1

Teaching English to Young Learners: A Story-based Task Cycle

1. Introduction

Teaching English to young learners (YLs) is invariably different from
adult English as a second language (ESL) classes (Cameron, 2001).
Young learners, generally classed as from being from three to
twelve years of age, are in different developmental stages to adults
and teenagers (Yolageldili and Arikan, 2011; Roul, 2014).
Therefore, it is necessary that teachers take into account this
difference and design activities which are age appropriate,
incorporating different methods and strategies of teaching. Below I
will propose a possible task cycle for a class of Belgian primary
school children. This task cycle will take for its inspiration the
childrens book The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle, and will
thus be following a storytelling-based learning and teaching
approach (SBLT) (Kim, 2013). I will begin by providing a brief
description of the task cycle with aims, resources and the expected
procedure. I will then briefly explore some of the most appropriate
methods of teaching English to young learners, before concluding
with a more detailed rationale of the individual activities in my task
cycle.

2. The Task Cycle

2.1 Background and Learners

I am preparing this cycle for use in an English as a foreign language
(EFL) classroom in Belgium. It is an extra-curricular lesson run for
one hour and forty-five minutes on a Wednesday afternoon. The
children are between six and seven years of age. They are relative
beginners to English, this being their first year of study, but I will
2
run this task cycle towards the end of the year, when students will
already have completed most of a years activities. The children all
speak French as their first language (L1).
Due to the Belgian school system, most of the children will be in
their first year of primary school, having already completed two-
four years at nursery school (La Federation Wallonie-Bruxelles,
2014). I therefore expect to learners to have some experience of
working with other children and knowledge of how to interact with
both students and teachers alike (Cameron, 2001).
However, children are rarely taught literacy skills before attending
primary school (La Federation Wallonie-Bruxelles, 2014). I will
therefore not include many activities which draw on reading and
writing skills, as these are as yet insecure in the L1 (Moon, 2008).

2.2 Aims and Expectations

2.2.1 Linguistic Aims

The length of the session will afford me time to look at and revise
various collections of vocabulary. I am presuming that the YLs will
have previously been taught numbers up to twenty, the days of the
week, and colours. I aim to revise and strengthen the YLs
knowledge of these terms, so that it becomes conceptual (Cameron,
2001).
In this session I will revise and increase the YLs knowledge of food
vocabulary. They will have encountered some items before, and
will likely be able to remember the ones that are most within their
schema (Cameron, 2001) such as cake, apple and ice cream.
However, they will not know less common fruits such as plums, and
will probably also not know more exotic foods such as salami. The
primary vocabulary collection the YLs will therefore be utilising is
that of food.
3
The students will have encountered and used simple present tense
verbs such as I am he is and I have; I expect the learners to
remember these structures with prompting, but not without support
and scaffolding tasks (Cameron, 2001). Through the post-task
phase, children will strengthen their confidence with these
structures and go further, using them with the pronouns my, your,
his and her. I expect this to be a point of differentiation, where
some students gain a firm grasp on these structures, and other
students have a receptive or memory knowledge of these terms but
would not be able to reproduce them without heavy scaffolding
(Cameron, 2001).
During the artistic and kinaesthetic tasks I also plan to introduce
the phrase can I have. This phrase will be introduced in this
session and strengthened in a subsequent lesson. Therefore in this
lesson, I will teach this language in an indirect manner to begin
with, allowing the students to discover the language through
interaction with each other in the tasks (Bourke, 2006).

2.2.2 Non-linguistic aims

As Scott et al note (2004), SBLT is a child-centred learning
approach which engages and motivates learners in an activity. This
is particularly true when material is appropriate for their age and
context (Gillanders and Castro, 2007). Therefore, this task cycle
also has affective aims of improving the childrens confidence in
English (Kim, 2013) and of allowing children to enjoy the language
through a medium with which they are familiar (REF).
Moreover, my chosen task cycle will teach the children about the
subject matter of the book; namely, caterpillars metamorphosing
into butterflies. In this way knowledge and understanding about
the world is taught through English (Korosidou and Griva, 2013).
4
I am including sensory, kinaesthetic tasks such as cutting, gluing
and painting. These activities not only stimulate and involve the
childrens senses but also promote independent, self-led activity
which will aid in the YLs all-round development (Roul, 2014).

