

In this activity, you organize the class into two groups. You can go boys vs. girls (always a
hit!) or any grouping you want. Each group sends a representative for every round. They
stand at the back of the class, near the wall, with their eyes fixed on you.

You will play “Simon” and come up with creative commands and actions with which your
students would then have to perform. So in a French class you might say, “Sautez trois fois!”
(Jump three times) or “Pleurez!” (cry). The student who gives the correct response gets to
take a step forward towards the “Finish Line.” Reaching the finish line first wins 1 point for
the team. The team who gets 5 points first wins the game.

Not everyone gets to play each time, but spectators will not only get to cheer their team,
they’ll also learn the target language in the process.
Play this game often and you will have natural rivalries arise. And that’s also when the
learning really heats up.

3. The Amazing Race

I’m sure you’ve seen “The Amazing Race” on TV. But with this activity, you don’t have to
send the class on a thrilling trip around the world. You only have to send them off to do
some task or demonstrate comprehension by performing prescribed motions. (With TPR, you
can always check for comprehension because you can just look at their actions.)

Group the class into four or five teams. Each team would ideally be composed of three to
four players. The tasks that you choose to give your students are only limited by your
imagination—but instead of writing out the tasks, give them verbally.

For example, one task can be a “bring me” scenario and you can tell the teams in your
Spanish class to bring you an amarillo (yellow) object. Or you can ask the
class to griten (shout) their favorite color.

You can go outside the classroom for this activity and have it in the schoolyard. You can tell
your students to bring in the garbage bins (two birds with one stone, if you ask me), pick up
twenty dried leaves, arrange flower pots in a line, etc. You can ask the groups to dance the
cha-cha, move to the “Macarena” or sing “Happy Birthday.”

With “The Amazing Race” as one of your activities, your class will be racing to language
acquisition.

4. TPR Theater

This one’s for those a little bit advanced in the target language since “TPR Theater” has
some improv added into the mix. It is, for all intents and purposes, an impromptu play. Your
role as the teacher is to narrate and move the story forward by telling the characters in front
of the class what they need to do.

Think of yourself as a benevolent narrator and puppet master where the bit players are to do
your every bidding.

Okay, first things first. Determine what your play will be. Is it a love story? An epic
adventure? A contemporary comedy? Knowing this will dictate the number of characters, the
nature of events in the story and their reactions to it.

Let’s say you have a love story. You should then have at least two students to play the role of
lovers, and perhaps another one to function as a foil and complete the love triangle.

Or, if you want to have more students in the play, you can create characters like the evil
mother-in-law, the jealous friend and the nervous aunt. (But don’t involve everybody in the
play, otherwise there’ll be no audience. Those who don’t play parts in the drama today will
get their chance to strut out their acting chops the next time.)

So for example, say there’s one particular scene where the lovers are bonding at the park.
In a German class you might bark some funny instructions to your bit players, like “kneife
sie in die Wange!” (pinch her nose) or “kitzle sie…” (tickle her…)

Again, in this case, where the plot takes you or how it ends doesn’t really matter. These are
not the most important things so don’t obsess over them. The whole affair is really just an
excuse to practice the target language. So keep it light. Help the students if they have
comprehension difficulties. Don’t be afraid to drop everything midway if it means explaining
something about the target language.

5. Action Songs for the Whole Class

Action songs are actually TPR–but with music. Children love them. They add melody and
cadence that the brain can latch on to. They are the perfect memory aids that can effectively
embed language and movement into the long-term memory.

Singing together as a class is a great memory-enhancing tool. Did you notice that even as
adults, we find it hard to jettison the nursery rhymes and songs of our childhood? It may
have been 40 years ago, but they are as fresh as the morning we learned it in class.
So lead the class in action songs (here’s a great listing of children’s songs and rhymes by
language, by the way). But you don’t have to rely on the nursery classics for action songs.
The classics all began with a creative teacher, alone her room, coming up with gestures to
accompany the lines. You can create actions for any song that you want, including pop music
in the target language.

First, determine the important words in the song. That is, the words you want to embed into
your students’ memories. (Don’t gesture out each word in the song, that’ll be too
overwhelming.)

Second, pick the appropriate accompanying gestures for your words. The action may seem
obvious for words like”jump,” “look,” “laugh,” etc. But how about when the song has words
like “hope” or “integrity”? These will force you to be creative and think outside the box.

You’ll have to think of situations in which “hope” or “integrity” is displayed or practiced.

“Hope” is displayed during prayer, for example, by people hoping to get prayers answered.
So your action can perhaps be interlacing fingers, just like a prayer position. “Integrity” is
often displayed by someone giving a persuasive speech. Your action can then be a pounding
fist.

Remember, the gestures need not be spot on. They only need to be a semblance of the thing
they signify.
 When coming up with actions to go with your song, aside from creativity, go for a little bit of
exaggeration. Take the word “see” for example. Instead of simply pointing to your eyes,
mimic a telescoping gesture or place a horizontal palm above your eyebrow and swing your
neck from left to right, looking out into the distance.

It makes the lyrics of the song more vivid and more engaging for your students. And
speaking of lyrics, don’t teach the songs line-by-line or distribute lyrics (if possible). Instead,
teach the song as a whole—with music and the accompanying gestures. The goal here is not
to make the students memorize the lyrics. It’s to let them understand what they are singing
about: comprehension.

