Speaking Activities

During this workshop, I learned different speking activities which can be used in the language classroom not only to make children feel confident about their learning, but to practice the target language and get fun at the same time. I also learned that  interaction is pretty important when teaching children due to they feel part of the group.

Besides, creativity is the key to encourage children to speak; we as language teachers are able to use many speaking activities that allow children to participate and get active in the lesson without make them feel forced.

One of the most important things I learned from this workshop is that we need to give clear and short instructions as possible for the reason that children  are beginners in the language; so that it would be difficult for them to understand and to follow our instructions. As well, it is important to make sure if children have understood instructions before performing an activity. However, we have to avoid asking questions such as “I don’t know if you understand?”. In contrast, it is better to ask more appropiate questions like “Is everything clear?” or “Is there any question?”.

Furthermore, keeping control about students and the class itself is quite difficult for teacher but it is important to teacher take control over children and how the class is going on. A good strategy I learned is to avoid show our back to children when we are explaining, writing or posting material on the board. In addition, materials are important to teach English to children. Materials (flashcards, puppets, toys, etc.) have to do with size, color and the material itself.

For example, if we will use flashcards to teach vocabulary, they have to be big enough in order all children be able to see it. As well, colors are very important in order to catch children’s attention. Finally, material such as ball, toys, dices or balloons have also be bigger for the reason that children have troubles on managing small objects.
To summarize, there are many speaking activities we can integrate into the lesson according to the topic or vocabulary we are going to teach. We also have to be very creative in order to encourage children to speak through catchy material and activities where they not just get fun but also encounter vocabulary from the target language.