2.3 Expected Procedure

As the children are arriving, I will provide a colouring sheet of a
caterpillar for those who are early. In this way, the children feel
welcomed and motivated as soon as they enter the classroom
(Roul, 2014). I will put the title caterpillar on the sheet as
information for those who are able to read, but this will not be an
obligatory step (Moon, 2008).
We will begin by learning food vocabulary. At first I will drill
unknown words; I will hold up pictures of the foods and elicit the
English word from the children, teaching it where necessary. I will
then continue this with a speed up activity; changing the pictures
more and more quickly so that the children have to repeat the
vocabulary increasingly rapidly, so adding aspects of gaming into
the drill.
Having completed this step, I will consolidate the vocabulary by
playing touch the wall. I will place the pictures on the walls
around the classroom, then I shout out one item of food at a time,
and the YLs will run as quickly as possible to the correct item.
All the children have learnt their numbers up to twenty in English,
but it would be prudent to revise this lexis so that the vocabulary is
retrievable (Cameron, 2001). First of all I will give each child a
piece of paper with a number on it and ask them to reorganise
themselves into the correct order. They will then attempt to shout
out their numbers in English. If a child cannot remember his or her
number, I will ask the other children for assistance.
5
After this game, I will gather the children again onto the floor.
Earlier in the course the children have learnt days of the week;
however, they may well not be able to remember them without
assistance (Cameron, 2001). We will consequently do a revision
activity in order to refresh their memories. I will start by asking if
the children know what day it is. If they struggle with
comprehension at this point, I will speak in the L1 (Inbar-Lourie,
2010). I will then ask about yesterday and tomorrow. In order to
encourage memory of these words, we will use a clapping chant
(Roul, 2014). Details of the chant can be found in the appendices.
We will have already performed this chant when we first learnt days
of the week, so this activity is known to students.
Once we have completed the vocabulary exercises, I will sit the
children down in order to read the story. Firstly I will perform a
picture walk in order to familiarise them with the narrative and
images (Gillanders and Castro, 2012). Afterwards I will read the
story to them in English, going slowly and pointing out the numbers
and food items clearly. At this point, the children will listen and
look at the pictures, and indirectly be familiarising themselves with
the vocabulary (Kim, 2013). I will then read the book through a
second time. With this reading, I will elicit more involvement from
the children. I will ask them how many items the caterpillar is
eating and what he is eating. If they do not understand the English
questions, I will utilise the L1 where necessary (Inbar-Lourie,
2010).
Directly after reading the book, the students will complete their own
versions with prepared cut-outs of the food items and the days of
the week. The seven year olds, who have both higher literacy skills
and more English knowledge than the six year olds, will also glue
the days of the week onto the posters. I will support where
necessary by helping with cutting, reading, and comprehension.
During this phase, I will indirectly introduce the phrase can I
6
have, for example can I have the glue? I will ask more confident
students to repeat this formula.
At this point in the lesson, we will have a break and a snack.
During this break, I will read the book one more time. Again, I will
elicit numbers and food lexis from the children. Additionally, this
time round I will teach the phrase he was still hungry. I will
translate this into French for comprehension purposes. To
incentivise the children to learn, I will inform them that everybody
who can correctly tell me the phrases he was still hungry and can
I have [a food item] will be allowed one of the items eaten by the
caterpillar. Nevertheless, in order to encourage and comfort the
YLs, all students will be allowed a snack whether or not they have
mastered the phrases.
After this phase, we will do a kinaesthetic painting activity.
Children will paint their own butterflies using a mirror method; they
will paint half of the paper and then fold their butterflies, so making
them symmetrical. During this time I will circle and ask students
simple questions about their artwork. Again, details can be found in
the lesson plan in the appendices.
After they have finished painting, the children will then form simple
sentences about their butterflies using the correct pronouns. For
example, they will say my butterfly is red and your butterfly is
blue. We will do this with vocabulary that they have already
learnt, using my, your, his and her. This is the last activity
in my task cycle. Once all children have finished painting, I will
gather all children together and we will repeat these sentences as a
class before the children leave.