So those are your five classroom TPR activities. Try them in your language class and set
language acquisition on fire. Because nothing is as rewarding as seeing your students pick up
a beautiful language..

o
o Introduction
Speaking is "the process of building and sharing meaning through the use of verbal
and non-verbal symbols, in a variety of contexts" (Chaney, 1998, p. 13). Speaking is
a crucial part of second language learning and teaching. Despite its importance, for
many years, teaching speaking has been undervalued and English language
teachers have continued to teach speaking just as a repetition of drills or
memorization of dialogues. However, today's world requires that the goal of teaching
speaking should improve students' communicative skills, because, only in that way,
students can express themselves and learn how to follow the social and cultural
rules appropriate in each communicative circumstance. In order to teach second
language learners how to speak in the best way possible, some speaking activities
are provided below, that can be applied to ESL and EFL classroom settings,
together with suggestions for teachers who teach oral language.

What Is "Teaching Speaking"?

What is meant by "teaching speaking" is to teach ESL learners to:
 Produce the English speech sounds and sound patterns
 Use word and sentence stress, intonation patterns and the rhythm of the second
language.
 Select appropriate words and sentences according to the proper social setting,
audience, situation and subject matter.
  Organize their thoughts in a meaningful and logical sequence.
 Use language as a means of expressing values and judgments.
 Use the language quickly and confidently with few unnatural pauses, which is
called as fluency. (Nunan, 2003)

How To Teach Speaking

Now many linguistics and ESL teachers agree on that students learn to speak in the
second language by "interacting". Communicative language teaching and
collaborative learning serve best for this aim. Communicative language teaching is
based on real-life situations that require communication. By using this method in
ESL classes, students will have the opportunity of communicating with each other in
the target language. In brief, ESL teachers should create a classroom environment
where students have real-life communication, authentic activities, and meaningful
tasks that promote oral language. This can occur when students collaborate in
groups to achieve a goal or to complete a task.

Activities To Promote Speaking

Discussions
After a content-based lesson, a discussion can be held for various reasons. The
students may aim to arrive at a conclusion, share ideas about an event, or find
solutions in their discussion groups. Before the discussion, it is essential that the
purpose of the discussion activity is set by the teacher. In this way, the discussion
points are relevant to this purpose, so that students do not spend their time chatting
with each other about irrelevant things. For example, students can become involved
in agree/disagree discussions. In this type of discussions, the teacher can form
groups of students, preferably 4 or 5 in each group, and provide controversial
sentences like “people learn best when they read vs. people learn best when they
travel”. Then each group works on their topic for a given time period, and presents
their opinions to the class. It is essential that the speaking should be equally divided
among group members. At the end, the class decides on the winning group who
defended the idea in the best way. This activity fosters critical thinking and quick
decision making, and students learn how to express and justify themselves in polite
ways while disagreeing with the others. For efficient group discussions, it is always
better not to form large groups, because quiet students may avoid contributing in
large groups. The group members can be either assigned by the teacher or the
students may determine it by themselves, but groups should be rearranged in every
discussion activity so that students can work with various people and learn to be
open to different ideas. Lastly, in class or group discussions, whatever the aim is,
the students should always be encouraged to ask questions, paraphrase ideas,
express support, check for clarification, and so on.

Role Play
One other way of getting students to speak is role-playing. Students pretend they
are in various social contexts and have a variety of social roles. In role-play
activities, the teacher gives information to the learners such as who they are and
what they think or feel. Thus, the teacher can tell the student that "You are David,
you go to the doctor and tell him what happened last night, and…" (Harmer, 1984)

Simulations
Simulations are very similar to role-plays but what makes simulations different than
role plays is that they are more elaborate. In simulations, students can bring items to
the class to create a realistic environment. For instance, if a student is acting as a
singer, she brings a microphone to sing and so on. Role plays and simulations have
many advantages. First, since they are entertaining, they motivate the students.
Second, as Harmer (1984) suggests, they increase the self-confidence of hesitant
students, because in role play and simulation activities, they will have a different role
and do not have to speak for themselves, which means they do not have to take the
same responsibility.

Information Gap
In this activity, students are supposed to be working in pairs. One student will have
the information that other partner does not have and the partners will share their
information. Information gap activities serve many purposes such as solving a
problem or collecting information. Also, each partner plays an important role
because the task cannot be completed if the partners do not provide the information
the others need. These activities are effective because everybody has the
opportunity to talk extensively in the target language.

Brainstorming
On a given topic, students can produce ideas in a limited time. Depending on the
context, either individual or group brainstorming is effective and learners generate
ideas quickly and freely. The good characteristics of brainstorming is that the
students are not criticized for their ideas so students will be open to sharing new
ideas.

Storytelling
Students can briefly summarize a tale or story they heard from somebody
beforehand, or they may create their own stories to tell their classmates. Story
telling fosters creative thinking. It also helps students express ideas in the format of
beginning, development, and ending, including the characters and setting a story
has to have. Students also can tell riddles or jokes. For instance, at the very
beginning of each class session, the teacher may call a few students to tell short
riddles or jokes as an opening. In this way, not only will the teacher address
students’ speaking ability, but also get the attention of the class.

Interviews
Students can conduct interviews on selected topics with various people. It is a good
idea that the teacher provides a rubric to students so that they know what type of
questions they can ask or what path to follow, but students should prepare their own
interview questions. Conducting interviews with people gives students a chance to
practice their speaking ability not only in class but also outside and helps them
becoming socialized. After interviews, each student can present his or her study to
the class. Moreover, students can interview each other and "introduce" his or her
partner to the class.

