“How can I get my students to pay attention in class?” – Thuy Kieu
“I’m looking for new ways to captivate and engage my 3 year-olds” -Adria
I’m often contacted by teachers who want to engage their Very Young Learners and help them learn English better. Fortunately there’s one key technique that will both draw our students’ attention, engage their minds, and help them remember their lessons longer; bring imagination into our lessons. Imagination is the secret ingredient that separates star teachers from just normal teachers. It easily adds context that ties activities together into true lessons – even for large EFL classes. With a touch of imagination your lessons will come alive for your little students.
Imagination and Very Young Learners (VYLs)
Imagination is a core ability for children from about 2 years old. It creates meaningful contexts in the classroom. Children are no longer stuck in a classroom, instead they can travel to many places like the supermarket, their home, the zoo, a jungle, or a magical kingdom. During this they also practice their social and cognitive skills, as well as their creativity and dexterity. Pretend play not only helps children access other places & extra skills but also is both more memorable and engaging for children than dull worksheets or sets of flashcards.
Children can do imaginative play on their own or with adults. Both types are very useful for EFL and ESL teachers, though in different ways. We’ll look at how to include both in your very young learner lessons.
A Lesson with Imagination
It doesn’t take much to turn a basic lesson into one filled with imagination and meaningful contexts for your VYLs to engage with. Let’s use a lesson on jungle animals such as monkeys, tigers, and crocodiles as an example and go beyond the basic set of flashcards and flashcard games.
Storybooks
First, reading a storybook to your students can engage them with colorful pictures, introduce them to authentic language, and help them imagine a different world. A great example is Walking Through the Jungle by Julie Lacome. It not only has great animal vocabulary but also fun actions, sounds and a lot of repetition.
If you’re like me, you might have trouble getting your hands on the actual book. Instead, you can find a video reading of the book on Youtube. Turn off the volume and read the book to your students with your own sounds and actions. You can also adapt the language as necessary and get the students to predict what animal they think they hear.
Another option is to create your own story with some simple materials. I like to tell the story of “Jungle Jim” (or “Jungle Jenny”), a jungle adventurer looking for animals in the jungle. All it takes is a jungle backdrop (I print on A3 paper and color one), a cutout picture of an adventurer girl/boy taped to a straw or chopstick, and animal flashcards. I can tell the story of “Jim” or “Jenny” as they walk through the jungle and search for animals. The children can help call out animals as they hear different growls, roars, or squawks – or as they see animal flashcards creeping out from behind the jungle backdrop. Sometimes “Jenny” gets to greet the animal and take a picture and other times she has to run from a hungry tiger.
Using puppets during story-telling is also a great way to engage learners in the story. The puppets can react with the children, ask questions, or lead call and respond activities. You don’t have to be a great puppeteer (I’m certainly not) to get a group of little children excited.
Songs
There are also a lot of songs that are great for activating imaginations, setting context, building vocabulary and getting your children up and moving. Two of my favorites for jungle animals are “Animals in the Jungle” by Nursery Rhymes TV and “Walking in the Jungle” by Super Simple Songs.
You can also use them in a variety of ways; play the video for students to watch, play just the audio and sing along, or memorize the song and lead the students without the music. I usually only ever play a video once or twice to give students a visual idea of the song. Afterwards I try for audio only so students can exercise their mental visualization skills while we sing and do the actions along with the song. Finally, I especially like “Walking in the Jungle” because it can lead to so many games.
Games
You can make basic games more contextual and imaginative with simple twists.
Flashcard Safari
Get students to imagine they’re in the jungle instead of in the classroom with a couple easy techniques while you play Flashcard Safari. You can hold up a picture of a jungle and tell students to pretend they’re there, or put up some cut-out leaves and trees on the walls to do the same. Tell students to pull out their “cameras” or “binoculars” by miming them with their hands as they listen to you and search for the animals.
Another similar game is Four Corners where students run to the walls with the flashcards instead of sitting and looking around. This game is great for working off excess energy but also needs to be played in a safe environment without obstacles.
You can increase the fun, language content, and imagination by adding a chant or making these games into a story.
One chant I like to use is;
“We’re walking in the jungle (mime walking in place)
Looking for some animals (mime looking around)
Where, oh where, can they be? (raise hands in question gesture)
Listen! Listen! (cup hand to ear to mime listening)
(animal sound) It’s a (animal)!
Hello (animal)!” (wave and/or “photograph”)
Another activity is to tell a story to the kids as you all pretend to walk through the jungle. You can tell students to walk, run, climb trees, swim in rivers, or jump over rocks. As they move through the jungle you make animal sounds for them to hear, identify, find and “photograph”. Students can run away from scary animals like tigers or swim away from crocodiles for extra excitement.
Drill Sergeant
This is a great TPR game that can also bring in a lot of imagination into the classroom. Get students to listen to you and pretend they’re animals in the jungle for this version of Drill Sergeant. Tell them “be monkeys” or “be tigers” so they move around the classroom like wild animals. For older children you can add extra language by including actions such as “be monkeys and eat bananas” or “fly like a parrot.”
Be careful with including too many dangerous animals like tigers, lions, crocodiles, or snakes. Students, especially boys, will get carried away with attacking each other (or you) as the game goes on. Make sure to model and praise nice behavior and cut the game short if students get too excited.
Crafts
A great craft can also bring your students’ imaginations alive. One popular option is to have students make animal masks or finger puppets. These are great for students to possibly reenact stories by playing as different animals. Students could also wear their masks as they listen to your commands; “Monkeys jump and tigers swim!” They could also make pretend binoculars with toilet paper tubes and string.
Another option is to try coloring dictations with a scene or grid. Children can later use the scene for Listen and Point or as inspiration to tell their own stories. They can also cut out the grid to make playing cards for guessing games.
Free Play
To encourage more imagination play you can let the students keep their crafts during their free play time. These often work great as materials or props for child-invented games, fantasy or dramatic play. During this time they can freely recycle language on their own and as they wish.
There are a ton of ways to bring imagination into the classroom. What ways do you know?
Are there any other books and songs you like to use with jungle animals?
What other imaginative settings have you used with your very young students.
Like, share, and comment below with your own ideas!
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