2.4 Preparation and Materials

It is self-evident that in order to complete this task cycle, I will
need a copy of the original storybook. The illustrations in the
7
original book will appeal to YLs and encourage them to focus on the
narrative (Roul, 2014). For the pre-reading vocabulary learning
phase, I will need flashcards of all the foods which will appear in the
book. I will print these in A3 size in order to be obvious when
playing touch the wall.
For the first post-reading task, in which children will be recreating
the book through gluing pictures in the right order, I will need
enough photocopies of all the relevant foodstuffs for each child. I
will also need scissors and glue and will assess the scissor skills of
each child before leaving them to work independently. Additionally,
I will provide left-handed scissors if necessary.
When we are painting caterpillars and butterflies, the children will
need paint. As they are still young and so likely to struggle with
cleanliness, I will provide aprons in order to protect their clothes.
Finally, I will need snacks for the childrens breaktime; I will not
bring all the items the caterpillar eats, but will bring sliced apples,
pears and strawberries; lollipops; and chocolate and vanilla
cupcakes.

3. Rationale and Justification

The theoretical grounding for my task cycle is Vygotskys notion of
childrens knowledge being socially mediated and facilitated (1978).
To Vygotsky, children learn through interaction with adults and to a
lesser extent other children. Through being assisted and scaffolded
by those with more knowledge, the children achieve more than they
would independently (Vygotsky, 1978). This is particularly true
when the desired learning outcome is within the childrens zone of
proximal development (ZPD); that is to say that it is slightly beyond
their current abilities, but not significantly so (Cameron, 2001). It
is on this theory of socially mediated learning that I am basing my
task cycle. In choosing SBLT, the teacher becomes the mediator
8
between the story and the child (Kim, 2013). Further reflections on
SBLT can be found below.
For children below the age of twelve, learning is for the most part
experiential and meaning-oriented (Guersoy, 2011; Sensoy and
zad, 2009). As they do not yet have the same conceptual
understanding as adults, tasks must be more practical; YLs learn
through hands-on tasks and activities (Roul, 2014). It is for this
reason that I am choosing to use two sensory tasks which involve
the children learning through art and crafts. Similarly, children do
not have access to the same metacognitive and metalinguistic
awareness as adults (Guersoy, 2011). Thus there is little point in
teaching them about linguistic concepts and functions; rather, it is
more appropriate to teach them formulae, simple sentence
structures, and to expose them to language in use (Cameron,
2001).

3.1 Activity-based and game-based learning

Games have long been used in YL classrooms. As Meyer notes,
games are popular with young learners as they make the language
both fun and accessible; it brings an activity from everyday life into
the classroom (2013). Furthermore, Yolageldili and Arikan (2011)
believe that competition contributes to a healthy classroom.
However, Guersoy cautions that teachers should also be aware of
the affective aspects of learning (2011), thereby ensuring that
children are not discouraged by constantly losing to more capable
students.
Task-based learning is also a popular approach in YL classrooms.
One of the main reasons for this is that children gain knowledge
about various subjects through the medium of English (Korosidou
and Griva, 2013). Furthermore, YLs need concrete tasks in order to
develop their understanding, and task-based learning tends to offer
9
activities with active participation and concrete outcomes (Bourke,
2006).
As Roul posits, audio-visual activities are also particularly
appropriate for YLs, as they provide concrete experiences for
learners and also help them to develop a positive attitude towards
learning (2014). This is also true for kinaesthetic activities such as
painting (Cameron, 2001).

