Oxford University Press

English Language Teaching Global Blog

Tag Archives: Early Childhood


by 1 Comment

Using discussion posters and… an elephant’s foot

Elephant's foot

Image courtesy of valentinastorti via Flickr

Kenna Bourke, co-author of the forthcoming Young Learners series, Oxford Discover, explores the benefits of using discussion posters with young children to aid learning, cognitive skills, and vocabulary development.

Sometime around the age of one to one and a half, I made an incredible discovery: speech! No longer was I just a helpless, gurgling baby making faces at my parents. Oh, no! I could now ask questions. How cool!

And not only could I ask questions, and get answers, but this new found skill gave me one Very Special Power: the ability to drive my parents crazy. I’m reliably informed that many conversations went something like this:

Me: What’s that?
Mum: It’s a table.
Me: Hmm. What’s that?
Dad: It’s a banana, but I think you know that.
Me: (grinning) What’s that?
Mum: You know perfectly well what it is.
Me: WHAT’S THAT?
Dad: It’s an elephant’s foot.
Me: (laughing uncontrollably) No, it’s not! It’s a book!

Sound familiar? I don’t think I can have been the only kid to use the ‘extreme interrogation technique’ for the sole purpose of testing my parents’ patience. It’s in the nature of children to ask questions – lots and lots of questions. That’s how we build basic vocabulary as children: we see something, we wonder what its name is, we point, we ask a question, and BANG! We get an answer. Then we store the image and answer, and the next time we see the object, we know what it is. Excellent.

The curiosity of a child is perhaps the best teaching tool we have. So how do we harness this natural thirst for knowledge?

Well, one way is through the power of the poster. These days we almost take posters for granted. Are they pretty decorative items that make our classrooms look bright and cheery? Yes, but … now it’s the adult’s turn to ask the question, ‘What’s that?’ Here are three things that posters are invaluable for:

Triggering critical thinking

Like me, you may have had an animal alphabet when you were a child. A is for antelope; G is for giraffe; Z is for zebra; X is a problem (!); and that helped you remember the letters of the alphabet. But posters don’t have to be limited to single word associations – they can help students connect concepts.

Think of a colour chart, for example. We can either put splodges of colour on a poster and print the words red, blue, yellow, and so on under the splodges, or we can use posters to go well beyond vocabulary acquisition by presenting a series of interlinked concepts, as in the poster to the right (click to download). In presenting concepts visually, we enable children to think more deeply and meaningfully about a topic. With a poster like this one, you could put students into pairs and ask them to give examples from their own experience and knowledge: where have they seen colours in nature? Have they ever made a colour? Is colour a good thing? What colourful animals can they name? Why might some animals be colourful? They then share their ideas with another pair.

Boosting memory

We know that the cognitive process is enhanced by images. Just as with real physical objects, like books, tables, and bananas, images enable learners to recognize and recall, making it easier for them to internalize meaning and store that meaning in their memory banks. To this day, I clearly remember a poster in my history teacher’s classroom. It was a satirical image of a famous politician with a boiled egg instead of a head. And to this day, because of that image, I could tell you all about him.

A striking image stays imprinted on the memory. It acts as the foundation for a pattern of thoughts and memories – a story if you like – in much the same way that a few bars of music can conjure up memories many years later. Using any good poster, try giving students a minute to remember as much as they can. Then hide the poster or ask students to stand with their backs to it. What do they remember? Why do they remember that? What associations did they make with the image?

Creating equality

Posters have the power to make all students equal. Images free up the imagination and give everyone a voice. As a teacher, you can ask students to say what they see in the poster and there’s no wrong answer. Every answer is equally valid and everyone, from the loudest to the quietest, gets a chance to voice an opinion and react to what he or she sees. It’s very hard not to have some sort of reaction to a visual image (you may like what you see, or you may dislike it; it may provoke a thought or remind you of something) and this means that discussion happens naturally and effortlessly. Child A looking at a poster may see a boy and a girl, but Child B, looking at the same image, may see a family or friends.

