background preloader

English in early childhood

Facebook Twitter

Apps to help you improve your English. Development Matters FINAL PRINT AMENDED. Practical tips. By Opal Dunn, educational consultant and author Introduction Young children learn English differently from most adults.

Practical tips

Most have an innate ability to pick up English while taking part in activities, by making sense of what they are doing and picking up the adult’s language that accompanies the activity. You can find out more in the British Council booklet ‘How young children learn English as another language’, also available on the parents pages of the LearnEnglish Kids website. Planned English sessions You can plan regular sessions which will usually take place: at home on regular days for about ten to twenty minutes adjusted to fit your child’s increasing English ability and ability to concentrate as a planned programme that reviews and builds on known activities and introduces new ones.

How young children learn English as another language. By Opal Dunn, educational consultant and author Introduction Young children are natural language acquirers; they are self-motivated to pick up language without conscious learning, unlike adolescents and adults.

How young children learn English as another language

They have the ability to imitate pronunciation and work out the rules for themselves. Any idea that learning to talk in English is difficult does not occur to them unless it’s suggested by adults, who themselves probably learned English academically at a later age through grammar-based text books. How can young children best learn languages? The British Council's Tracey Chapelton explains how parents of young children can lay the foundations for success. Children's brains are highly active Your child is unique, but what all children have in common is natural curiosity and an innate ability to learn. The Power of Evening Routines. The word “structure” can evoke less than positive associations. It suggests constraints, which are never a good thing, right? Wrong. It turns out that everyone benefits from a certain amount of daily structure, so long as that structure is pleasant, productive, and meaningful.

Whether it’s the most inventive minds in history, or those people who live in good health past 100, a daily routine or set of micro-routines is correlated with productivity, health, and longevity. Let's Talk. What do babies need in order to learn and thrive? One thing they need is conversation — responsive, back-and-forth communication with their parents and caregivers. This interactive engagement is like food for their developing brains, nurturing language acquisition, early literacy, school readiness, and social and emotional well-being.

Tips on Learning to Talk. Learning to talk is a process that starts at birth, when your baby experiences how voices can sound.

Tips on Learning to Talk

By 2 years old, most babies have a large vocabulary and can put words together to express their needs and ideas. Let’s see how this process unfolds and what you can do to encourage your baby’s ability to communicate. From Birth to 3 Months Your baby listens to your voice. Learning through play ey. Taking Playtime Seriously. So part of encouraging play is pulling back on how much programmed goal-directed learning we expect from very young children, to leave them time for the fun of exploration, curiosity and, well, fun.

But another important part may be creating environments that foster children’s play and parents’ participation and attention. Dr. Hirsh-Pasek, who is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, cited its Learning Landscapes Initiative, which aims to set up learning opportunities in public places where people will encounter them. Importance of play for babies & children.

Australian Government Department of Education and Training (2009). Belonging, being and becoming: The early years learning framework for Australia. Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia. Retrieved 19 June 2019 from. ThePowerofPlay. Low-cost play ideas: video. How young children learn English through play. As we release Learning Time with Timmy – our first app for early-years learners of English – Danitza Villarroel, a teacher on our Learning Time with Shaun and Timmy course in Chile, explains the importance of learning through play, and offers a few tips for teachers new to this age group.

Teaching English to pre-school children can be daunting for teachers new to this age group. Young children have shorter attention spans than older children and adults, and they're still learning their mother tongue. But teaching these learners can be enormously rewarding once you've taken a few basic principles on board. The importance of active learning Active learning means fully involving children in the learning process. "I Said I Want the Red Bowl!" Responding to… Amelia, told that she can’t have a fifth book before bedtime, shouts: “You are the meanest mommy!

"I Said I Want the Red Bowl!" Responding to…

You are not invited to my birthday party!” Derek, when offered a choice between carrots and cheese, not ice cream, before dinner announces: “I don’t like the choices you are choicing me!” Alex hurls a bowl of his favorite cereal off the table and screams, “I said the red bowl, not the blue bowl!” If any of these exclamations sounds familiar, you are not alone. Welcome to what can feel like the Wild West of toddlerhood. Schemas in Children’s Play. Written by Clare CaroSchemas in Children’s Play are such an important concept when it comes to the development of our children that it’s worth taking the time to understand them so you can facilitate them when you see them.What are these schemas?