3.2 Storytelling-based learning

Storytelling is a very positive activity for YLs because it is a
narrative which they recognise from their L1 (Cameron, 2001).
Furthermore, it encapsulates ideas and concepts from their schema
which assist comprehension, as well as teaching them about new
concepts and developing their understanding of the world
(Gillanders and Castro, 2012). This is akin to Vygotskys principles
of adults facilitating childrens learning through introducing them to
unknown concepts and ideas (Vygotsky, 1978).
Another advantage of SBLT is that children also learn
subconsciously about phonological awareness, syntax, and language
in print, which will aid them both when they begin producing longer
discourse themselves and particularly when they begin to read and
write (Kim, 2013). It is suggested that children need both direct
and incidental language input in order to learn a language;
storybooks do exactly this as they use vocabulary which the
children know with more complicated lexis which they have yet to
be specifically taught (Gillanders and Castro, 2011).

3.3 A detailed rationale of the proposed task cycle

The first three tasks in my cycle are recapping and learning
vocabulary. Vocabulary is an essential part of English for young
10
learners, as children are often encouraged to view language as a set
of words (Cameron, 2001). Furthermore, they view language in a
very thematic way so learning a collection of vocabulary is
comprehensible to them (Bourke, 2006). The use of pictures in the
first task will motivate the YLs, as children have a very visual
learning style and are motivated by colours and pictures (Scott et
al, 2004). Similarly, touch the wall and the reordering activities
both ask children to use physical movement. Again, this is a proven
method of motivation for children, who have a short attention span
and ability to focus (Yolageldili and Arikan, 2011).
Touch the wall and the number reordering activity both contain
the advantages outlined above of learning through games. Touch
the wall includes a competitive element which motivates children
to beat their counterparts. However, in order to ensure the YLs feel
comfortable in the classroom, if the younger YLs (YYLs) are
struggling to keep up with the older YLs (OYLs) and feeling
discouraged, I will abandon the game aspects (Cameron, 2003).
As English and French both use Latin numerals, the number task is
appropriate for children as it uses schema already known to them
(Cameron, 2001). This task therefore follows Piagets views that
children construct meaning according to their previous knowledge of
the world (Piaget, in Cameron, 2001).
For my task cycle, a receptive knowledge of days of the week is
important, but an active knowledge is not crucial (Cameron, 2001).
Therefore it is not essential that children remember all seven days
of the week, so assigning them simply one day to remember is an
efficient way of teaching them how to interact with others in group
situations (Bourke, 2006). Furthermore, the rhythmic chant holds
many of the same benefits as using songs; it helps with
pronunciation, intonation and stress (Scott et al, 2004).
Additionally, the physical demands of sitting still can be difficult for
children, so by allowing them to use their bodies it enables them to
11
give more of their attention to the linguistic aspects of the task
(Cameron, 2001). Moreover, I envisage that YLs will have already
performed this chant when first learning days of the week, so this
activity is known to students. As they already know the task,
students are more confident performing it, so diminishing anxiety
and confusion (Bourke, 2006; Cameron, 2001).
With regard to the story itself, Gillanders and Castro suggest
beginning with a picture walk of the book before using the
vocabulary, in order to familiarise YLs with the ideas and concepts
in the book (2012).
When reading the story together, YLs can include knowledge from
their current schema, so making the activity relevant (Cameron,
2001). Furthermore, they will be exposed to a great number of
speech features which will contribute to indirect learning (Kim,
2013).
The second reading involves the children stating the correct food
items and numbers for the story. The reason I have chosen these
particular words is because they are essential to the understanding
of the text; the child can gain a conceptual understanding of the
rest of the story without understanding all the other words
invidivually (Gillanders and Castro, 2011).
The third reading of the book, which accompanies the snack time, is
characterised by the children repeating the phrase but he was still
hungry. By asking the children to repeat an entire phrase, it
enables them to internalise grammatical structures (Ahn, 2012, in
Kim, 2013). Additionally, the repetition allows YLs to predict the
storys outcome, which helps them to feel confident and motivated
(Kim, 2013; Cameron, 2001).
Another benefit of teaching an entire phrase is that children often
like using formulaic language as it helps them feel confident that
their linguistic production is correct (Cameron, 2001). This
12
structure can be referred back to in future lessons, as children are
confident using the complete phrase.
The cut-and-stick activity utilises the childrens sensory motor skills,
which is an important part of their general development (Roul,
2014). It also asks them to count, so adding an element of maths
to the task. Korosidou and Griva note that language can be a very
useful and appropriate way of learning other subjects, as it allows
children to integrate skills from different disciplines and widen their
concepts of language being more than mere words (2013). In this
section of the task cycle I will also be re-teaching the students the
phrase can I have. This type of incidental learning is one of the
greatest benefits of task-based learning (Korosidou and Griva,
2013). The children who struggle to remember this phrase may
learn it from other students; similarly, it is advantageous for
children to work together and cooperate with each other as it
increases their interpersonal social interaction skills (Sensoy and
zad, 2009).
Also important for the affective aspects of learning, the inclusion of
a snack means that children replenish their energy supplies and feel
nurtured (Bourke, 2006). In this way the affective side of learning
is comprehensively aided.
By ending with a painting task, the children are again using sensory
motor skills which aid their overall development (Roul, 2014). As
the children will be growing tired by this stage (Bourke, 2006), the
task requires less productive language from them (Cameron, 2001)
and few literacy skills.
The children will be practising a grammatical structure that they
have already learned, that of subject + is + colour. We will begin
by using the pronoun it, with which they are all comfortable.
Then we will extend it slightly into other pronouns. As the children
already know half of the structure, this task is within their ZPD
(Vygotsky, 1978). Furthermore, by asking children to comment on
13
other students pictures, they are again working in a group and so
varying the interaction patterns (Bourke, 2006). By ending with a
kinesthetic, artistic activity, the children will enjoy the language
learning experience (Guersoy, 2011). Where needed, I will provide
scaffolding for their sentences through modelling and prompting, so
that they do not venture beyond the ZPD (Cameron, 2001; Bourke,
2006). Furthermore, as I can differentiate this activity depending
on the linguistic ability of the specific child for example, sticking
to my butterfly is blue for weaker students but varying to my
caterpillar has eight legs for more confident, advanced students I
can more accurately cater to the YLs individual needs, so making
them feel valued, secure, and successful (Bourke, 2006; Meyer,
2013; Cameron, 2001).