Story Completion
This is a very enjoyable, whole-class, free-speaking activity for which students sit in
a circle. For this activity, a teacher starts to tell a story, but after a few sentences he
or she stops narrating. Then, each student starts to narrate from the point where the
previous one stopped. Each student is supposed to add from four to ten sentences.
Students can add new characters, events, descriptions and so on.

Reporting
Before coming to class, students are asked to read a newspaper or magazine and,
in class, they report to their friends what they find as the most interesting news.
Students can also talk about whether they have experienced anything worth telling
their friends in their daily lives before class.

Playing Cards
In this game, students should form groups of four. Each suit will represent a topic.
For instance:
 Diamonds: Earning money
 Hearts: Love and relationships
 Spades: An unforgettable memory
 Clubs: Best teacher
Each student in a group will choose a card. Then, each student will write 4-5
questions about that topic to ask the other people in the group. For example:

If the topic "Diamonds: Earning Money" is selected, here are some possible
questions:
 Is money important in your life? Why?
 What is the easiest way of earning money?
 What do you think about lottery? Etc.
However, the teacher should state at the very beginning of the activity that students
are not allowed to prepare yes-no questions, because by saying yes or no students
get little practice in spoken language production. Rather, students ask open-ended
questions to each other so that they reply in complete sentences.

Picture Narrating
This activity is based on several sequential pictures. Students are asked to tell the
story taking place in the sequential pictures by paying attention to the criteria
provided by the teacher as a rubric. Rubrics can include the vocabulary or structures
they need to use while narrating.
Picture Describing
Another way to make use of pictures in a speaking activity is to give students just
one picture and having them describe what it is in the picture. For this activity
students can form groups and each group is given a different picture. Students
discuss the picture with their groups, then a spokesperson for each group describes
the picture to the whole class. This activity fosters the creativity and imagination of
the learners as well as their public speaking skills.

Find the Difference

For this activity students can work in pairs and each couple is given two different
pictures, for example, picture of boys playing football and another picture of girls
playing tennis. Students in pairs discuss the similarities and/or differences in the
pictures.

Suggestions For Teachers in Teaching Speaking

Here are some suggestions for English language teachers while teaching oral
language:
 Provide maximum opportunity to students to speak the target language by
providing a rich environment that contains collaborative work, authentic
materials and tasks, and shared knowledge.
 Try to involve each student in every speaking activity; for this aim, practice
different ways of student participation.
 Reduce teacher speaking time in class while increasing student speaking time.
Step back and observe students.
 Indicate positive signs when commenting on a student's response.
 Ask eliciting questions such as "What do you mean? How did you reach that
conclusion?" in order to prompt students to speak more.
 Provide written feedback like "Your presentation was really great. It was a good
job. I really appreciated your efforts in preparing the materials and efficient use
of your voice…"
 Do not correct students' pronunciation mistakes very often while they are
speaking. Correction should not distract student from his or her speech.
 Involve speaking activities not only in class but also out of class; contact parents
and other people who can help.
 Circulate around classroom to ensure that students are on the right track and
see whether they need your help while they work in groups or pairs.
 Provide the vocabulary beforehand that students need in speaking activities.
 Diagnose problems faced by students who have difficulty in expressing
themselves in the target language and provide more opportunities to practice
the spoken language.

Conclusion
Teaching speaking is a very important part of second language learning. The ability
to communicate in a second language clearly and efficiently contributes to the
success of the learner in school and success later in every phase of life. Therefore,
it is essential that language teachers pay great attention to teaching speaking.
Rather than leading students to pure memorization, providing a rich environment
where meaningful communication takes place is desired. With this aim, various
speaking activities such as those listed above can contribute a great deal to
students in developing basic interactive skills necessary for life. These activities
make students more active in the learning process and at the same time make their
learning more meaningful and fun for them.
Search

How to help young English

language learners love writing
226 9 23 5 2383

By Roseli Serra
23 August 2014 - 15:48
'We don't often use pen and paper, yet this is what we expect of young learners.'
Photo©
Karen, licensed under CC BY 2.0 and adapted from the original.
One of the biggest challenges teachers have faced in the classroom has to do with
writing. Usually students do not want to write, because they have never been
encouraged to do it or to enjoy it. It’s worth remembering that most people never
write anything of any length in their daily lives, or anything using a pen and paper, or
without using a spellchecker. But this is often what we ask our students to do in
English.

Writing, like all other aspects of language, is communicative. In real life, we may
write e-mails, lists, notes, cover letters, reports, curricula, assignments, or essays.
Some of us write articles or work on blogs, forums and websites. All of these writing
tasks have a communicative purpose and a target audience. In the English
language classroom, writing often lacks that communicative purpose. However,
there are ways to make the writing we do with learners more communicative and
pleasurable.

I have noticed that early on, children in language schools often enjoy the beginning
stages of writing, when they are learning the letters or characters. Literate young
learners are very willing to work at tracing letters and words, and are eager to learn
how to print their names, the names of their brothers, sisters, pets, toys and
classroom objects. It’s this interest in writing that we want to maintain as our
students continue to develop their English writing skills. Yet writing can be a
challenging skill for children to learn. By its nature, writing is often a solo activity,
done silently, involving effort and taking a lot of time. Writing well is difficult, even for
very young learners. However, writing in any language can be so much fun!
So what can we do to help children retain their early interest in writing, while they
develop skills and confidence? First, students need a basic foundation and
understanding of the spoken language in order to be able to write in English. For
example, they need to know how to identify and talk about objects and people in
English in order to write something about them.