Schemas in Children’s Play

Well it’s really a fancy word for the urges that children have to do things like climb, throw things and hide in small places. They appear through play; perhaps it is the way they choose to do things, or what they desperately need to do out of the blue! Bringing It All TogetherAfter looking at each schema individually to get to grips with what each 'urge' is all about we may already be able to recognise some of the different ways they can appear in your child.Rotation, Trajectory, Enveloping, Orientation, Positioning, Connection, Enclosure/Container, Transporting and Transformation are urges that show in all children starting as early as their first birthday, some times before.How Can Knowing About These Urges Help Us?

Surprisingly Simple Techniques for Challenging Behaviour - Kathy Brodie Early Years Training. I often get asked about children’s behaviour. It is a massive topic, with many facets. However, I would always start from the perspective that all behaviour, good or unacceptable, is a form of communication.

It is how we, as practitioners and adults, respond to that communication that makes all the difference. The Webster Stratton method is a well known and widely used behaviour management strategy. It is based on a hierarchy pyramid, with Play at the foundation, moving up through Praise, Limit setting, Ignoring and using Time out as a final resort. Schema and Fairies - Kathy Brodie Early Years Training. Schemas are one of those things that divide practitioners, like fairies at the bottom of the garden. You either believe in them and are in absolute awe at how amazing they are, or you just don’t believe they exist. It’s really interesting when you discuss this with people and it’s extra exciting when a ‘non-believer’ suddenly says “That describes my key child exactly!!”

But first of all, let’s explore what a schema is. Athey (2007) defines schema as ‘patterns of behaviour and thinking in children that exist underneath the surface feature of various contents, contexts and specific experience’ (page 5). Nutbrown (2011) extends this to patterns of ‘action and behaviour’ (page 10). For example, for a child with a transporting schema, carrying (transporting) objects is the most important or engaging part of their play.

The Power (and Peril) of Praising Your Kids. What do we make of a boy like Thomas?

The Power (and Peril) of Praising Your Kids

Thomas (his middle name) is a fifth-grader at the highly competitive P.S. 334, the Anderson School on West 84th. Slim as they get, Thomas recently had his long sandy-blond hair cut short to look like the new James Bond (he took a photo of Daniel Craig to the barber). Unlike Bond, he prefers a uniform of cargo pants and a T-shirt emblazoned with a photo of one of his heroes: Frank Zappa. Thomas hangs out with five friends from the Anderson School. They are “the smart kids.” Since Thomas could walk, he has heard constantly that he’s smart. How can parents and teachers best educate young children? What principles can both teachers and parents bring to the education of very young children?

Gillian Craig, who was part of the Learning Time with Shaun and Timmy writing team, explains. As teachers and parents, we follow certain principles in our roles. How you talk to your child changes their brain. Most parents know that talking to their child helps them develop.

How you talk to your child changes their brain

PowerfulInteractions. Whole Child Development Is Undervalued. The question is how to make such an approach both systemic and sustainable. Whole Person. Practical tips. Short stories for kids. Songs for kids. Poems for kids. Sound Words: Examples of Onomatopoeia. Onomatopoeia is a fun, linguistic tool used in literature, songs and advertisements. Now that you've seen examples of the individual words, consider the following examples of onomatopoeia words in use. Take a look at the different onomatopoeia examples in Todd Rundgren's song, appropriately named Onomatopoeia. School Radio - Nursery songs and rhymes.

Ten ways to support your child’s English-learning at home. As the British Council opens a new Learning Time with Shaun & Timmy centre in Mexico for two- to six-year-olds, senior teacher Sarah Reid offers some useful tips for supporting your child’s learning at home. How to help your child learn English with YouTube videos. The Art of Control. Background to the Concept of Schema. Whole Child Development Is Undervalued. How to teach children English using illustrated storybooks.

What makes illustrated storybooks such a good resource for teaching young learners of English? The British Council’s Gail Ellis, co-author of a storytelling handbook for primary English language teachers, explains. Listen to an interview with Gail in our podcast and register for her webinar taking place on Thursday, 2 October. Illustrated storybooks provide an ideal resource for helping children learn English. 50+ Quick & Easy Kids Crafts that ANYONE Can Make! Children under 5 years. Children under 5 walking. Key Person & Attachment - Early Years Matters. The Key Person Children thrive from a base of loving and secure relationships.

This is normally provided by a child’s parents but it can also be provided by a key person.