4. Anticipated problems

The first problem I anticipate is that children may not remember as
much of the necessary vocabulary as I hope they will (Nunan, 1994,
in Bourke, 2006). If this occurs, I will merely introduce extra
vocabulary learning activities, with numbers and colours. I will
have flashcards prepared in case of this, along with activities such
as bingo, counting and arithmetic, and matching activities.
Full details of these can be found in the appendices.
Another problem may be the attention span of some students, as
six year olds have a far shorter ability to focus than adults
(Yolageldili and Arikan, 2011). They may therefore find it difficult
to sit through two readings of the story. However, for this reason I
am involving the children in the storytelling with eliciting and
spotting activities (Gillanders and Castro, 2012).
One other linguistic issue of that of countable and uncountable food
types; students may say phrases like can I have a cheese. YLs
are not able to understand metalanguage (Bourke, 2006), so will
14
not understand this explicitly. As it is recommended to teach YLs
simple structures to begin with and then develop these over time
(Cameron, 2001), I will counter this by focusing only on the
countable food items, such as cupcake, apple, and lollipop.
A final problem I anticipate is that of giving out snacks during break
time. If I offer children different foods, it may become competitive
as to who is allowed to eat what. In order to ensure a stress-free
environment (Bourke, 2006), I will therefore ensure that all foods
that I bring are permitted by the parents, and that I have enough of
each snack food to accommodate all children.

5. Concluding Remarks

In this essay, I have presented a task cycle based on Eric Carles
The Very Hungry Caterpillar. I chose this book as the basis for my
task cycle as it allows me to focus on vocabulary that is appropriate
for and of interest to the children in my class (Bourke, 2006).
Furthermore, as narratives are a known and accepted part of a
childs universe (Cameron, 2001), the use of a storybook enables
children to feel relaxed and confident. I have complemented this
narrative with activities that teach children vocabulary and short
grammatical structures, and have used repetition and games in
order to help the YLs remember these forms (Meyer, 2013). In this
way, I believe that the proposed task cycle would be fruitful not
only for the childrens linguistic development but also for their
enjoyment of the English language and learning in general.






