The crowdsourced guide to learning. Valuing Diversity for Young Children. What to consider when teaching English in large classes. How many students do you teach? Do you feel that your classes are too big? Author and education consultant Jason Anderson looks at the issues and offers some potential solutions. For many of us, our classes are larger than we would like them to be. They can present a number of challenges that teachers of smaller classes are less likely to face. But what exactly do we mean by large classes?
What challenges do they bring, and how can we develop our own solutions for teaching English in large classes (TELC)? Definitions of a large class What we label a ‘large class’ depends mostly on context and expectations. In this article, we will take the midpoint between these two figures. Where teachers work in large classes today Perhaps the two continents where teachers most commonly work in large classes are Africa (especially sub-Saharan Africa) and Asia (especially the Indian sub-continent and China).
This is not a uniform picture. Large classes are not unique to low-income countries. 1. 2. 1. 2. How Are Happiness and Learning Connected? As teachers, we also know that when students' affective filters or defenses are sky high, fight or flight responses will be modus operandi. A room full of defensive behaviors (withdrawn, angry) is a sad, unproductive place to teach and learn. Now let's flip it and take a look at how much more we are able to learn when we are in harmony with the people and things in any given educational environment. Being in harmony means feeling safe, feeling valued and a necessary part a group, and in this case, a learning community.
Hearts and Minds in Sync What does research show to be the opposite of the brain's fight or flight response? Co-founder of the NeuroLeadership Institute Dr. "Engagement is a state of being willing to do difficult things, to take risks, to think deeply about issues and develop new solutions. ...Interest, happiness, joy, and desire are approach emotions. Let's go back to Dr. In the Classroom Of course this is great news from the research of Dr. Now we'd love to hear from you! British Council LearnEnglish Kids | Free online games, songs, stories and activities for children. Assessment for learning in ECE. Observation, Assessment and Planning - Early Years Matters. The EYFS Profile summarises and describes children’s attainment at the end of the EYFS.
It is based on on-going observation and assessment in the three prime and four specific areas of learning, and the three learning characteristics, set out below: The prime areas of learning: • communication and language • physical development • personal, social and emotional development The specific areas of learning: • literacy • mathematics • understanding the world • expressive arts and design The learning characteristics: • playing and exploring • active learning • creating and thinking critically A completed EYFS Profile consists of 20 items of information: the attainment of each child is assessed in relation to each of the 17 Early Learning Goals descriptors, (ELGs) together with a short narrative describing the child’s ways of learning expressed in terms of the three characteristics of learning.
The primary uses of EYFS Profile data which have informed the development of the Profile are as follows. Information sheet Guidelines for documenting children s learning. Pre-birth to Three: Observation, Assessment and Planning. The power of positive relationships. This ‘Kindness Curriculum’ Is Free And Should Be Used In Every Classroom. 21 Of The Best Early Years Books For International Friendship Day. We know that skills like empathy aren’t fully developed until later in a child’s life, which is why there are so many stories on friendship and how to treat people aimed at Early Years.
International Friendship Day, then, is a great opportunity to share some of these amazing books with your children. It does, however, fall on Sunday 30 July. So celebrating on the day itself is going to be difficult, doubly so for Reception classes who are on summer holidays. Here are our picks for some top tales that touch on various aspects of friendship that kids will love. 1 | Bubble Trouble Tom Percival (Bloomsbury, paperback, £6.99) Reuben and Felix are best friends, whose favourite thing in the world to do is to blow bubbles.
Review: Bubble Trouble. 2 | Little Puppy Lost Holly Webb (Little Tiger Press, paperback, £6.99) Review: Little Puppy Lost. 3 | The Super Swooper Dinosaur Marin Waddell (Orchard Books, hardback, £11.99) Review: The Super Swooper Dinosaur. 4 | Churchill’s Tale of Tails 7 | Harris the Hero. A 19-Year Study Reveals Kindergarten Students With These 2 Skills Are Twice as Likely to Obtain a College Degree (And They Have Nothing to Do With Reading) A 19-Year Study Reveals Kindergarten Students With These 2 Skills Are Twice as Likely to Obtain a College Degree (And They Have Nothing to Do With Reading) One theory all teachers with disruptive children should know about. Imagine a classroom where children are unable to wait their turn or stay focused on their work.
They are easily distracted, cannot remember basic instructions or hold enough information in their head to solve problems – skills teachers rely on in order to teach successfully. These behavioural issues are all examples of problems that can arise from attachment issues – based on the relationship between children and their main caregiver. Attachment theory is now one of the world’s most well-researched theories about human development. It was first proposed by the 20th-century British psychiatrist John Bowlby, who considered that children needed to develop a secure attachment with their main caregiver via sufficiently consistent, responsive, sensitive, appropriate and predictable care and support.
