5 essentials every child needs when you're teaching English

Jeanne Perrett
Two parents sat with their two children, writing in a workbook togeher

The educational choices available to children are evolving rapidly with apps, online courses, digital games, recordings and videos becoming easily accessible. However, amidst this technological advancement, human evolution has not suddenly accelerated, and the primary aim for teachers remains unchanged - helping children make sense of the world and leaving their mark on it.

Here are five essential ways we can achieve that for every child, regardless of their circumstances, whether it's teaching English or fostering everyday learning and education.

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5 essentials every child needs when you're teaching English
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1. Attention

Paying attention to what we're doing is something that we have to re-learn. Very young childrenÌýpay great attention to the smallest of things. Washing their hands takes forever as they want toÌýfocus on the soap, doing up shoelaces can become a half-hour activity, or an interesting pebble on theÌýroad can make a quick trip to the shops a very long one.

So, what happens is that we then startÌýteaching children to hurry up. ‘Hurry up, come on, quickly, now - put on your coat NOW!’ are part ofÌýevery parent’s repertoire. And we have to do it because we know what the children don’t - that the bus won’t wait for us, that school starts at a certain time and that people will be kept waiting if we don’tÌýhurry up.

Therefore paying attention has to be re-learnt and we need to lead the way. We have to pay attention toÌýthe children, what they are saying and doing, and then we have to resist the temptation to do tooÌýmany things at once. And, most importantly, we have to give our children enough time to letÌýthings sink in.

2. Skills

We have so many ways of describing skills now; soft, hard, thinking, critical, communication - the listÌýgoes on. In some ways, these descriptors are useful as they make us more aware of the particularÌýskills of a child, but there is still often a gap between knowing how a child is skilled and how that canÌýbe useful to the child.

Let’s take a classic example; one of the main qualities people often think of asÌýconnected to nursing is a skill for caring, showing compassion and being a good communicator.ÌýYes, that is important, but the main skill needed to be a nurse is dealing competently, practicallyÌýand non-judgmentally with bodily fluids. So, yes, we absolutely need to make sure that we areÌýeducating our children to become skillful in various ways but we also need to think about how thoseÌýskills are transferable.

3. Knowledge

One of the most significant changes of the past 40 years is how we can access information. Gone are theÌýdays of one version of an encyclopedia or whatever your teacher knew; now we have online data,Ìýcrowdsourced reports, scores of different formats - everything is a click and a swipe away.

So how canÌýwe help with this? First, we have to get children interested enough in a topic to want to find thingsÌýout for themselves. Then we must guide them through what is true and what might not be. AndÌýthen our main job is showing them that they can add to the tree of knowledge. It’s constantly growing,Ìýand they can lengthen the branches, help fruit grow, and even dig up the roots and plant the treeÌýelsewhere.

4. Imagination

Thinking creatively, thinking ‘out of the box’ and seeing new possibilities can and must beÌýnurtured in our children. We can use our imagination in traditionally creative ways such as writing, artwork, music and drama, but perhaps even more importantly we can use it in ‘unseen’ ways. WeÌýcan unlearn banal responses and consider what we really think; in other words we can ‘think forÌýourselves’. Again this skill is needed more than ever when surrounded by seeminglyÌýwise thoughts in social media memes. The nature of memes is that they look definite, as if they areÌýtrue. They might be and they might not. We can decide when we use our critical and creativeÌýthinking skills.

We can use imagination to find solutions to problems and we can use it to make our own everyday realitiesÌýmore exciting and life-enhancing. Whatever we do, if we have a positive image of ourselves doingÌýit, the task becomes more meaningful and rewarding. And in a practical sense in the classroom, weÌýcan bring language learning to life. Imagining and play acting the situations where the language we areÌýlearning might be called for; in a restaurant, at an airport or meeting new friends. It can be a great method to teach English to kids, keeping them engaged and actively involved.Ìý

5. Support

Support comes in many forms. First concrete support, such as providing a desk and materials for children toÌýdo their homework. This is something that teachers need to be aware of; do the children have thatÌýat home? It’s not a question of finance - not everyone can afford a separate room and the space for aÌýdesk - but it is a question of realizing that a dedicated, quiet space is needed. For example a clearedÌýkitchen table at certain times of the day. It’s worth bearing this in mind if parents say theirÌýchildren never focus on homework. Look at the practicalities before any attitude issues.

The most important form of support we can give is ‘being there’ for our children. Knowing thatÌýsomeone wants you to do well, is there for you through your mistakes and successes, andÌýempathizes with both. Someone who ‘has your back’ when you need help and is glad for you whenÌýyou do well; that gives our children a powerful sense of security. And we can flourish when we feelÌýsecure.

By implementing these above points, we can equip children with the tools they need to understand the world, pursue their passions and make a positive impact on their lives and others.Ìý

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  • A teacher sat with a student at his desk, the student is writing and the teacher is looking at him doing this smiling.

    7 ways to individualize your teaching

    By Andrew Walkley
    Reading time: 4 minutes

    There's no denying that tailoring your teaching to individual students is an effective strategy. However, many teachers struggle with finding the time to include teaching moments which address an individual learner's specific needs. So, what's the best way to create an individualized classroom? Andrew Walkley, co-author of Roadmap, explains the benefits of this approach and shares some techniques to ensure that every student gets the most out of your lessons.Ìý

    The best of both worlds?