15
Bibliography

Bourke, J. M. (2006). Designing a topic-based syllabus for young
learners. ELT Journal 60(3), pp.279-286.

Carle, Eric. (1969). The Very Hungry Caterpillar. New York: The
World Publishing Company.

Cameron, L. (2001). Teaching Languages to Young Learners.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Cameron, L. (2003). The expansion of teaching English to young
learners Challenges for ELT from the expansion in teaching
children. ELT Journal 57(2), pp.105-112.

Gillanders, C., and Castro, D. C. (2011). Storybook Reading for
Young Dual Language Learners. Young Children 66(1), pp.91-
94.

Guersoy, E. (2011). The Critical Period Hypothesis Revisited: The
Implications for Current Foreign Language Teaching to Young
Learners . Journal of Language Teaching and Research 2(4),
pp.757-762.

Hsieh, M.-F. (2010). Teaching Young Children English: Experiences
of Native and Nonnative English Speaking Teachers . English
Teaching and Learning 34(2), pp.45-98.

Inbar-Lourie, O. (2010). English only? The linguistic choices of
teachers of young EFL learners . International Journal of
Bilingualism 14(3), pp.351-367.

16
Johnstone, R. (2008). Teaching a Modern Language to Children at
Primary School: Making It Work for All. English Teaching and
Learning 32(4), pp.1-40.

Kim, S. (2013). Comparison of Task-based and Storytelling-based
English Classroom Interaction in Korean Elementary Schools .
English Teaching 68(3), pp.51-83.

Korosidou, E. I., and Griva, E. A. (2013). My Country in Europe: A
Content-based Project for Teaching English as a Foreign
Language to Young Learners . Journal of Language Teaching
and Research 4(2), pp.229-243.

La Federation Wallonie-Bruxelles. (2014). Retrieved May 1, 2014,
from Enseignement.be: www.enseignment.be


Mackey, A., Kanganas, A. P., and Oliver, R. (2007). Task Familiarity
and Interactional Feedback in Child ESL Classrooms. TESOL
Quarterly 41(2), pp.285-312.

Meyer, B. (2013). Game-Based Language Learning for Pre-School
Children: A Design Perspective. The Electronic Journal of e-
Learning 11(1), pp.39-48.

Moon, J. (2008). L2 children and writing: a neglected skill? . ELT
Journal 62(4), pp.398-400.

Roul, S. K. (2014). Language Development of the Preschool
Children: The Effects of an Audio-Visual Intervention Program
in Delhi . International Journal of Instruction 7(1), pp.59-74.

17
Scott, C., Thoghdha, M. N., Smowton, D., Bergner, G., and
Williams, M. (2004). Survey: Primary Courses. ELT Journal
58(3), pp.277-293.

!ensoy, S., and zad, B. E. (2009). Teachers Attitudes toward
Using Activities while Teaching English to Young Learners .
Eurasian Journal of Educational Research 37, pp.174-187.

Short, K. G., Pierce, K. M., Crawford, K., Crowell, C., Kauffman, G.,
Peterson, B., et al. (1994). Children's Books: Finding
Ourselves as People and as Learners. The Reading Teacher
48(1), pp.64-74.

Si"irtma , A., and zbek, S. (2009). Teaching English in Early
Childhood. Inonu Univeristy Journal of the Faculty of
Education 10(1), pp.107-122.

Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in Society. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.

Yolageldili, G., and Arikan, A. (2011). Effectiveness of Using Games
in Teaching Grammar to Young Learners. Elementary
Education Online 10(1), pp.219-229 .













