Many new EFL teachers think the key to successful classes with children is to pack as many exciting games into their lessons as possible. The truth, though, is that preschool and primary school learners need quieter activities as well – even in short 30 minute lessons. Settled activities such as Coloring Dictations are great for calming down and focusing rowdy classes while also practicing listening skills and creating materials for later speaking activities.
Balancing Stirrers and Settlers
As preschool and primary school EFL teachers we have to manage our students’ energy levels to have successful lessons. Children are brimming with youthful energy and they need to move frequently. It’s actually pretty difficult for them to sit in chairs for long periods of time. I often see many behavior problems coming from students’ unfilled needs for movement and excitement in my observations.
To help with this we often include exciting, stirring activities that use Total Physical Response (TPR), competition, music, or even running, jumping, and throwing things.
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These are all great. However each lesson shouldn’t have too many stirrers. Perhaps you’ve even experienced a class where a game got too heated, or students got over-stimulated. In those classes you might see tears, fights, and even meltdowns. Those are symptoms of lessons with too many stirring activities back to back.
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That’s why it’s good to let our students calm or settle down in class while also practicing their English skills in a quietly engaging way. Coloring Dictations are a great way to get everyone involved and should be on the of your top settling activity list.
What are Coloring Dictations?
This activity is very simple. Every student (or sometimes pair of students) gets their own handout of a picture or grid of pictures. They also have their own set of crayons. You then tell them how to color their pictures in stages using language that is appropriate for their level and lesson targets. Finally, during the activity or at the end students can compare their pictures with classmates or your teacher’s copy to check their answers.
Coloring Dictations are Flexible
This activity is appropriate for students older than about 3 1/2 years. Each of the students gets crayons and a picture (or pictures) to color. They listen as their teacher or a classmate tells them what to color and which color to use.
Topics: Coloring dictations are great for practicing a wide range of vocabulary on top of colors including animals, family, toys, foods, the alphabet, numbers, days of the week, and grammar such as prepositions, comparatives, and relative clauses.
Layouts: A super simple coloring dictation can have just a grid of objects for the students to color. In other cases it’s great to have the objects in context; perhaps a family photo, a messy room, or children playing in the park. This makes the images more meaningful for children and also lets you easily include additional grammar points.
Download: Toys Scene Coloring / Days of the Week Coloring / Toys Coloring / Playground Coloring / Family Coloring
Setting Up Coloring Dictations
While Coloring Dictations seem like a straightforward activity, there a few key points to keep in mind. A few mistakes can turn a fun, quiet activity into a nightmare!
Designing: If you’re making your own coloring sheet make sure to keep the images relatively small. Children love to take their time with coloring; the bigger the image the longer it will take them to color it in. You may also want to leave large margins around the images if you’re working with preschoolers – they often struggle to hold small pieces of paper in place.
Preparing: I always recommend reviewing colors before doing a Coloring Dictation to teachers of low-level EFL students. Even a quick one minute reminder really helps them keep up in the activity and reduce mistakes.
Delay Distributing: Remember to use chesting during your instructions; don’t distribute the paper until the end of your instructions. If you pass out papers too soon many of your students will immediately look at their papers. They’re not able to split their attention, so if they’re not looking at you then they won’t be able to follow the rest of your instructions.
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Use Routines: You’ll also want to develop a routine for distributing crayons or asking your students to get theirs out when you’re ready. Again, once students have crayons in their hands they’ll be focused on them instead of you for a short while.
Finally, many children get excited to color in class and will immediately pull out their crayons when they see you holding a picture handout. You need to be clear and strict that crayons can only come out when you say it’s okay to.
If many of your students don’t have their own crayons, it’s pretty easy to pick up 20 or so sets for cheap. This is usually enough – even if your students need to share. Just make sure you provide enough time for them to clean up and put the crayons back in. Otherwise you’ll soon be missing half of them.
Doing Coloring Dictations
During this EFL listening activity it’s easy for chaos to creep in. Each child will want to color at their own pace. Some will quickly color without a care for the lines, while others will do their best to fill in each little space perfectly. If you’re not careful your class will grind to a halt with students taking several minutes to color a single small image. You can do a couple things to prevent this.
“Hands up!” First, build in a routine of “hands up” or “crayons up.” When you want the students to move onto the next picture call out “Hands up!” and wait for everyone to raise their hands. Once everyone is ready you can then give the next coloring instructions.
Fast Pace: To keep things moving you also don’t want to wait for every student to finish. Some students will happily color a single picture for several minutes. Instead, set a time limit in your head – maybe 45 seconds – for each object. You can always let students finish their coloring during downtime later. The important point is practicing listening skills, not coloring a picture perfectly.
Pairs: You can also do Coloring Dictations with pairs of students, but keep in mind a few key points. Children below four or five years old aren’t able to share materials, so only try this with students who are old enough. Also, dominant students will want to do all of the coloring themselves. Use a routine to signal to your students that they need to give the crayons to their partner.
Teacher’s Copy: Finally, it’s useful to keep a copy for yourself and quickly color it along with the students. You can show it after a short moment to let students quickly check their own answers. It’s much easier than walking around to every student and confirming their answers.
Common Coloring Dictations Mistakes
Instant Answers: One of the most common mistakes I see with new teachers is they undermine the listening skill component of their Coloring Dictations. The first way they do this is by showing answers as they speak or before the students have a chance to follow the coloring instructions. The students just look at the answer and copy it instead of actually practicing their listening skills.
Predictable Answers: A similar problem is following predictable patterns. Don’t copy all the same colors from your flashcards! Kids are smart and they’ll start coloring ahead of your directions. It’s also okay for a tiger to be pink or a monkey to be purple. Kids often find it very amusing to use unexpected colors for familiar objects. This also mimics what they’ll do in common tests like the Cambridge YLE.
Dark First: Some kids will inevitably make mistakes and use the wrong colors. I always bring a few extra copies for the kids who make early mistakes. I also often try to use lighter colors first and then move to darker colors. It’s easy to cover up a pink or yellow mistake than a black or purple one.
Extending Coloring Dictations
Info-Gap: You can turn Coloring Dictations into a student to student speaking activity by adapting them into a personalized info-gap activity. Divide the class into pairs of A and B students. List the objects the A’s can color on their own, and do the same for the B’s. Once they’ve finished coloring they can then tell their partner what to color. Each pair should end up with pictures that look the same.
More Listening: After the crayons are put away there are still many things you can do with a finished Coloring Dictation. It’s very easy to move into another listening activity such as Listen & Point or Stand Up/Sit Down. Now you’re able to use more complicated English than if you just had a black & white handout.
More Speaking: Students can also practice their speaking skills with Speed Speak & Listen Quick by asking questions or making true/false statements about their pictures.
Playing Cards: Coloring Dictation grids are also great for making playing cards. With enough time and support primary students can cut their dictations up and use them for student to student guessing games.
Don’t forget to like, share, and comment! What have you done with Coloring Dictations in your classes?
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