How to use…

… stories

Ken and Karen’s stories can be exploited in many different ways. It is worth reading The Primary English Teacher’s Guide, by Jean Brewster and Gail Ellis, if you want to know about aspects such as: why use stories in class?, criteria for selecting storybooks, reading or telling stories and storytelling techniques. You can also find more tips from them in another of their books, Tell it again!

Here I’m going to focus on something that I came across the other day and I found fascinating. I’m talking about Kamishibai. For those like me who didn’t have any idea of their existence, take a look at this post which will help you learn more about what we’re talking about: Kamishibai

You can buy the stage through this web page. But I prefer the idea of recycling a box to have my own. A wooden box like those given in vegetable shops could work. Once the stage is ready it’s time to think of things like: how to organize the classroom, if you want to  tell, read or listen to the story as I mentioned above. Everyone has their own way and every story demands different things, for these reasons you will find different ideas in Ken and Karen’s lesson plans.

… predecodable books

I have yet to find anybody or any coursebook using predecodable books in the ESL classroom, that’s not to say that they don’t exist, just that I have yet to see them. As I believe that very young learners and young learners learn language in a similar way to natives of the same age, I find these books really useful. For this reason, I have included a predecodable book for each of Ken and Karen’s stories.

To know how to make them just follow these steps:

1. Print page 1 and then page 2 on the opposite side of the same piece of paper.

2. Print page 3 and then page 4 on the opposite side.

3. Place page 4 on top of page 2.

4. Fold, check and staple.

The predecodable books can help children learn to read in English. Children can take them at home and practise there or leave them in the classroom library. Once every child is able to read the books, we can extend them by adding adjectives such as colours or sizing. At the end of the year all the storybooks can be bound and used during the summer or next year to consolidate their knowledge.

… flashcards

There are sets of flashcards available in many bookshops but I find much more interesting to make your own. You can make them on your own or involve your students. You can draw them, use children’s drawings, coloring pages or photos from a magazine. When involving your students, they are obviously more engaged, will be more willing to use them later on and the drawings will be more familiar to them. Another advantage is that we can personalized them by using the same colours as the items in the class. We can also decide if we want to have the word beneath the picture, have only the picture or have the word behind. The words can be classiffied by colours such as blue for verbs, red for nouns or use the same colour for a specific lexical set.

Once flashcards are bought or made the question is how to use them. We can use them to introduce, revise or consolidate vocabulary. We could also play memory games, what’s missing and so on. Something that I have recently discovered is to use small flashcards in a pocket chart. Students can match the word and the picture, the picture and the colour or shape and so on. There is a wonderful example of their use here.

… picture dictionary

Dictionaries are one of the most overlooked resources and tools that can be easily found in a class. Most of the time children are reluctant to use them, even if they have a small version lost and unknown the back of their coursebook or even at the beginning of each unit. I find dictionaries extremely useful, not only to make them more autonomous and independent learners but also to avoid translation and for me, as a teacher, to have more time and less interruptions when helping some specific students while the rest are on a task.

That’s why I find so important to involve students in the process. Every Ken and Karen story comes with its own picture dictionary and here are some ways to use them:

- Cut and paste. In this case we give each student a copy of the dictionary and a copy of the pictures. They cut the pictures and have to match them with the corresponding word. It could be turned into a picture dictation, where students listen to the word, cut the picture and paste it on the correct place.

If students aren’t yet familiar with these words, you can have an A3 copy of the same and demostrate on the whiteboard while they do it at the same time.

- Cut from a magazine and paste. Here we give students magazines such as supermarket brochures and they have to find the picture, cut it out and paste it on the right place. This way, they make their own dictionary and we also test that they have learnt the words.

- Draw the picture. Their drawings will make a wonderful dictionary, we just have to keep in mind that not every child will be able to draw a recognizable drawing.

Let’s remember if children are involved in the process they will be more willing to use it!