    First of all, what does individualized teaching mean? It's the concept that students will learn most effectively when the activity is specific to their needs and the language they are using is appropriate for their level. This concept is sometimes seen in opposition to coursebooks and class-based learning, where students are all expected to follow the same syllabus. However, class syllabuses and coursebooks have the following benefits:

    • Providing students with common goalsÌý
    • Encouraging learners to follow an unfamiliar topic that then opens new doors of learning
    • The learning opportunities in peer-to-peer explanationÌý

    When we talk about individualized teaching in the classroom, we want to exploit the benefits of learning together while also providing opportunities for more individualized development. So, how can you, as a teacher, combine the two approaches?

    1. Involve students in choosing your route

    All classroom groups are different and made up of people from different age groups with distinct needs and interests. Roadmap can help in two ways:

    1. There is a fast and slow track. The fast track focuses on language input and speaking. The slow track has additional skills lessons at the back of the book that are thematically linked to the corresponding fast track lesson.Ìý
    2. Each lesson has a clear goal and final task. For shorter courses, get each student to choose three tasks they would definitely like to do. Based on the results, you can prioritize those lessons.

    At the start of the course, make a point of asking about students' learning priorities and then plan accordingly. Once you've completed an input and speaking lesson, you can ask the students if they want to further explore the topic through the skills lesson.

    2. Make use of tasks

    Open tasks, where students exchange their own ideas in a meaningful way, are a key part of individualized lessons. In essence, they are self-differentiating because each student will attempt to complete the task using whatever language they are able to use. In Roadmap, each of the main lessons ends with a clear task connected to a Global Scale of English (GSE) can-do statement. However, there are also lots of other speaking opportunities without a 'speaking' label (under vocabulary or reading, etc.), as well as the conversation that typically occurs in any lesson, all of which can be treated as open tasks.

    3. Give individualized feedback and then share it

    In a group setting, it's impossible to give individual feedback on every single task. However, you can give individual attention to different people throughout the lesson. Make yourself available to give students the language they need as it arises during an activity. Then, when they've completed the task, write some of these examples on the board, but leave a gap for the keywords. Elicit these keywords from other members of the class. If they can't get it, ask the student(s) you helped to explain the missing language. You might then repeat the task, but this time, pay attention to a new group.Ìý

    4. Check what vocabulary students know

    All coursebook writers and teachers make choices about what vocabulary to introduce to students. In the case of Roadmap we are guided by the GSE and teachers might like to experiment themselves using the GSE Teacher Toolkit. However, all students will have their own lexicons. You can individualize learning better by asking students to rate the words you aim to cover in a unit according to whether they know them or not. For example, 1 = it's completely new, 2 = the meaning is familiar but I don't use it, 3 = this is part of my productive vocabulary.Ìý

    5. Get students to create their own word lists and cards

    This knowledge will enable you to encourage students to focus on their individual vocabulary needs. They can reinforce learning by developing a word list or making flashcards using a web tool such as Quizlet. For new words they may have a word/collocation with an L1 translation.

    With familiar vocabulary, they could have cards with a keyword on one side and varied collocations or common examples on the other (also in English). It's worth setting aside some time in class to do this at the start of a course. If your students are engaged and motivated, it can become a regular discipline for learning new vocabulary.Ìý

    6. Ask more open questions about usage, not just meaning

    When we do vocabulary tasks from the course material in class, we can use open questions to individualize learning with the following two techniques. Firstly, as you go through the answers, rather than going in order 1 to 8, you can nominate people to give the answer that they're most unsure of and want to check. Secondly, we can ask the rest of the class open questions which focus on how words are used. For example, take these questions from different vocabulary exercises in Roadmap B1+:

    • What (other) things might you spill?
    • Why might a character in a series be killed off?
    • What (else) can you describe as reliable?
    • What can someone do to stay calm?Ìý

    You could also ask questions such as, "What's the opposite of staying calm?" or "What might you say if you spilled something?"

    When you ask these questions, you are checking meaning, but more importantly, you are also pushing students to reveal how well they know a word. Do they know the collocations of spill and reliable? Do they have the other language they might need to talk about the aspects of a TV series or help someone who is in a panic? You can then encourage students to choose how much of this potentially new language they want to add to their word lists.

    7. Provide open homework tasks and make time to share the results

    Homework is another opportunity to individualize learning. Give students a wide choice of tasks based on the material of the course or beyond, for example:

    • Choose any number of exercises they want to do from workbook materialÌý
    • Find and read one article they are interested in (in L1 or L2)
    • Write five things they want to learn how to say in English (perhaps using Google Translate)
    • Write up an interesting conversation they had in English (the conversation could be originally in L1 or L2)

    Whatever task they choose, the key is to dedicate some classroom time to discussing which homework task they did and why. Encourage them to explain their answers and what they learned through the task, and whether or not they would choose to do a similar task again.ÌýÌý

    For a more detailed introduction on how you can individualize your teaching, check out Andrew's webinar:Ìý