Clouds at sunsetWith any image or poster you like, try asking students to brainstorm thoughts, words, feelings, or memories. One child may see a picture of a cloud, while another may see … an elephant’s foot. And who’s to say a cloud can’t be an elephant’s foot? My parents would say it can be!

Would you like more practical tips on developing communication and other 21st century skills with your children? Visit our site on Teaching 21st century skills with confidence for free video tips, activity ideas and teaching tools.


by 4 Comments

Look who’s talking! Getting very young learners to speak in English

Children in playgroundGabby Pritchard, co-author of the forthcoming Kindergarten series, Show and Tell, offers some practical tips for encouraging your Kindergarten children to communicate in English.

From the moment toddlers begin to discover the exciting world around them, they begin to acquire the language they need to express their curiosity and be understood by others. They very quickly learn to use simple questions to find answers. What? Where? When? How? and Why? become favorite words as they explore how their world works.

So, how can we create a classroom environment that encourages young children to continue their exploration of the world through a new language? Here are some ideas.

1. Begin with questions

Use posters, photographs, toys and real objects to stimulate children’s curiosity about a new topic. Let them feel the objects. Ask plenty of questions: What can you see? What’s this? What color is the…? How many…? Where is…?

Use the same questions every time you introduce a new topic so the children become familiar with them. As they gain confidence, encourage the children to ask some questions of their own too.

2. Cooperative learning

Organize children into small groups to carry out simple investigations and experiments, play language games, act out stories and complete craft activities.

By working cooperatively, your children will find they need to talk about how to complete tasks, assign roles and solve problems. They will also develop their social skills, such as learning to share and turn taking.

Always encourage children to use polite language when working alongside each other. Phrases such as: Let’s play with the… Please pass the… and You’re welcome are very useful phrases. They will help children develop respect for others and form positive relationships. Try teacher trainer Freia Layfield’s idea for a role-play activity that teaches children valuable life skills while getting them to talk in English.

3. Get more from stories

Young children love to immerse themselves in the world of make-believe. Using stories in class provides a great basis for getting children to talk about motivation, consequences and feelings.

Read aloud, or play audio recordings of, short, simple stories. Then ask questions to get the children to think carefully about the characters and events. The questions should encourage a deeper understanding of how and why things have happened.

You can begin by asking simple questions, for example, Is the giant happy? Are the bears angry? Then move on to more probing questions: Why is Jack scared? Why are the bears angry?

When the children have explored a story, encourage them to work in groups to act out the story using props. You may be surprised by how much more enthusiastic the children are, and how much more they put into their acted versions of the stories, once they have explored the meaning thoroughly.

4. Show and Tell

A great way of rounding up a topic and reinforcing what children have learned is to set up group or class projects. These can include:

  • topic-related craft activities
  • hands-on tasks such as growing plants or preparing snacks
  • recording activities such as making graphs of class preferences or talents
  • bringing to class a favorite toy or book to talk about.

Start ‘Show and Tell’ sessions by talking with the children about what they are going to produce, getting them to contribute ideas about how they will do this and the sorts of equipment they will need to complete the project. Get the children to work together to produce different parts of projects where possible. If they need to work individually on a project, prepare sets of materials for groups to share, to encourage them to observe others and discuss ways of working in order to produce the best results.

Finally, have the children present their work to the class, to other classes, or even to their parents. This will help build confidence in their ability to express themselves and give them a real sense of achievement.

For a simple way to introduce the idea of Show and Tell to your kindergarten class, visit the page on ‘Teaching 21st century skills with confidence’ for another video tip from Freia Layfield. It comes with a free worksheet that you can download from the Oxford Teachers’ Club (it’s quick and free to register).

We’d like to hear from you

Please do share your experiences of getting children talking in class – we would love to hear about them. You can use the comments box below this blog.

Would you like more practical tips on developing communication and other 21st century skills with your Kindergarten children? Visit our site on Teaching 21st century skills with confidence for free video tips, activity ideas and teaching tools.

Related articles