Teaching young learners: all just fun and games?

Jill Leighton
Children sat at desks in a classroom, with one in the middle smiling with her hand up
Reading time: 5 minutes

We want lots of fun in our lessons, with a good balance of activities and games with strong educational value. But in my opinion, today’s young learners need more than just fun and games to stay motivated. Fun and games can quickly become meaningless and boring for some students.

How do we create fun and engaging lessons for young learners aged 6-14?

  • Have a strong relationship with your students. Know about their natural talents, their weaker points and where they are in their development.
  • Encourage them to be active learners and engage them in learning that is meaningful to all of them. E.g. through project work.
  • Provide opportunities for students to use technology and develop success skills. E.g. collaboration, communication, critical thinking, creativity and self-learning.

Most teachers agree that we have to assume the responsibility of preparing students for life as well as helping them to acquire a language – and this is what I aim to demonstrate in this blog. Using , I want to demonstrate how you can learn more about your students and care for individual needs in one classroom.

The students will also learn about themselves and their classmates. They will acquire vocabulary and language (at their level) in a dynamic way and create a project to explore their interests and demonstrate their talents. They will use technology and develop their success skills. Assessment will be fun and engaging. I hope you will be able to adapt the ideas and put them into practice with children aged 6-14.

Howard Gardner’s Model of Multiple Intelligences

prompts us to ask: How is this child intelligent? He identified eight different types of intelligence which guide the way students learn:

  • Verbal-Linguistic Intelligence (Word Smart)
  • Logical-Mathematical Intelligence (Maths Smart)
  • Spatial Intelligence (Picture Smart)
  • Musical Intelligence (Music Smart)
  • Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence (Body Smart)
  • Naturalistic-Environmentalist Intelligence (Nature Smart)
  • Interpersonal Intelligence (People Smart)
  • Intrapersonal Intelligence (Self-Smart)
  • (He later went on to identify Existential Intelligence – Life Smart, and Pedagogical Intelligence -Teacher Smart)

Lesson 1: Outline the student’s learning goals

Explain to the students that they are going to learn about Howard Gardner’s Model of Multiple Intelligences and that you want them to achieve learning goals on completion of the project. Write the goals on a poster and discuss them with your students. Take a digital photo of the poster to use during the assessment.

Student learning goals – you will be able to:

  • Identify different intelligences and what they mean. Name eight different intelligences you have
  • Communicate ideas clearly through a project to demonstrate your talents and interests
  • Use your success skills more effectively.

Tip: Video parts of lesson 1, especially discussion of the learning goals, to use as part-assessment and reflection on completion of the project.

What do you know about the Multiple Intelligences? How are you smart?

  • Ask children what they know about multiple intelligences. Teach key language and vocabulary as necessary, depending on level.
  • Ask, “What does it mean be intelligent?” (They will probably say, good grades, be good at maths, English, reading, writing, computers...)
  • Tell them being intelligent or smart (get the younger children to repeat the word smart several times) isn’t only about getting good grades. Ask them to think of more ways to be smart.
  • Elicit the eight ways to be smart according to Gardner. (You may need to mime). E.g. mime playing the piano or clap a rhythm to elicit Music Smart.
  • Discuss what the different intelligences mean. (E.g. Word Smart (Linguistic Intelligence): you like reading, writing or speaking, you are probably good at languages…)
  • Teach career vocabulary associated with the different intelligences. (E.g. Word Smart: journalist, teacher, lawyer, editor, TV announcer, web editor.)

Lesson 2: Find out your smarts quiz

Tell students they are going to do a quiz to discover how they are smart. Model each stage of the activity and do the quiz with them to find out about your own strengths. Give each student a piece of paper.

  • Take your paper and show the students how to fold it into eight sections, then unfold it and draw lines along the folds to make a grid.
  • Write the different smarts in each section. (Use small handwriting to leave room to illustrate each smart with a picture).
  • Give a picture dictation to illustrate each smart. Here are some examples:

Word Smart:Draw a dictionary and children reading, writing and speaking.

Logic/Number Smart: Draw sums on a computer, a scientist with test tube.

Music Smart: Draw children singing and playing musical instruments.

Body Smart: Draw children playing a sport, dancing or cooking.

Nature Smart:Draw trees, animals, insects, child watering a plant.

Spatial/Picture Smart: Draw children drawing, painting or taking photos and a pilot in a plane.

People Smart:Draw a child helping or leading a group or a group of children holding hands.

Self-Smart: Draw children keeping a journal, researching on a computer, or meditating.

Encourage students to order their smarts from 1-8. For example, if you love music, write number 1 in the Music Smart section and continue to 8 in order of preference. (You may wish to model this first and order your smarts from 1-8 and then encourage the children to order their smarts.)