Age plays a crucial role in what we teach and how we teach it. A young learner class
is different from an adult or teenager class in terms of the learners’ needs, the
language competencies emphasised, and the cognitive skills developed. Let’s focus
on what we call ‘late young learners’, who are usually ten to 12 years old.

The characteristics of this group of students are:

• They have longer attention spans, but are still children

• They either take learning more seriously, or are very easily bored and distracted

• They possess some world knowledge and are technologically skilled/oriented

• They are more willing to co-operate in groups and pairs

• They have already developed social, motor and intellectual skills

• Although they are still developing their learning strategies, they make use of them
in order to learn more effectively.

*(Adapted from Ersöz, A. (2007). Teaching English to young learners. Ankara: EDM
Publishing)

Here are seven activities that I have found helped my students to enjoy writing.

1. Creative writing

This might be used as an ice breaker, or to consolidate vocabulary learnt in a

previous lesson. It consists of giving a student a word and ask them to write an
acrostic – a poem that spells out the original word with the first letter of each line.

For example: ‘Classroom Objects’ (this poem was written by a 12-year-old student)

Paint

Elephants
Not

Cry

Intelligent

Life

As a follow-up activity, students can read their poem to the class if they want to. The
students could vote for the best poem and the winner could get a chocolate.

2. Peer writing

This is an activity children love doing, as they are allowed to work in pairs. They
need to already know how to use the past simple and past continuous tenses to tell
a story.

First, you give the students a sheet of paper with two columns of sentences about a
young couple who met years ago. Depending on the children’s age, the number of
sentences should vary between eight and ten in each column. Next, you ask them to
match the sentences in the first column with the sentences in the second one.
There’s no wrong or right answer.

Here’s an example:

(1) Mark and Sue met / when Susan was 23

(2) They had twins /and got married

(3) They started a new school for children / after the war

(4) They fell in love / in France

After matching the sentences, the students write a story using the verb tense given
in the sentences. As a follow-up, pairs of children can compare their stories and see
the differences and similarities between them. In the next class, the teacher can
show how to correct errors by writing any mistakes (anonymously) on the board and
asking students to correct them.

3. Journal diaries and storytelling

Journal diaries have been a great help to my students’ writing. We use a web tool
called livetyping and the Edmodo platform, and the students can also use paper
and pencil. I respond to every single piece of their writing without correcting them,
but I also encourage them to reflect on mistakes. Most of my students have
responded very positively, and are now much more comfortable about exposing
their ideas. The journal diaries students post on Edmodo should only be visible to
the teacher, not other students, because the entries may be more personal.

Students can make up the end of a story I have posted. As they write on the
livetyping platform, everyone can see the story and make comments. In the
classroom we choose two of their posts and work on correcting errors. See how it
works here .

Another option is to ask the students retell a true story using the target language
and vocabulary we have studied in a specific lesson. Here’s an example about the
death of John Lennon.

4. Co-operative writing

Padlet is a collaborative web tool that students love! Videos, images and songs can
be uploaded on a virtual multimedia wall. I’ve used it recently to get children
involved in writing classroom contracts as well as writing about their likes and
dislikes . It’s a very rich tool as the writing can be done co-operatively in class, and
the students can also edit their work at home.

5. Using word clouds and songs

This is an activity children are very fond of, but it is most effective for students aged
12 and up.

First, create a word cloud using words from a song, other words with similar sounds,
and some verbs. Print the word cloud and hand out copies to the class. A good word
cloud generator is ABCya .

Next, play the song – either a YouTube video or just the song itself – and ask the
children to circle the words they hear. One song I used recently was ‘When I was
your man’ by Bruno Mars, as it is a song that both boys and girls like very
much. Then hand out the lyrics for the students to check in pairs, and ask them to
write an email together, based on the song and using the verbs given.

6. Cartoons

Another technique I’ve tried with my ten- to 12-year-old students is to create a

cartoon using a web tool called Pixton. First, I showed the children a cartoon on the
screen of the interactive white board with speech bubbles and no words. Then I
printed out the cartoon, gave copies to the children, and asked them to create
speeches for the cartoon characters using new vocabulary. As a follow-up activity,
the students wrote stories about the characters and shared them online with the
group. Here’s an example .

7. Book projects

Bookr is an interesting web tool, especially for presenting projects – for example,
for an oral presentation in the classroom on World Environment Day. It allows
students to create and share their own photobook by collating photos from Flickr
and writing text to go with them. It is a task to be done at home as it might be time-
consuming, depending on the number of pages the students want in their
books. Here’s an example I created in class to show my students how make their
own books.

Here’s another exciting book project, in which students become authors.

In a lesson about ‘best friends’, ten- and 11-year-olds write a book called ‘Best
friends come in all shapes and sizes’. Before starting, the children learn ways to
describe people, such as ‘She’s got blue eyes and dark hair’. They also learn
vocabulary on favourite toys, likes and dislikes, and pets. For example: ‘She likes…
she doesn’t like…’, ‘Her favourite toy is a/ an…’, ‘She’s got a pet…’, ‘Her pet’s name
is…’, ‘It’s a dog/cat…’.

After several lessons working on the above structures, the children bring their best
friends to school and we take a picture of each child with his or her best friend. If
that’s not possible, the child brings a photo of himself or herself with a best friend.

