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TeachingEnglish Young Learners Activity Book
Introduction
Introduction
There are many books of activities for
teaching English in the primary classroom,
but this book is different. It is different
because all the activities have been tried
and tested by the very people who are
going to use them, teachers like you. These
teachers work in the most diverse contexts
and conditions, sometimes with large classes,
sometimes with very small groups, sometimes
with every type of resource you could wish
for, sometimes with only a board to support
their teaching. However, they share a desire
to help their students to learn English in an
enjoyable way. We imagine you too share this
desire and that is why you have picked this
book. We hope you find the activities useful,
engaging and fun too, and enjoy using them
in your class.
How the book was born
The book is the direct result of a year-long
project called ‘Investigating Global Practices
in Teaching English to Young Learners’ (www.
teachingenglish.org.uk/publications/globalpractices-teaching-english-young-learners).
A number of primary school teachers who
responded to the survey in this study told us
about the kinds of activities they used in class
to motivate their learners. We felt that these
ideas deserved to be shared with primary
teachers all over the world, and so the idea
for this book was born.
We contacted over 1,000 teachers who had left
their e-mail addresses on the survey site and
asked them to send us their favourite activities
for teaching English to young learners. From
the many we received, we selected the 50 that
we felt were the most original and creative, but
also the most practical for the greatest number
of teachers. In most cases, we have edited the
original activity in order either to provide very
clear guidance, or to make it more appropriate
for teachers everywhere. We are extremely
grateful to all those who sent in activities,
whether they are included here or not, and
to teachers who gave us their opinion on
them, such as teachers of young learners
at the JALT 2011 conference in Tokyo.
The Activities
For each activity, we give the ages of the
children it is suitable for and the time it takes.
Both of these should be taken as guides only.
Very often, the English level of the children is
more important than their age to the success of
the activity. In addition, the timing of the activity
depends on the size of the class or how quick
the children are to respond. You will always be
the best judge of whether an activity is suitable
for your class and how long it is likely to take.
Each activity has a section called Alternatives
in which we give different ideas for using the
activity. These are either related activities that
were sent in by other teachers, or our own ideas.
There is also a section called No Resources?,
which suggests ways of doing the activity even
if you do not have access to the resources
needed, such as computers, flashcards or even
sufficient coloured paper for all the children.
We have also included a Preparation section
so you will know how long it will take you to
prepare for each activity.
We know that many teachers work with large
classes and so we have indicated if the activities
are suitable for this context. We take a large
class to be 30+ children. Even where activities
are indicated as not being suitable for large
classes, it is worth looking at the Alternatives
section as often we suggest an approach for
using the same activity with large classes.
© British Council 2012
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