Seminar 3 Techniques and Activities For Teaching English To Different Age Groups

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SEMINAR 3

Techniques and activities for teaching English to different age groups

Aims:

to encourage students to interpret the process of teaching the foreign language in terms of
formation of the communicative competence;
to develop students’ analytical skills;
to increase students’ knowledge of methods and techniques of teaching English

Objectives:

students will be able to analyze the potential of the materials for teaching different age
groups; students will be able to design activities for teaching different age groups.

Outcomes:

students will select teaching materials in accordance with the age group characteristics;
students will design activities for teaching different age groups.

Procedure
1. Answer the questions.
• Can you notice any differences in the way you learnt English when you were a school
learner and a student?
During school time, students spend less time developing their level of English, the main
points of study were vocabulary, grammar rules, and preparation for ZNO.
while studying at the university, the English language became a complex system, consisting
of phonetics, grammar, vocabulary, theoretical grammar, stylistics, lexicology.So, we began
to spend more time with the English language. During the student period, self-education is a
priority.

• Was it easier to learn English at school or at the University?


of course at school, we spent about 2 hours a week learning English.
2. Arrange the given activities according to the appropriate age groups. Explain your
point of view.

Activity 1. ●Ask the students to draw the face of a person in the top right-hand corner of

the page. ●Once they've done this ask them to give the person a name. ●Then on the top left of the
page ask them to write five adjectives to describe the person's appearance. ●Next ask them to write
five more adjectives to describe the person's character. ● After they've done this ask the students to
write three things that the person likes doing. ● Then ask them to write who the person lives with. ●
In this way they build up a character profile for the person they are going to write about. ● Now
dictate the following sentence to your students: 'It was a dark and stormy night and'. Stop at this
point and ask them to write in the name of the person they have drawn and followed by the word
'was'. ● Then ask the students to complete the sentence from their imagination and add one more
sentence. ● Once all the students have added a sentence to their stories, get them to stop and pass the
paper to the pair on their right (this means that every pair of students now has a new character). ●
The students then read through the information and the beginning of the story and then add one
more sentence to it. ● Once they've done this you ask them once more to pass the paper to the next
pair on their right. Continue to do this with each pair of students adding a sentence to each story,
gradually building up each story as the papers are passed around the class. ● Continue with this until
you decide that the students are starting to lose interest or have written enough and then tell them to
finish the story.

7 -8 th grade

Activity 2. ● Have students sit in a circle. If you have a large class, divide students into

groups of up to eight. ● Ask one of the questions from the list. Throw the ball to one of the students

and prompt them to answer. Students have a maximum of three seconds to think before they answer.

If they don’t know the answer, they can call out “hot potato!” and pass. ● That student then chooses
a question and throws the ball to another student. ● Students continue to play until all the questions
have been asked and answered. Note: Each student can only say “hot potato” once during the game.

4-5th grade
Activity 3. Ask learners to prepare a presentation using the “PechaKucha” style. Students

are to make ppt presentations. Each student is allowed to show 20 slides only for 20 seconds each
(the timing being controlled by the software so that the slides change automatically) or whatever
time limit you choose. You could make it 10 sides for 15 seconds each, for example.
You could also add rules such as “no more than 3 words on each slide” (or “no words”) so
that students must really talk and not just read the slides. They need to be given a good amount of
time, either at home or in class, to prepare themselves and practice their timing. It can also be
prepared and presented in pairs, with each partner speaking for half of the slides.

-9 -10th grade

Activity 4. ●Find postcards from your home town, if different to that of the learners, or from

interesting places in their country or around the world. They can be printed from the internet if
easier. Complete the postcards on the back in advance. You will need a minimum of two different
postcards, one for student A and one for student B. ● Give each student a postcard to read and
explain that their friend has sent it to them. Give them some comprehension questions to answer
about the card, e.g. 'Where is the sender?' 'What’s the weather like?' 'What is he/she doing?' ●
Review the language needed to ask about holiday places and impressions, e.g. 'How was the
weather?' 'What did you think of the food?' ● Put As and Bs together and ask them to 'telephone'
their partner, thank them for their postcard and find out more about the holiday.
Pairs can perform their conversations for the class. ● As a follow-up, get students to write
postcards from weird or wacky holiday places. Then use the postcards to do a similar telephone role
play.

6th grade

Activity 5. One player has a card listing four words: ●The first word is the secret word. The

aim of the game is to get another player to say this word. The student with the card will need to
describe this word until another student figures out what the secret word is. ● The other three words
are the most obvious words that you might use to explain the secret word. They are all “taboo” and
cannot be used in the student’s description of the secret word.
Adult group
This game can be played between two teams. It can also be played between partners.

Activity 6. ● First, have your students make some paper airplanes. Stand the students in a

line and let them test fly their planes. For the competition, assign different classroom objects points
(e.g. table 5 points, door 10 points, trash can 20 points). Ask a S a question and if s/he answers
correctly then s/he can throw and try to hit one of the target objects to win points. This works well as
a team game.
4-5 grade
3. Define the characteristics of the activities appropriate for each age group and
make a list of them.

4. Make these activities more age related using the characteristics (see Activity 3)
as the criteria.
1) Read and learn the names of different animals.
2) Read and learn new words about food and drink.
3) Listen and put the little pictures in the correct place in the big picture.
4) Listen to what the people say and answer the questions.
5) Look at two pictures and describe their differences.
6) Listen and choose one picture that answers the questions about work and jobs.

5. Divide the visuals into those that are more suitable for young learners and those that
are more suitable for adult learners. Explain your choice.
Visuals:
• photos - all
• pictures- all
• art work – adult
• cartoons – young
• flash cards - all
• timelines – adult
• posters all
• storybooks (picture books) – yong
• scrapbooks young
• maps all
• coloring books young
• stickers young
• schemes adult

6. Design teaching materials.


 Choose two visuals and design two activities with them – one for young learners and
one for adult learners.
 Give the names to your activities.
 Publish your activities in the group.
 Be ready to study all the activities in the group and vote for those that best correspond
to the age characteristics.
 Be ready to do a self-reflective analysis of your activities.

PICTURE – young
Teachers should use pictures which have a detailed background and foreground so that
the students can have plenty of opportunities to use nouns, adjectives, and verbs where
applicable.

After showing the picture, the teacher will ask the students about the picture. Students
can either talk about the picture or explain it in writing.
PHOTO – adult
the teacher divides the class into teams, gives each team 5 pictures depicting actions,
students must make a story in 7-8 sentences describing the actions of the picture in a
logical sequence. this task is given 7-8 minutes.

7. Sum up.
Which age group would it be easier to deal with for you? Why do you think so?

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