Guided by the teacher, each child writes a little bit about their best friend such as,
‘My best friend is Ana. She’s 11 years old. She’s tall. She’s got dark straight hair and
brown eyes. She’s got a pet, a dog called Simba. Her favourite toy is a video game.
She’s got a bike but she hasn’t got an iPad. She likes dancing ballet but she doesn’t
like swimming. I love my best friend’. The teacher collects the student’s writing and
corrects all the mistakes. Next, all the texts are typed and sent to a professional
printing office to make a real book. If this is not possible, it can still be done
beautifully by hand. On a set day, parents, families and friends come to the book
launch, where the young writers autograph their book and take pictures.

Some final tips to encourage young learners to write:

• Make writing meaningful. Young writers can express themselves about topics that
are important to them.
• Invite young writers to write freely, without worrying about correctness. Children
who are just learning to write can build language structures and expression, even if
they use imaginary spellings and strange punctuation.

• Ask young learners to write about their own lives and experiences. Whether it’s a
holiday, or their experience with their grandparents, or any other experience outside
the classroom, young writers write best when they write about something they know
well.

• Engage young writers in short bursts of writing. For children under the ages of
eight or nine, it’s very tiring to hold a pencil or piece of chalk, shape the letters, and
remain focused on the message to be communicated. Writing often, for brief
periods, is much more effective than trying to write for a long period of time.

• Encourage writers to keep journals or diaries. Writing is one way of structuring

thought. Journal writing is important because it’s not public. It can represent, for the
writer, a chance to write in the most free way.

• Give writers the chance to revise. It’s vitally important to encourage students to
write freely, in their own words, and to try to cover all their thoughts on a topic.
(Revision is more important for students over the ages of eight or nine, who have
begun to write more naturally to express themselves.)

• Always let your students know you are proud of their writing! If children notice you
are reading what they write, they will certainly feel much more motivated. Last but
not least, don’t forget to write them a note of encouragement.