18
Appendix I
Plan of Task Cycle with Timings

Timing Activity Aim
Until 14:00 Welcome children with
colouring pages
Gather and settle
students
14:00-14:10 Drill food lexis
Play touch the wall
Revise and learn food
lexis
Consolidate lexis
through game
14:10-14:20 Number reordering and
shouting out task
Revise number
vocabulary
Use physical activities to
strengthen learning
14:20-14:30 Days of the week
clapping chant
Revise days of the week
Teach word stress and
rhythm
Involve kinaesthetic
activities
14:30-14:45 Read The Very Hungry
Caterpillar
YLs to respond to
teacher at appropriate
times
Follow and understand a
narrative story
Use lexis from earlier
tasks
Bring in outside
knowledge (of insects)
to classroom
14:45-15:05 Cutting and sticking
activity: making
storyboards
Recreating the narrative
to check comprehension
Using new vocabulary in
different situations
15:05-15:20 Snack and repeated
book reading
Children regain energy
Increasing amount of
involvement in book and
story
Learning formulaic
language
15:2015:45 Painting own butterflies
or caterpillars
Describing them using a
formulaic expression
Use of structure
pronoun + is + colour


19
Appendix II

Materials and Further Instructions for Tasks

1. Food Vocabulary and Touch the Wall

An A3 copy of each of the food items mentioned in The Very
Hungry Caterpillar will be printed and laminated for durability.
These will be glued to the wall with Blu-tack.

2. Number Reordering

The following numbers will be enlarged to A4 size each and
printed off so that each student can be given one number.
For this task, the students will firstly get themselves into the
correct order and then shout out their numbers in sequence.
If they appear confident, the teacher can extend this activity
by pointing to students out of sequence and asking for their
number.

1 2 3 4
5 6 7 8
9 10 11 12

3. Days of the week chant

Students will be sat in a circle and taught the following
actions:

Clap hands on knees, clap hands together, click right finger,
click left finger.
For students who cannot click their fingers, the last two steps
can be altered to clap hands above head twice.

Practise this rhythm until students are confident.

The teacher starts off the chart. It is a very simple three-
word chant, with each syllable being one clap. Each line will
be repeated twice.

It is Monday
It is Tuesday
It is Wednesday
It is Thursday
It is Friday
It is Saturday
It is Sunday
20

If the teacher feels it is appropriate, an extra clap can be
introduced for Saturday, which has an extra syllable.
When the chant has been completed once, it will be repeated,
but this time a different student will shout out the day each
time. As there are 12 students in the class, pairs of students
will be given a day from Monday to Saturday, and the teacher
will finish off the chant with Sunday.

4. Cutting and sticking activity

A copy of the following images will be provided for each child.
Students will be given sheets of paper with seven sections.
Students must cut out food items and glue them into the
boxes, ascending in number each time. For more confident
and literate learners, I will also provide them with the days of
the week to include on their storyboards.





























21








22

MONDAY TUESDAY
WEDNESDAY THURSDAY
FRIDAY SATURDAY
SUNDAY

5. Painting task

Children will be provided with aprons, a paintbrush each, and
a mix of watercolour paints. Paper templates will be provided
in the shape of butterflies, as shown below. This template is
not to scale; the actual template will be A4-sized.
The teacher will model how to paint half of the butterfly and
then fold the paper so that the paint covers the other side
also. When performing this final stage of the task, children
may well need physical support from the teacher in order to
fold and press evenly and without smudging the paint.



6. Extra Activities

a) Colour flashcards
In case it is necessary, I will print off A4 sheets of each of the
following colours: black, white, red, yellow, blue, green,
orange, purple, pink, brown. If the children are struggling to
remember the colours, we will use these with a matching
activity; I will ask YLs to find something that is
23
brown/orange/etc. The children will search in the room for an
item, locate one, and bring it back and place it on the correct
sheet of paper. At the end of each round, they will then
repeat It is [colour].


b) Number flashcards
If necessary, I will use the number cards used in the
reordering activity above in order practise this vocabulary.
We will begin with simple drilling, and then I will ask the
children to perform simple arithmetic sums (using only the
numbers 1-20), as I know they will have covered these in
school. They will tell me the numbers in English in order to
practise the lexis.

c) Bingo
Again, if it is necessary to spend more time on particular
lexis, I will provide the bingo grids below. I will ask students
students to either draw pictures of food items, write numbers,
numbers, or use colours in the boxes, depending on which
vocabulary set we are practising. I will then say the
foods/numbers/colours one at a time, and if students have
drawn that item they will cross it off. The first child to cross
cross off all of the items in their grid shouts bingo! and
wins.