Using the Internet with Younger Learners

More and more teachers are using technology in the classroom and it's something more and more used nowadays. These devices are often most effective when connected to the internet, which offers a vast amount of resources that cannot be found in traditional resource books (or maybe is cheaper, or less harming with the enviroment).

 Up-to-the-minute videos, songs, and educational games provide authentic language models and make classes more varied, relevant and attractive to younger learners. The internet also offers learners the opportunity to practise their language skills on their own devices, encouraging learner autonomy.

But while the internet is a wonderful teaching and learning tool, it can pose great risks if not used safely. These can be related to: content (young people viewing age-inappropriate websites); conduct (children posing as older than their real age; 'sexting' – an exchange of sexual messages or images, or placing images of other children online); and contact (including targeting children through chat rooms or social networking sites). If not educated about these risks, young people may put themselves in difficult, even dangerous, situations.

It's important that teachers know what to do in this situation. It’s definitely worth checking with the school authorities what the e-safety policy is, what procedures are in place, and who to contact in case of an emergency. If there’s no such policy, it’s worth looking up local child protection organisations that can help in such situations. It’s also worth talking to parents about internet safety, since quite often they are not aware of the risks at all. 

The most important thing is making sure that learners, when using computers, tablets or mobile phones in class, know what websites they should be looking at and keep to them. Careful monitoring of students as they do their work is essential. This might mean re-organising the room in a way that allows you to stand behind students as they work. In other words, you need to be able to see what they can see.

Finally, talk to the children about internet safety regularly, and if assigning homework that requires using the internet, we can make a list of websites that are safe to use and make these available to parents.

The Pygmalion Effect and the Power of Positive Expectations

It's a proven psychological fact: through something that has come to be known as "The Pygmalion Effect," people will perform according to the expectations others have for them. Limited expectations bring limited results, high expectations lead to exceptional results.  

In my opinion, we can teach our staff how to tap into the positive effects of the Pygmalion Effect with our students, improving outcomes and morale in the process. 


Teachers and Administrators will

• Understand how positive and negative expectations can create self-fulfilling prophecies.
• Develop the skills to positively influence students and coworkers.
• Raise the expectations they have for others.
• Believe more in their ability to positively influence and lead others.

• Never forecast failure in the classroom. If you know a test is particularly difficult, tell your students that the test is difficult but that you are sure that they will do well if they work hard to prepare.
• Do not participate in gripe sessions about students. Faculty members who gripe about students are establishing a culture of failure for their students, their department and their own teaching.
• Establish high expectations. Students achieve more when faculty have higher expectations. When you give students a difficult assignment, tell them, “I know you can do this.” If you genuinely believe that your students cannot perform the assignment, postpone the assignment and re-teach the material.

CAROL READ: IDEAS FOR USING FLASHCARDS

1 Mime the flashcard

Hold up flashcards in turn and say the names. Children do a mime in response, eg they can pretend to eat a particular food (if you are using food flashcards), imitate a particular animal (animal flashcards) or put on clothes (clothes flashcards). Then do mimes of different flashcards yourself or invite individual or pairs of children to take turns to do this. Children watch and call out the names.

2 Flashcard instructions

Stick a set of flashcards on the walls around the classroom. Divide the class into groups. Give each group instructions in turn, eg Group 1. Walk to the elephant. Group two. Jump to the lion and children respond.

3 Repeat if it’s true

Stick a set of flashcards on the board. Point to one of the flashcards and say the name. If you have said the correct name, children repeat it. If not, they stay silent. This activity can be made more challenging if you say sentences, eg It’s a red tomato.

4 Guess the flashcard

Stick a set of flashcards on the board. Secretly choose one and encourage children to guess which it is by asking you questions, eg Is it red? No, it isn’t. / Is it blue? Yes, it is. Invite individual children to the front of the class in turn and get them to secretly choose a flashcard while the others guess in the same way.