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Voices Magazine Contact us Search Search How to help young English language
learners love writing 226 9 23 5 2383 By Roseli Serra 23 August 2014 - 15:48
'We don't often use pen and paper, yet this is what we expect of young learners.'
Photo © Karen, licensed under CC BY 2.0 and adapted from the original. Roseli
Serra , winner of the TeachingEnglish monthly blog award, writes about how to
encourage children learning English to love writing in English too. One of the biggest
challenges teachers have faced in the classroom has to do with writing. Usually
students do not want to write, because they have never been encouraged to do it or
to enjoy it. It’s worth remembering that most people never write anything of any
length in their daily lives, or anything using a pen and paper, or without using a
spellchecker. But this is often what we ask our students to do in English. Writing, like
all other aspects of language, is communicative. In real life, we may write e-mails,
lists, notes, cover letters, reports, curricula, assignments, or essays. Some of us
write articles or work on blogs, forums and websites. All of these writing tasks have
a communicative purpose and a target audience. In the English language
classroom, writing often lacks that communicative purpose. However, there are
ways to make the writing we do with learners more communicative and pleasurable.
I have noticed that early on, children in language schools often enjoy the beginning
stages of writing, when they are learning the letters or characters. Literate young
learners are very willing to work at tracing letters and words, and are eager to learn
how to print their names, the names of their brothers, sisters, pets, toys and
classroom objects. It’s this interest in writing that we want to maintain as our
students continue to develop their English writing skills. Yet writing can be a
challenging skill for children to learn. By its nature, writing is often a solo activity,
done silently, involving effort and taking a lot of time. Writing well is difficult, even for
very young learners. However, writing in any language can be so much fun! So what
can we do to help children retain their early interest in writing, while they develop
skills and confidence? First, students need a basic foundation and understanding of
the spoken language in order to be able to write in English. For example, they need
to know how to identify and talk about objects and people in English in order to write
something about them. Age plays a crucial role in what we teach and how we teach
it. A young learner class is different from an adult or teenager class in terms of the
learners’ needs, the language competencies emphasised, and the cognitive skills
developed. Let’s focus on what we call ‘late young learners’, who are usually ten to
12 years old. The characteristics of this group of students are: • They have longer
attention spans, but are still children • They either take learning more seriously, or
are very easily bored and distracted • They possess some world knowledge and are
technologically skilled/oriented • They are more willing to co-operate in groups and
pairs • They have already developed social, motor and intellectual skills • Although
they are still developing their learning strategies, they make use of them in order to
learn more effectively. *(Adapted from Ersöz, A. (2007). Teaching English to young
learners. Ankara: EDM Publishing) Here are seven activities that I have found
helped my students to enjoy writing. 1. Creative writing This might be used as an
ice breaker, or to consolidate vocabulary learnt in a previous lesson. It consists of
giving a student a word and ask them to write an acrostic – a poem that spells out
the original word with the first letter of each line. For example: ‘Classroom Objects’
(this poem was written by a 12-year-old student) Paint Elephants Not Cry Intelligent
Life As a follow-up activity, students can read their poem to the class if they want to.
The students could vote for the best poem and the winner could get a chocolate.
2. Peer writing This is an activity children love doing, as they are allowed to work in
pairs. They need to already know how to use the past simple and past continuous
tenses to tell a story. First, you give the students a sheet of paper with two columns
of sentences about a young couple who met years ago. Depending on the children’s
age, the number of sentences should vary between eight and ten in each
column. Next, you ask them to match the sentences in the first column with the
sentences in the second one. There’s no wrong or right answer. Here’s an example:
(1) Mark and Sue met / when Susan was 23 (2) They had twins /and got married (3)
They started a new school for children / after the war (4) They fell in love / in France
After matching the sentences, the students write a story using the verb tense given
in the sentences. As a follow-up, pairs of children can compare their stories and see
the differences and similarities between them. In the next class, the teacher can
show how to correct errors by writing any mistakes (anonymously) on the board and
asking students to correct them. 3. Journal diaries and storytelling Journal
diaries have been a great help to my students’ writing. We use a web tool
called livetyping and the Edmodo platform, and the students can also use paper
and pencil. I respond to every single piece of their writing without correcting them,
but I also encourage them to reflect on mistakes. Most of my students have
responded very positively, and are now much more comfortable about exposing
their ideas. The journal diaries students post on Edmodo should only be visible to
the teacher, not other students, because the entries may be more personal.
Students can make up the end of a story I have posted. As they write on the
livetyping platform, everyone can see the story and make comments. In the
classroom we choose two of their posts and work on correcting errors. See how it
works here . Another option is to ask the students retell a true story using the target
language and vocabulary we have studied in a specific lesson. Here’s an example
about the death of John Lennon. 4. Co-operative writing Padlet is a collaborative
web tool that students love! Videos, images and songs can be uploaded on a virtual
multimedia wall. I’ve used it recently to get children involved in writing classroom
contracts as well as writing about their likes and dislikes . It’s a very rich tool as the
writing can be done co-operatively in class, and the students can also edit their work
at home. 5. Using word clouds and songs This is an activity children are very fond
of, but it is most effective for students aged 12 and up. First, create a word cloud
using words from a song, other words with similar sounds, and some verbs. Print the
word cloud and hand out copies to the class. A good word cloud generator is ABCya
. Next, play the song – either a YouTube video or just the song itself – and ask the
children to circle the words they hear. One song I used recently was ‘When I was
your man’ by Bruno Mars, as it is a song that both boys and girls like very
much. Then hand out the lyrics for the students to check in pairs, and ask them to
write an email together, based on the song and using the verbs given. 6. Cartoons
Another technique I’ve tried with my ten- to 12-year-old students is to create a
cartoon using a web tool called Pixton. First, I showed the children a cartoon on the
screen of the interactive white board with speech bubbles and no words. Then I
printed out the cartoon, gave copies to the children, and asked them to create
speeches for the cartoon characters using new vocabulary. As a follow-up activity,
the students wrote stories about the characters and shared them online with the
group. Here’s an example . 7. Book projects Bookr is an interesting web tool,
especially for presenting projects – for example, for an oral presentation in the
classroom on World Environment Day. It allows students to create and share their
own photobook by collating photos from Flickr and writing text to go with them. It is a
task to be done at home as it might be time-consuming, depending on the number of
pages the students want in their books. Here’s an example I created in class to
show my students how make their own books. Here’s another exciting book project,
in which students become authors. In a lesson about ‘best friends’, ten- and 11-
