Our initial objectives...

The following are suggested as our initial objectives as we set out on this collaborative experiment:

• To share the successes (and failures?) that we have in our young learner classrooms
• To reflect on our teaching and the reasons for successful (or unsuccessful) teaching and learning
• To learn more about teaching young learners
  
• To learn a little about blogging, see some of its possibilities, and perhaps go on to use blogs with our learners

Comments on the above... ? Suggestions... ? Amendments... ? Hit the "Comment" button below...!

"Managing Children Positively"

There was an article by Carol Read in ET Professional back in May 2005 that I think is of interest. I think it's especially relevant at the beginning of the year: if you don't get it right at the beginning of the year, it's going to be too late.

The author says:

"The main aim of managing children positively is create and maintain a happy working environment in which the norms and rules of classroom behaviour are respected and children are engaged in purposeful activity and feel secure and motivated to learn. Maintaining a balance between children's enjoyment and acceptable behaviour is often one of the greatest challenges primary language teachers face."

She goes on to talk about what she describes as "the seven 'R's", namely the following:

• Relationships (you've got to establish relationships with them, not the other way round)
  
• Rules ("have as few as possible" and "actually enforce them"; make them inclusive and positive -- eg. "We talk quietly in our classroom" rather than "You mustn't shout")
  
• Routines (kids like them, apart from anything else as it makes them feel more secure, and that they belong to a community)
  
• Rights and...
  
• ... Responsibilities, which she suggests go together ("If you have a right to speak (...) then you also have the responsibility to listen to others")
  
• Respect ("the glue which underpins and holds together all the other 'R's"; and -- again -- you've got to model respect, by respecting them)
  
• Rewards ("best not the use any system of extrinsic rewards", she says)

Personally, I'd suggest that the reward your learners get if you get the first six right is a happy learning environment. And no matter how much we enjoyed pissing about in class as kids, the teachers 99% of us like were those that made us work, and enjoy it.

Management, they say, is about that -- and I think it applies to teaching kids as well as managing workers. The secret is to get people to do what they don't necessarily want to do -- and enjoy it.

ETP [ website ], which comes out six times a year, is a great little magazine (and not a bad website), by the way. If you don't get it in the school where you work, I'd definitely recommend a subscription (25GBP, or €40). Suggest it to your Mum as a Christmas present for you!

Tom: Not teaching but still learning

I'm not actually teaching young learners -- in fact I haven't done so at all in at least the last five years (unless my own kids count, that is!).

My first two years in English teaching was exclusively teaching Young Learners, first in a state high school and then in a private primary school, both here in Barcelona. That was over 20 years ago and since I've had a fair bit more experience of YLs -- and sometimes wish I could go back to it.

Partly that's because I know now lots of things that I didn't know then -- and I wonder if I could go back and apply some of those things, and be a better teacher than I was when I began. Maintaining discipline successfully was one thing I wasn't very good at, and I've learnt since that story telling with kids has so much to offer -- that's one thing I would try.

My interest in this project is, first, that although I'm not actually teaching English, I still think teaching and learning are fascinating subjects, especially when they involve kids. Secondly, I think that blogs offer English teachers a lot of exciting possibilities, just one of which is "learner diaries", of which this is -- I would suggest -- an example. So my second interest in the project is exploring some of those possibilities.

What I actually do, by the way, is sit in front of my PC all day long, designing and updating websites.