Research has shown that secure attachments create mental processes that enable a child to regulate emotions and attune to others. Trauma takes its toll Making teachers aware. Don't Expect Toddlers To Behave Consistently — They Literally Can't. Can Free Play Prevent Depression and Anxiety In Kids? KQED Public Media for Northern CA. Babies and toddlers raised in supportive and caring home environments tended to do better on standardized tests later on, and they were more likely to attain higher degrees as adults.
They were also more likely to get along with their peers and feel satisfied in their romantic relationships. "It seems like, at least in these early years, the parents' role is to communicate with the child and let them know, 'I'm here for you when you're upset, when you need me. And when you don't need me, I'm your cheerleader,' " says Lee Raby, a psychologist and postdoctoral researcher at the University of Delaware who led the study. Raby used data collected from 243 people who participated in the Minnesota Longitudinal Study of Risk. Of course, parental behavior in the early years is just one of many influences, and it's not necessarily causing the benefits seen in the study.
And a child's psychological makeup is a factor as well. So what does this all mean? Copyright 2014 NPR. KQED Public Media for Northern CA. To make that argument requires a deep dive into the profound nature of empathy. Right now, empathy roughly equates to “I like you and am willing to tolerate you regardless of differences because I am a good person.” But the textbook definition hints at something more profound: It’s ‘the feeling of being able to understand and share another person’s experiences and emotions.’ That all-encompassing definition means empathy results from a complex mix of other meaningful emotions and attitudes that fuel human personality, such as openness, curiosity, self-restraint, vulnerability, sensitivity, awareness, respect, appreciation, and even love. Add this list to the fact that empathy can’t manifest unless we have had our own experiences and emotions to contrast, compare, and connect with others—and we can see that empathy is more than a simple connector; it’s the subterranean, fundamental glue that holds humanity together.
The takeaway? Background to the Concept of Schema. EducatorsEn. NQS PLP E Newsletter No36. The power of positive relationships. Talking with Babies and Toddlers June05. PowerfulInteractions. Listening Skills for Staff. A longitudinal investigation of the role of quantity and quality of child-directed speech in vocabulary development. The Power (and Peril) of Praising Your Kids -- New York Magazine.
What do we make of a boy like Thomas? 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. But as Thomas has progressed through school, this self-awareness that he’s smart hasn’t always translated into fearless confidence when attacking his schoolwork. For instance, in the early grades, Thomas wasn’t very good at spelling, so he simply demurred from spelling out loud. Thomas is not alone. When parents praise their children’s intelligence, they believe they are providing the solution to this problem.
Why play based learning. Plays potential in early literacy development. Play and learning. Convention on the Rights of the Child. Text in PDF Format Adopted and opened for signature, ratification and accession by General Assembly resolution 44/25 of 20 November 1989 entry into force 2 September 1990, in accordance with article 49 Preamble The States Parties to the present Convention, Considering that, in accordance with the principles proclaimed in the Charter of the United Nations, recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world, Bearing in mind that the peoples of the United Nations have, in the Charter, reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights and in the dignity and worth of the human person, and have determined to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom, Recalling that, in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the United Nations has proclaimed that childhood is entitled to special care and assistance, Have agreed as follows: Article 1 Article 2 1. 2.
ThePowerofPlay. Learning through play ey. Pts why play is important. Play based learning statement EN. Teachers TV- How Do They Do It In Sweden? How Children Learn to Talk. Have you ever wondered how children learn to talk? Many people, when asked that question, respond that they do it by imitating.
This is at least partially true. Without imitation, we couldn't account for the fact that children in Texas usually learn Texan English, children in Paris usually learn Parisian French, and not vice versa. But imitation as an answer doesn't take us very far. For one thing, children routinely say things they've never heard: "Mommy, come quick—Waldo swallowed a frog! " That is a novel statement for a novel situation. When you think about it, it is inconceivable that children could learn in advance by imitation all of the sentences they will ever have to say.
At this point some would amend their position to say that children don't imitate others sentence by sentence. What do children do as they learn to talk? Imagine that you are in a kitchen with a two-year-old and his mother. Child: Want other one spoon, Daddy. But there's more. Notes 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. A few more myths about speakers of multiple languages.
Does multilingualism cause language delays and identity problems? The British Council's Nayr Ibrahim busts a few more myths about speakers of multiple languages. Myth: Multilingualism causes language delay Raising children bilingually is sometimes believed to cause language delay. This misconception is based on a separate underlying proficiency (SUP) hypothesis. This theory, now discredited, suggests that languages are stored in separate compartments or containers, which represent half the capacity of the monolingual brain. These ‘containers’ have limited storage space, and, as the brain cannot hold so much information, it ‘elbows out’ the other language. Decades of research into bi- and multilingualism has shown that there is no causal relationship between bilingualism and language delay.