After the quiz

  • Encourage students to compare and discuss their results. Collect the papers and make notes about each student’s results. This will help you reach all your students when planning activities.
  • Explain that we have all the intelligences in different degrees and that all of the intelligences are equal (no intelligence is better than another). Also point out that it is important to know our strengths in order to help in all subjects. (E.g. a music smart student who finds maths challenging may want to sing multiplication tables). Remind students that we usually use several intelligences to do something and we can explore and develop all our smarts.

Tip: Video lesson 2 to use as part of assessment.

Lesson 3: Beginning the project

Encourage the students to create a project for enjoyment. Explain that you want them to collaborate in groups that share the same smarts and interests and using their creativity you want them come up with an interesting topic to explore. (Remind students to concentrate on developing their success skills when they are working with others and mention that you will also be monitoring this as part of the assessment).

Organize the students into groups of no more than five students in each. Give students time to brainstorm in their groups and come up with the best topic for the project, using their critical thinking skills. (E.g. Picture Smart students may decide to create a project about a famous artist, such as Salvador Dali).

You may wish to give each student a (Know, Want-to-know, and Learned) to complete during the project process, asking questions such as: What do you know? What do you want to know? What have you learned?

Lesson 4: Planning the project

Inform students about the timing of the project. Encourage each group to make a project mind map, which will encourage them to be more creative and organized.

Remind all the groups to keep the following questions in mind:

  • What are you going to do/make? (Presentation, PowerPoint, website, video, posters.)
  • How will you research it? (Internet, tech tools, library.)
  • How will you delegate responsibilities?
  • How will you check that your audience has understood the message of your project? What questions will you ask?

Decide on how many lessons are needed to prepare the project and how much will be done in school or at home, depending on the age groups and timing.

Encourage the students to share their work with the rest of the class (or in assembly.)

Tip: Video the different groups sharing their work.

Can assessment also be fun and engaging?

Yes, it can; here are some tips and suggestions.

  • Show the videos you have recorded and ask the students to compare and contrast their knowledge in Lesson 1 and how it developed over the lessons. Encourage them to observe and comment on their success skills.
  • Display the photo of the Student Learning Goals poster from Lesson 1. Get the students to self-assess and decide whether they have achieved the goals that were set in Lesson 1. (You may wish to give the students three small pieces of colored paper: red to represent I understand quite well, orange to represent I understand well and green to represent I understand very well). Ask: Can you identify the different intelligences and say what they mean? Encourage the students to hold up a colored piece of paper according to their understanding. (Make a mental note of all red pieces of paper to be ready to give extra help to those students). Check understanding by getting several students to answer the question.
  • Get the children to reflect on the learning experience. What have they learned about the different intelligences? How can they develop weaker points using their strengths to help them? Can they use all eight intelligences inside and outside school? Did they manage to get along well with their classmates? Did they communicate the message of their project so that the audience understood?
  • Give individual feedback to each student. E.g. congratulate them on their attitude and effort or identify areas for improvement: “You managed to use vocabulary and language effectively when you shared your project, we understood your message perfectly.” Or “You need to work on being more collaborative.” “You weren’t on task during the project.” “How do you think you can improve that?”
  • Ask students to give you feedback on the activities they enjoyed. Get them to draw happy and sad face cards. Go through all the activities and get the students to show a happy or sad face according to whether or not they liked the activity. E.g. say “Did you like the ‘Find out your smarts’ quiz?” and ask them to hold up the happy or sad face depending on whether they liked the activity or not.

Create fun lessons to engage all your students keeping this model in mind: traditional activities such as short fun activities and games + Howard Gardner’s model of Multiple Intelligences + PBL (Project Based Learning) + success skills + meaningful assessment. Enjoy the results with your students.

How the Global Scale of English can help

TheGlobal Scale of English (GSE) Learning Objectives for provides ready-made learning objectives that can help with planning curriculums and lesson and benchmarking learners’ progress. They are great for young learners because they describe language functions in a granular way, enabling educators to give their learners credit for small achievements. They also clearly show the language functions to target next in order to take learners to the next level.

Explore our GSE teaching resources

Read our blog posts 'Young learners of English deserve more' and 'Effective classroom management routines for very young learners'.

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    Reducing exam day stress

    By Amy Malloy

    What are the origins of exam-day stress?

    There’s no doubt about it – exams are scary. But why exactly is this? What is it about an exam scenario that stresses us out and how can we make it feel okay?

    To answer these questions, we’re going to have to take a trip back in time and look at how our ancestors evolved their abstract thinking skills. At the same time, we’ll look at how mindfulness can actively help shift the way we think about exams.

    About 70,000 years ago, or thereabouts, a critical development happened in how the human brain processed experiences.

    Over a relatively short time (in evolutionary terms), scientists believe we stopped simply experiencing primal urges (safety/hunger/tiredness etc.) and responding to them.