year-olds write a book called ‘Best friends come in all shapes and sizes’. Before
starting, the children learn ways to describe people, such as ‘She’s got blue eyes
and dark hair’. They also learn vocabulary on favourite toys, likes and dislikes, and
pets. For example: ‘She likes… she doesn’t like…’, ‘Her favourite toy is a/ an…’,
‘She’s got a pet…’, ‘Her pet’s name is…’, ‘It’s a dog/cat…’. After several lessons
working on the above structures, the children bring their best friends to school and
we take a picture of each child with his or her best friend. If that’s not possible, the
child brings a photo of himself or herself with a best friend. Guided by the teacher,
each child writes a little bit about their best friend such as, ‘My best friend is Ana.
She’s 11 years old. She’s tall. She’s got dark straight hair and brown eyes. She’s got
a pet, a dog called Simba. Her favourite toy is a video game. She’s got a bike but
she hasn’t got an iPad. She likes dancing ballet but she doesn’t like swimming. I
love my best friend’. The teacher collects the student’s writing and corrects all the
mistakes. Next, all the texts are typed and sent to a professional printing office to
make a real book. If this is not possible, it can still be done beautifully by hand. On a
set day, parents, families and friends come to the book launch, where the young
writers autograph their book and take pictures. Some final tips to encourage young
learners to write: • Make writing meaningful. Young writers can express themselves
about topics that are important to them. • Invite young writers to write freely, without
worrying about correctness. Children who are just learning to write can build
language structures and expression, even if they use imaginary spellings and
strange punctuation. • Ask young learners to write about their own lives and
experiences. Whether it’s a holiday, or their experience with their grandparents, or
any other experience outside the classroom, young writers write best when they
write about something they know well. • Engage young writers in short bursts of
writing. For children under the ages of eight or nine, it’s very tiring to hold a pencil or
piece of chalk, shape the letters, and remain focused on the message to be
communicated. Writing often, for brief periods, is much more effective than trying to
write for a long period of time. • Encourage writers to keep journals or diaries.
Writing is one way of structuring thought. Journal writing is important because it’s
not public. It can represent, for the writer, a chance to write in the most free way. •
Give writers the chance to revise. It’s vitally important to encourage students to write
freely, in their own words, and to try to cover all their thoughts on a topic. (Revision
is more important for students over the ages of eight or nine, who have begun to
write more naturally to express themselves.) • Always let your students know you
are proud of their writing! If children notice you are reading what they write, they will
certainly feel much more motivated. Last but not least, don’t forget to write them a
note of encouragement. Join our TeachingEnglish Facebook community for further
tips, resources and discussions. You might also be interested in: Teaching English
online: opportunities and pitfalls How do you become a better English teacher?
Read more articles 226 9 23 5 2383 About the Voices Magazine Fresh
perspectives on education and culture from around the world. Read more articles
Editor picks 30 October 2017 - 12:13 How to promote active learning in the
classroom 17 October 2017 - 16:30 How Mandarin Chinese is growing in schools in
England 11 October 2017 - 12:01 How to understand body language in different
cultures 10 October 2017 - 14:54 Five Erasmus+ facts you might not know about 04
October 2017 - 18:18 Should language teachers avoid global issues when teaching?
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Search How to help young English language learners love writing 226 9 23 5
2383 By Roseli Serra 23 August 2014 - 15:48 'We don't often use pen and paper,
yet this is what we expect of young learners.' Photo © Karen, licensed under CC BY
2.0 and adapted from the original. Roseli Serra , winner of the TeachingEnglish
monthly blog award, writes about how to encourage children learning English to love
writing in English too. One of the biggest challenges teachers have faced in the
classroom has to do with writing. Usually students do not want to write, because
they have never been encouraged to do it or to enjoy it. It’s worth remembering that
most people never write anything of any length in their daily lives, or anything using
a pen and paper, or without using a spellchecker. But this is often what we ask our
students to do in English. Writing, like all other aspects of language, is
communicative. In real life, we may write e-mails, lists, notes, cover letters, reports,
curricula, assignments, or essays. Some of us write articles or work on blogs,
forums and websites. All of these writing tasks have a communicative purpose and a
target audience. In the English language classroom, writing often lacks that
communicative purpose. However, there are ways to make the writing we do with
learners more communicative and pleasurable. I have noticed that early on, children
in language schools often enjoy the beginning stages of writing, when they are
learning the letters or characters. Literate young learners are very willing to work at
tracing letters and words, and are eager to learn how to print their names, the
names of their brothers, sisters, pets, toys and classroom objects. It’s this interest in
writing that we want to maintain as our students continue to develop their English
writing skills. Yet writing can be a challenging skill for children to learn. By its nature,
writing is often a solo activity, done silently, involving effort and taking a lot of time.
Writing well is difficult, even for very young learners. However, writing in any
language can be so much fun! So what can we do to help children retain their early
interest in writing, while they develop skills and confidence? First, students need a
basic foundation and understanding of the spoken language in order to be able to
write in English. For example, they need to know how to identify and talk about
objects and people in English in order to write something about them. Age plays a
crucial role in what we teach and how we teach it. A young learner class is different
from an adult or teenager class in terms of the learners’ needs, the language
competencies emphasised, and the cognitive skills developed. Let’s focus on what
we call ‘late young learners’, who are usually ten to 12 years old. The characteristics
of this group of students are: • They have longer attention spans, but are still
children • They either take learning more seriously, or are very easily bored and
distracted • They possess some world knowledge and are technologically
skilled/oriented • They are more willing to co-operate in groups and pairs • They
have already developed social, motor and intellectual skills • Although they are still
developing their learning strategies, they make use of them in order to learn more
effectively. *(Adapted from Ersöz, A. (2007). Teaching English to young learners.
Ankara: EDM Publishing) Here are seven activities that I have found helped my
students to enjoy writing. 1. Creative writing This might be used as an ice breaker,
or to consolidate vocabulary learnt in a previous lesson. It consists of giving a
student a word and ask them to write an acrostic – a poem that spells out the
original word with the first letter of each line. For example: ‘Classroom Objects’ (this
poem was written by a 12-year-old student) Paint Elephants Not Cry Intelligent Life
As a follow-up activity, students can read their poem to the class if they want to. The
students could vote for the best poem and the winner could get a chocolate. 2. Peer
writing This is an activity children love doing, as they are allowed to work in pairs.
They need to already know how to use the past simple and past continuous tenses
to tell a story. First, you give the students a sheet of paper with two columns of
sentences about a young couple who met years ago. Depending on the children’s
age, the number of sentences should vary between eight and ten in each
column. Next, you ask them to match the sentences in the first column with the
