Getting Children Interested in Learning English

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Getting Children Interested in Learning English

by dwi pujiastuti
(solo, indonesia)

Helping children learn English

Di, I have been teaching in an elementary school for about 2 years but I think, I can't make my students like English. Maybe they are bored with the class situation because I don't have many recourses or media to boost their spirits. Please give me a solution to make them happy with the limited media that I have! Thank you. - Itut

Hi Itut, It is hard to get children interesting in their classes, but you do not need many materials to do so successfully. Nor do you need fancy electronic or multi-media gadgets to get students interested. It just takes a bit of creativity.

When I started my classes last September (ages 8-12, 13-17) I found that you have to personalize the classes to get people interested. You need to find out more about each of your students and then incorporate their interests and lives into the content of the class.

Rather than learn about food in a boring repetitive way, you could go around the class talking about your favorite dishes and how to prepare them.

To learn more about the students I would play games. Some icebreakers are great at gathering information when the students work in pairs. You could create a card that has blanks on it and each student needs to interview another student. Once everyone has all the blanks filled in each student could introduce their partner. Then at the end of class you collect the cards and as a result have a great deal of information to work with from the cards.

I played games to tell my students more about myself, and to learn more about them.

You also need to establish a routine. If your students know what is coming, and they enjoy it, you will find that your classes go much smoother.

Activities that you can do in the classes? (Depending on your age groups)

-Sing songs
-Create things. For example, if you are learning food get them to create a menu with their favorite foods on it. Then you can post their menus on the classroom walls.
- Play games (bingo, happy families, Uno, trivial pursuit, hang-man, scrabble etc)

You could also incorporate culture. You could "travel" to new countries with pictures, videos and stories. It would be a fun way to learn normal vocabulary and keep students interested.

Take a survey as to where the students want to travel. Then incorporate these countries or cities into your classes.

It takes a lot of work to get kids interested, but I think if you are prepared, patience, and have lots of energy, they will start to respond better to the classes.

Also remember that they feed off your energy. If you are insecure, nervous or unhappy with the class they will feel that and probably mirror it. If you are happy, energetic and positive they will reflect that as well.

Does anyone else have any advice to help Itut?

I'm sure I'm not the only one who has ideas!

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Comments for
Getting Children Interested in Learning English

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Jul 15, 2010

learn to see things from a child's perspective
by: Anonymous

After reading your article, I felt like sharing some of my ideas here on the web. You mentioned about setting a routine for children in the article. I think this is important not only to children but to adults also, especially when they are learning a new foreign language.

A lot of time, people will think the more diverse our teaching contents is, the more children will enjoy it. This holds true only when children get really bored with what they are learning. When children learn, they need to follow a sequential order in picking up ideas and concepts we expect them to learn. And it is always the teachers' job to model how we think, reason, and how we solve problems that we are facing. In this way, children can learn the skills for solving problems.

I have to admit that getting children to be interested in learning English is challenging. They need to see, feel and touch a lot of hands-on things, things that are concret. But I think what is even more challenging for a teacher is how to get a child's perspective to see what they are learning.

CH

Mar 27, 2009

I meet the same problem
by: Joyce

I'm not a teacher. But I have a 7-year-old daughter. I have taught her english since she was about one and a half years old. And I have let her watch english fun cartoons for at least 30 minutes each day. It's helpful for her English. She can speak simple english.

After she entered primary school, she ~~has~~ lost interest in English a lot. She hates English spelling. She hates dictations and exams. Now I talk to her in English. She talks back in Chinese often.

I know that it's easy and fun for her to learn English through playing games, but I can't find the right time to play. When we play games before she does homework, she doesn't concentrate on her homework later. When we play games after she finishes homework, she doesn't want to stop, even if it's her bedtime ~~comes~~. When she goes to bed, she's too excited to sleep. So I stoped playing games with her ~~now~~.

I meet the same problem. I don't know how to get my child interested in English, ~~too~~ either.

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