    Instead, we started to be able to imagine, analyze and believe in things that didn’t exist. This meant not only could our brains respond to the threat of a real predator in front of us, but also to the perceived or imagined threat of a predator. This shift had really interesting consequences for our future relationship to threat.

    Developing imaginations also meant we started to believe in the same things as our peer groups. As a result, if a member of the tribe stopped behaving in a way that supported the tribe’s survival, other members might start to doubt their usefulness as a member of the community.

    At this time, social isolation meant no share of the food and no protection against predators. Inclusion was directly linked to survival. Essentially the physiological consequences of not meeting societal expectations were the same as coming face-to-face with a lion: fight or flight.

    Why is fight or flight mode a problem for exam performance?

    Fast forward to the present day and the context of English language exams. Exams are a type of societal expectation: a standard of language proficiency which a student is required to meet to prove their usefulness in a community who speaks that language.

    Thinking about it this way, it’s no wonder we can experience stress and panic at the thought of an exam or in the exam room itself. In evolutionary terms, an exam = a lion or the possibility of social exclusion!

    Fight or flight mode is designed to help us overcome or escape danger as quickly as possible.

    When fight or flight is activated, our brain shuts down the bodily functions it doesn’t need to survive. This includes digestion, language creation, creative and strategic thinking, writing, and deeper breathing.

    Unfortunately, some of these are key to performing well in a language exam!

    that, especially in an exam course context, “extremely high stress levels[…] can affect your cognition, negatively impacting your memory and ability to complete a task. Over time, chronically high stress levels can also impair your ability to form new memories, so high stress levels all semester long could impact your final exam performance later.”

    This means that high stress levels in the exam make it hard to perform at one’s best, and stress in anticipation of the exam can mean that the content is not learned properly in the first place.

    What can teachers do to help?

    Ultimately, we want to make the exam scenario seem safe. When our mind and body do not perceive danger, they will allow the ‘rest and digest’ functions to become active and allow our performance to flow.

    There will of course be some nerves. But the key is to help the student stay in that sweet spot of clear thinking before the stress takes over and turns into panic.

    Here are three ways we can help:

    1. Practice mindful breathing

    Practice some simple mindful breathing with your students. Mindfulness refers to the awareness that we find by focusing consciously on the present moment, objectively, with compassion and without judgment.

    It takes us back into the physical reality of the present moment and out of anxious thought cycles, which can make our stress spiral out of control. Practicing regularly ahead of the exam will help build up neural connections in the brain around the areas that help us relax and .

    The following straightforward routine can be used both regularly at the start of class and by the student in the exam itself if they feel panic rising:

    • STOP: Close your eyes. Take a moment to notice the physical sensation of the chair beneath you and the floor underneath your feet. Notice the sounds around you in the room and allow them simply to flow in and out without needing to follow them.
    • BREATHE: Focus your attention gently on your breath going in and out of your nose at the tip of the nostrils. Count ten breaths in and out, seeing if you can notice something new about each one. If you feel panicky, allow the breath out to continue a little longer than the breath in.
    • WATCH: Become aware of your thoughts and allow them to simply come and go, like clouds across the sky. Notice if you are holding on to something from the past or striving towards something in the future. Allow these to simply release and take your attention back to the breath in the present moment. Count another ten breaths. Then open your eyes and come back into the room.

    2. Familiarize your students with the exam scenario

    Make the exam scenario as familiar as possible in advance. Anything you can do to make the exam conditions appear less threatening ahead of exam day will be of great benefit.

    This may be as simple as making conditions surrounding regular progress assessments as close to the main exam as possible, so it is less strange on the day. If you have control over the exam day itself, make this as low pressure as possible.

    3. Help students develop a growth mindset

    Foster a growth mindset with your students by using the word ‘yet’ with them. Encourage them to replace ‘I can’t do it’ with ‘I can’t do it yet’. This simple word takes them out of comparison mode with where they think they should be in terms of language ability and helps them stay focused on where they are, reducing self-pressure.

    All of the above strategies are designed to take away the threat of a lion in the exam room when the day comes.

    Wishing your students all the very best for their exam preparation and good luck!

  • A teacher holding books in a classroom

    Mindfulness for teachers: managing expectations over the holidays

    By Amy Malloy

    Mindfulness and your routine

    In the run-up to the holidays, it is common to feel like your routine has completely broken down, especially when you’re not giving classes or working at school. The holidays also often bring with them lots of people, family, and excitement. That sometimes means we also experience fluctuating emotions, stress and the feeling that everything should be perfect.

    On top of this, shops and social media are filled with advertising – and there’s definitely more ‘stuff’ to buy. In addition, we can see messages telling us we need to feel ‘merry’ and ‘bright’ wherever we look. Even the popular greeting, ‘Merry Christmas’, can sometimes feel less of a greeting and more of an instruction.

