5 essentials every child needs when you're teaching English

Jeanne Perrett
Jeanne Perrett
Two parents sat with their two children, writing in a workbook togeher

The educational choices available to children are evolving rapidly with apps, online courses, digital games, recordings and videos becoming easily accessible. However, amidst this technological advancement, human evolution has not suddenly accelerated, and the primary aim for teachers remains unchanged - helping children make sense of the world and leaving their mark on it.

Here are five essential ways we can achieve that for every child, regardless of their circumstances, whether it's teaching English or fostering everyday learning and education.

 

5 essentials every child needs when you're teaching English
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1. Attention

Paying attention to what we're doing is something that we have to re-learn. Very young children pay great attention to the smallest of things. Washing their hands takes forever as they want to focus on the soap, doing up shoelaces can become a half-hour activity, or an interesting pebble on the road can make a quick trip to the shops a very long one.

So, what happens is that we then start teaching children to hurry up. ‘Hurry up, come on, quickly, now - put on your coat NOW!’ are part of every parent’s repertoire. And we have to do it because we know what the children don’t - that the bus won’t wait for us, that school starts at a certain time and that people will be kept waiting if we don’t hurry up.

Therefore paying attention has to be re-learnt and we need to lead the way. We have to pay attention to the children, what they are saying and doing, and then we have to resist the temptation to do too many things at once. And, most importantly, we have to give our children enough time to let things sink in.

2. Skills

We have so many ways of describing skills now; soft, hard, thinking, critical, communication - the list goes on. In some ways, these descriptors are useful as they make us more aware of the particular skills of a child, but there is still often a gap between knowing how a child is skilled and how that can be useful to the child.

Let’s take a classic example; one of the main qualities people often think of as connected to nursing is a skill for caring, showing compassion and being a good communicator. Yes, that is important, but the main skill needed to be a nurse is dealing competently, practically and non-judgmentally with bodily fluids. So, yes, we absolutely need to make sure that we are educating our children to become skillful in various ways but we also need to think about how those skills are transferable.

3. Knowledge

One of the most significant changes of the past 40 years is how we can access information. Gone are the days of one version of an encyclopedia or whatever your teacher knew; now we have online data, crowdsourced reports, scores of different formats - everything is a click and a swipe away.

So how can we help with this? First, we have to get children interested enough in a topic to want to find things out for themselves. Then we must guide them through what is true and what might not be. And then our main job is showing them that they can add to the tree of knowledge. It’s constantly growing, and they can lengthen the branches, help fruit grow, and even dig up the roots and plant the tree elsewhere.

4. Imagination

Thinking creatively, thinking ‘out of the box’ and seeing new possibilities can and must be nurtured in our children. We can use our imagination in traditionally creative ways such as writing, artwork, music and drama, but perhaps even more importantly we can use it in ‘unseen’ ways. We can unlearn banal responses and consider what we really think; in other words we can ‘think for ourselves’. Again this skill is needed more than ever when surrounded by seemingly wise thoughts in social media memes. The nature of memes is that they look definite, as if they are true. They might be and they might not. We can decide when we use our critical and creative thinking skills.

We can use imagination to find solutions to problems and we can use it to make our own everyday realities more exciting and life-enhancing. Whatever we do, if we have a positive image of ourselves doing it, the task becomes more meaningful and rewarding. And in a practical sense in the classroom, we can bring language learning to life. Imagining and play acting the situations where the language we are learning might be called for; in a restaurant, at an airport or meeting new friends. It can be a great method to teach English to kids, keeping them engaged and actively involved. 

5. Support

Support comes in many forms. First concrete support, such as providing a desk and materials for children to do their homework. This is something that teachers need to be aware of; do the children have that at home? It’s not a question of finance - not everyone can afford a separate room and the space for a desk - but it is a question of realizing that a dedicated, quiet space is needed. For example a cleared kitchen table at certain times of the day. It’s worth bearing this in mind if parents say their children never focus on homework. Look at the practicalities before any attitude issues.

The most important form of support we can give is ‘being there’ for our children. Knowing that someone wants you to do well, is there for you through your mistakes and successes, and empathizes with both. Someone who ‘has your back’ when you need help and is glad for you when you do well; that gives our children a powerful sense of security. And we can flourish when we feel secure.

By implementing these above points, we can equip children with the tools they need to understand the world, pursue their passions and make a positive impact on their lives and others. 

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