5 Flashcard charade

Divide the class into groups of three or four. Give each group a flashcard, making sure that other groups don’t see. Explain that children must think of a way to mime their flashcard. Give them a minute or two to prepare this. Each group then takes turns to do their mimes to the rest of the class and guess each other’s flashcards.

6 Ball game

Have a soft ball ready for this activity. Stick 8-10 flashcards on the board. Children stand in a circle. Hold up the ball, say One, two, three … and name one of the flashcards on the board, eggrasshopper! as you throw the ball to a child in the circle. The child who catches the ball repeats the procedure and names another flashcard. The game continues in the same way until all the flashcards on the board have been named.

7 Threes

Sit in a circle with the children and divide them into two teams. Lay three of the flashcards out in front of you and elicit or remind children of the names. Then turn the flashcards over so that the pictures are hidden. Change the postions of the flashcards on the floor so that the children can no longer easily identify them. Invite a child from one of the teams to name one of the three flashcards. This child then tries to find this flashcard by choosing one of them and turning it over to reveal the picture. If it is not the flashcard they named, the three flashcards are turned over and moved around again and a child from the other team has a turn in the same way. If it is the flashcard they named, they keep it for their team. You then need to introduce another flashcard to make up the three in the game. The game continues in the same way with the children on each team taking turns to name and turn over the flashcards. The team with most flashcards at the end of the game are the winners.

8 Team game

Have ready two sets of word cards for the same flashcards for this game. Divide the class into two teams. Stick flashcards (as many as there are children in each team) on the board or on the walls around the classroom. Give one word card to each child in both teams. When you call out the name of one of the flashcards, the child in each team who has the corresponding word card gets up and goes to touch the flashcard and hold up their word card as fast as they can. The child who gets there first each time wins a point for their team.

9 Board pelmanism

Use 8-10 flashcards and word cards for this activity. Stick the flashcards in jumbled order on one side of the board, facing inwards so that children cannot see the pictures, and number them. Do the same with the word cards on the other side of the board. Invite one child to choose a flashcard, eg Number two, please! and, as you turn it round to show the picture, to say what it is, eg (It is a) hat. Then invite the same child to choose a word card in the same way. If the flashcard and word card chosen by the child match, remove them from the board. If not, turn them both round so that they are in exactly the same position but facing inwards again. The game proceeds with different children taking turns to choose a flashcard and word card in the same way, trying to match them from memory until they are all removed from the board.

10 Classify the words

Draw two or three large circles on the board and write the topic words at the top of each one, eg animals, food, clothes. Children take turns to come to the front of the class, either individually or in pairs, read a word card that you give them and stick it in the correct circle.

PERSONAL OPINION

I totally agree with Carol Read when she says that flashcards are the teacaher's best friends. I love uisng flashcards in the most different situations in order to teach / revise vocabulary. We can use them to play the memoy game, when singing (to highlight the words) and even to tell stories. And children always love them.

CAROL READ: THE SECRET OF WORKING WITH CHILDREN

I watcher careful this video and I would like to highlight the six key ingredients for teaching which she mentions and comprises in one word: SECRET.

S - Sensory Acuity. Any teacher needs to develop his/herability to read children’s signals. Being able to notice and decode children’s reactions may be very helpful.
E – Emotions. Emotional intelligence can also be a precious tool. Adopting the position of an observer and trying to see a situation as a whole can anticipate and prevent problems. She emphasizes that it is vital to step in children’s shoes.
C- Communication. The importance of body language and eye-contact should also be taken into account. She advises us to avoid pointing and pleading, for instance. She also refers to the “deadly stare” technique. I usually use it with my older students and it usually works.
R- Rapport/Relationship. The importance of valuing, praising our students, establishing mutual trust and understanding.
E – Evaluation. We should be constantly evaluating our own performance. I totally agree. Reflective practice needs to be a constant. We should plan, do, analyse, review and plan again.
T – Tactical talk. Giving children the possibility to choose between activities. If they feel they are choosing, they will feel more enthusiastic about it.