    Sometimes it feels like the people around us expect us to always feel happy and joyful over the holiday season. This is fine if we do feel merry, but we will always have ups and downs. If you don’t feel happy, for whatever reason, it can feel even harder than it might at times where there is less expectation all around us.

    Overcoming the challenge

    Finding a way to introduce mindfulness into the holiday season can be a wonderful way for us to understand our emotions at this time of year. It will help you think about your expectations and let you find a moment to pause to accept whatever the reality actually is.

    Here are some quick and easy ways to find some ‘you’ time and keep checking in with how you’re feeling. These are also tips you can try with children in the classroom and for yourself at home to keep yourself on track.

    3-minute body scan

    Find a quiet moment. This may be in the few minutes after you wake up or go to bed, during break time, or even at the start of a lesson.

    • Notice the contact of your feet with the floor. Notice the sounds around you in the room.
    • Take three deep breaths and notice how they feel.
    • Scan down the body in your mind from the top of your head all the way down to your toes. Observe what you notice about your body with an air of curiosity – look for any tension, discomfort or comfort. Also, notice if there are any expectations you have of that day or moment. See if you can simply notice them and set them aside. This curiosity helps us stay detached from what we notice so we can just observe.
    • Take three more deep breaths, and carry on.

    2-minute notebook

    Writing something down can be a wonderfully mindful exercise. Have a stack of post-its or a little notebook on your desk or bedside table. You could encourage your students to do the same.

    1. Pick a point in your day. It could be at the start of each day, the start of each lesson, or just before bed. Each day, at that time, take a moment to write down three:

    • good things that have happened in your day
    • things that felt challenging
    • things you feel grateful and thankful for.

    2. Review your notes every now and again during the holiday period. This will give you a sense of your shifts of mood and energy that might have occurred.

    Noticing something you feel grateful for has been shown to .

    1-minute cupboard pause

    When things feel over-stimulating, find a quiet space just for a minute. Even if it’s in a cupboard!

    STOP: notice the contact of your feet with the floor.
    BREATHE: take ten deep breaths, breathing in for a count of four and out for a count of six.
    WATCH: watch each breath coming and going from the nose or chest or belly. Observe what your thoughts and feelings are doing. Allow them to sit without needing to respond.

    Then head back into the area you were in.

    I hope these tips help you to navigate the festive season without expectation and with curiosity for what each moment holds along the way.

    Remember that the holiday days you celebrate are really just normal days. It’s simply that expectations have changed, and what’s more, everyone’s expectations will be different.

    Simply taking time to notice this can make a massive difference to the pressure we put on ourselves. Releasing this pressure can even lead to more enjoyment overall – so why don’t you try it and see?

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    Understanding and managing technostress

    By Amy Malloy

    What is technostress?

    Technostress affects people in different ways. I resonate with Chiapetta’s (2017) definition:

    “Technostress is a syndrome that occurs when the person, subjected to information overload and continuous contact with most digital devices, develops a state of stress.”

    This explanation isn’t limited to any particular symptoms. However, most of us can relate to being over-exposed to technological devices – especially in the past year. Consequently, I imagine many people have experienced some symptoms of technostress as a result.

    What are the symptoms of technostress?

    While the symptoms of technostress differ, there are a number of common experiences. Perhaps you obsessively check social media, or struggle to focus on everyday tasks. Or maybe you feel demotivated and low in mood. You might find yourself overly focused on getting the latest technology. Or you might be actively avoiding or feeling anxious about using technology.

    Why should we be concerned about technostress?

    People are adaptable, it’s part of our biology, but if change happens too quickly, we experience symptoms of stress. And, in our modern, continuously busy culture, it can be easy to assume something is wrong with us if we feel we can’t cope with technology. It can feel like we’re failing because we’re not focusing or achieving enough. We might also feel stupid for not understanding how a piece of software works.

    In response, we need to find ways to relieve that stress and return to a more restful state.

    Tips to prevent and manage technostress

    1. Switch off – This may be hard to do with the demands of life but sometimes, just turning your devices off and stepping away from technology is the best approach. Do something to pull you away from the information overload, like a walk in nature or reading a fictional book. Something that pulls you away from life’s goings-on.
    2. Limit your exposure – If you can’t switch off completely for whatever reason, then maybe rationing your exposure to devices is key. Time and limit your time on devices, taking regular breaks away. If you struggle to pull yourself away, there are apps and device functions that can restrict access for you.
    3. Only use with a purpose – Before you start using technology, ask yourself: “What am I using this for?”. Study? Research? Or is it just out of boredom? If you haven’t got a set aim or goal, then you are likely to mindlessly scroll and get pulled into the vast information overload of social media and the web. Try to avoid this by having a set aim/goal when using technology.