sentences in the second one. There’s no wrong or right answer. Here’s an example:
(1) Mark and Sue met / when Susan was 23 (2) They had twins /and got married (3)
They started a new school for children / after the war (4) They fell in love / in France
After matching the sentences, the students write a story using the verb tense given
in the sentences. As a follow-up, pairs of children can compare their stories and see
the differences and similarities between them. In the next class, the teacher can
show how to correct errors by writing any mistakes (anonymously) on the board and
asking students to correct them. 3. Journal diaries and storytelling Journal
diaries have been a great help to my students’ writing. We use a web tool
called livetyping and the Edmodo platform, and the students can also use paper
and pencil. I respond to every single piece of their writing without correcting them,
but I also encourage them to reflect on mistakes. Most of my students have
responded very positively, and are now much more comfortable about exposing
their ideas. The journal diaries students post on Edmodo should only be visible to
the teacher, not other students, because the entries may be more personal.
Students can make up the end of a story I have posted. As they write on the
livetyping platform, everyone can see the story and make comments. In the
classroom we choose two of their posts and work on correcting errors. See how it
works here . Another option is to ask the students retell a true story using the target
language and vocabulary we have studied in a specific lesson. Here’s an example
about the death of John Lennon. 4. Co-operative writing Padlet is a collaborative
web tool that students love! Videos, images and songs can be uploaded on a virtual
multimedia wall. I’ve used it recently to get children involved in writing classroom
contracts as well as writing about their likes and dislikes . It’s a very rich tool as the
writing can be done co-operatively in class, and the students can also edit their work
at home. 5. Using word clouds and songs This is an activity children are very fond
of, but it is most effective for students aged 12 and up. First, create a word cloud
using words from a song, other words with similar sounds, and some verbs. Print the
word cloud and hand out copies to the class. A good word cloud generator is ABCya
. Next, play the song – either a YouTube video or just the song itself – and ask the
children to circle the words they hear. One song I used recently was ‘When I was
your man’ by Bruno Mars, as it is a song that both boys and girls like very
much. Then hand out the lyrics for the students to check in pairs, and ask them to
write an email together, based on the song and using the verbs given. 6. Cartoons
Another technique I’ve tried with my ten- to 12-year-old students is to create a
cartoon using a web tool called Pixton. First, I showed the children a cartoon on the
screen of the interactive white board with speech bubbles and no words. Then I
printed out the cartoon, gave copies to the children, and asked them to create
speeches for the cartoon characters using new vocabulary. As a follow-up activity,
the students wrote stories about the characters and shared them online with the
group. Here’s an example . 7. Book projects Bookr is an interesting web tool,
especially for presenting projects – for example, for an oral presentation in the
classroom on World Environment Day. It allows students to create and share their
own photobook by collating photos from Flickr and writing text to go with them. It is a
task to be done at home as it might be time-consuming, depending on the number of
pages the students want in their books. Here’s an example I created in class to
show my students how make their own books. Here’s another exciting book project,
in which students become authors. In a lesson about ‘best friends’, ten- and 11-
year-olds write a book called ‘Best friends come in all shapes and sizes’. Before
starting, the children learn ways to describe people, such as ‘She’s got blue eyes
and dark hair’. They also learn vocabulary on favourite toys, likes and dislikes, and
pets. For example: ‘She likes… she doesn’t like…’, ‘Her favourite toy is a/ an…’,
‘She’s got a pet…’, ‘Her pet’s name is…’, ‘It’s a dog/cat…’. After several lessons
working on the above structures, the children bring their best friends to school and
we take a picture of each child with his or her best friend. If that’s not possible, the
child brings a photo of himself or herself with a best friend. Guided by the teacher,
each child writes a little bit about their best friend such as, ‘My best friend is Ana.
She’s 11 years old. She’s tall. She’s got dark straight hair and brown eyes. She’s got
a pet, a dog called Simba. Her favourite toy is a video game. She’s got a bike but
she hasn’t got an iPad. She likes dancing ballet but she doesn’t like swimming. I
love my best friend’. The teacher collects the student’s writing and corrects all the
mistakes. Next, all the texts are typed and sent to a professional printing office to
make a real book. If this is not possible, it can still be done beautifully by hand. On a
set day, parents, families and friends come to the book launch, where the young
writers autograph their book and take pictures. Some final tips to encourage young
learners to write: • Make writing meaningful. Young writers can express themselves
about topics that are important to them. • Invite young writers to write freely, without
worrying about correctness. Children who are just learning to write can build
language structures and expression, even if they use imaginary spellings and
strange punctuation. • Ask young learners to write about their own lives and
experiences. Whether it’s a holiday, or their experience with their grandparents, or
any other experience outside the classroom, young writers write best when they
write about something they know well. • Engage young writers in short bursts of
writing. For children under the ages of eight or nine, it’s very tiring to hold a pencil or
piece of chalk, shape the letters, and remain focused on the message to be
communicated. Writing often, for brief periods, is much more effective than trying to
write for a long period of time. • Encourage writers to keep journals or diaries.
Writing is one way of structuring thought. Journal writing is important because it’s
not public. It can represent, for the writer, a chance to write in the most free way. •
Give writers the chance to revise. It’s vitally important to encourage students to write
freely, in their own words, and to try to cover all their thoughts on a topic. (Revision
is more important for students over the ages of eight or nine, who have begun to
write more naturally to express themselves.) • Always let your students know you
are proud of their writing! If children notice you are reading what they write, they will
certainly feel much more motivated. Last but not least, don’t forget to write them a
note of encouragement. Join our TeachingEnglish Facebook community for further
tips, resources and discussions. You might also be interested in: Teaching English
online: opportunities and pitfalls How do you become a better English teacher?
Read more articles 226 9 23 5 2383 About the Voices Magazine Fresh
perspectives on education and culture from around the world. Read more articles
Editor picks 30 October 2017 - 12:13 How to promote active learning in the
classroom 17 October 2017 - 16:30 How Mandarin Chinese is growing in schools in
England 11 October 2017 - 12:01 How to understand body language in different
cultures 10 October 2017 - 14:54 Five Erasmus+ facts you might not know about 04
October 2017 - 18:18 Should language teachers avoid global issues when teaching?
Visit our Teaching English website for teaching materials British Council Worldwide
About us Facts about the British Council History Our organisation How we work
Transparency Management and structure Our people Press office Policy insight and
research Where we work Work with us Jobs Partner with us Research Current
research consultancy opportunities Connect with us Twitter Facebook LinkedIn
YouTube Terms of use Accessibility Privacy and cookies Press office Modern
Slavery Act Site map © 2017 British Council The United Kingdom's international
organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities. A registered charity:
209131 (England and Wales) SC037733 (Scotland). ShareThis Copy and Paste