Myth: Multilinguals should develop literacy in one language first When children are surrounded by multiple languages, they will inevitably have access to multiple literacies. Does being bilingual make you smarter? Language teacher and researcher Miguel Angel Muñoz explains the latest research on how being bilingual affects your brain, ahead of a British Council seminar in Cardiff on whether learning a foreign language makes you smarter. You can watch the live-streamed seminar on Tuesday, 3 June. More than half the world's population uses two or more languages every day It is hard to estimate the exact number of bilingual people in the world, as there is a lack of reliable statistics . But in 2012, a Eurobarometer survey established that 'just over half of Europeans (54%)' are bilingual, and other studies hypothesise that more than half of the world’s population is bilingual.
So what about you? Being bilingual isn't black-and-white To answer that question, first we need to establish what being bilingual means. I, for example, am -- or used to be -- proficient in German, but I have not used my German regularly for a very long time. What are the costs of being bilingual? Don’t worry. 1. 2. 3. Community Playthings | Heuristic play. Heuristic play is rooted in young children’s natural curiosity. As babies grow, they move beyond being content to simply feel and ponder objects, to wanting to find out what can be done with them.
Toddlers have an urge to handle things: to gather, fill, dump, stack, knock down, select and manipulate in other ways. Household or kitchen utensils offer this kind of activity as every parent knows, and can occupy a child for surprising stretches of time. When toddlers make an enjoyable discovery – for instance when one item fits into another, or an interesting sound is produced – they often repeat the action several times to test the result, which strengthens cognitive development as well as fine muscle control and hand/eye coordination. In their book, People under Three, Elinor Goldschmied and Sonia Jackson coined the term heuristic play, to explain how to provide a more structured opportunity for this kind of activity. Heuristic play with objects is not a novel idea. How do you speak 'Motherese'?
The Woman Who Changed Her Brain: Barbara Arrowsmith-Young at TEDxToronto. Early childhood development – it’s not rocket science, it’s neuroscience! - Kathy Brodie Early Years Training. I was introduced to Mine Conkbayir when she contacted me about neuroscience informing early years practice, which I think is such an exciting, and growing, area of study. So I was very enthusiastic when she offered to do a guest post on this subject. Here she discusses how neuroscience can add another dimension to our understanding of child development: Like many individuals in this increasingly frantic world, I’m often busy juggling my responsibilities as a parent while I work and continue my studies – a very exciting journey as I try to achieve my PhD in early childhood education and neuroscience.
Having been a lecturer across a range of child care and education qualifications for the past 14 years, I continue to be bewildered by the lack of consistently embedded teaching of neuroscience and early brain development across these qualifications. You may well ask ‘how?’ Here are just a few key messages from neuroscience which can inform how we care for and educate our youngest: References: Deb Roy: The birth of a word. Listen to Your Mother. Young children face a remarkable challenge in learning to use the language of their culture. Toddlers vary widely, however, in the rate at which they learn new words.1 A team of Harvard Graduate School of Education researchers set out to ask whether and how children's language environment can impact vocabulary development.
In their study of mother-child pairs from low-income families, they found that mothers who used many different words (not just many words) had toddlers with faster growth in vocabulary use. During the toddler and preschool years, most children learn to use hundreds of words, combining them into sentences and engaging in conversation with others. From previous research, we know that variation in vocabulary growth relates to child characteristics like gender, and also to parental factors. What did they find? 1Huttenlocher, J., Haight, W., Bryk, A., Seltzer, M., & Lyons, T. (1991). 2Bauer, D.J., Goldfield, B.A., & Reznick, J.S. (2002). 3Hoff-Ginsberg, E. (1998). Development Matters FINAL PRINT AMENDED. How can young children best learn languages?
Early Childhood Education. The Woman Who Changed Her Brain: Barbara Arrowsmith-Young at TEDxToronto. Let's Talk. Why does my toddler love repetition? - BabyCentre UK. Patricia Kuhl: The linguistic genius of babies. What Parents Can Gain From Learning the Science of Talking to Kids. Deb Roy: The birth of a word. 6 Types of Play: How Children's Play Becomes More Social. Early childhood development – it’s not rocket science, it’s neuroscience! - Kathy Brodie Early Years Training. English in Early Childhood Facebook Clinic 26102017. Getting the right balance between adult-led and child-initiated learning | Optimus Education Blog.
Budget-Friendly Preschool Games & Activities. Math in Early Childhood: 6 Strategies for Teaching Math Throughout the Day.