TEFL for babies, help!

[michaelsdottir]

Hi, I live abroad and have been roped into giving English classes at my daugher's nursery. I'm not an English teacher and have no experience but when they asked me I thought it would be fun and a good way to get involved with the school and kids... The problem is, they're so tiny I'm finding it hard to think of things to do with them!

I have two groups, 2/3 year olds and 1 year olds and under. Each class is half an hour and it's only once a week. The first group is OK, I do lots of songs and dances, describe actions and get them to copy me, show pictures of a topic and say the names in English etc., it normally goes fairly well and they seem to really enjoy it!

Oh but the baby group...what to do! There are 13 in the group, they are placed in high chairs so not moving around (I guess that's better!) but am really finding it hard to fill the half an hour. Does anyone have any bright ideas?

(BTW the school really doesn't expect very much, the classes are just supposed to be a fun alterative activity, I don't have to have one-year olds speaking English or anything! I suppose I just need a way to entertain 13 babies in English for half an hour )

Any ideas MUCH appreciated!

[fourcorneredcircle]

Give them rattles or other noise making toys and sing nursery rhymes at them?

If you do ones with actions (such as row your boat, wheels on the bus) or animal noises (old macdonald?) get yourself some pom-poms or ribbons to swirl around or something...

at least they'll have something to watch/listen to that makes sense?!?!

No idea really!

[Penhacked]

Ha ha! I do this, though only 2-5 year olds. I do have a one year old at home though! For the babies, do the same songs with actions every week. Use puppets while you do it, flashing coloured balls on their trays, or they love watching those ribbons like dancers have. Literally same class every week. They will like the repition. My one year old loves baa baa black sheep and seeing a picture of a sheep with actions. For the three year olds, also lots of repetition. They enjoy it and they forget as fast as they learn. You can milk a puppet for five mins with a hello song. Then you do pulling relevant objects out of a bag/box/house (colours, animals, etc). Five vocab words per lesson is ambitious. Teach please, thankyou as you hand things in and out. They love props, toys and silliness. They loved when I put a bracelet on my head, earring on my nost etc to teach body parts. comedy gold!

[michaelsdottir]

Thanks for your replies!! Ribbons sound a great idea, I'll get hold of some for next week! And track down some puppets too... I've been doing lots of nursery rhymes and using songs from Super Simple Songs on YouTube, doing silly dances etc. It's definitely true that the weeks I've bought them something in to touch they really like it...yesterday I made them little cut out cars and other vehicles. I guess the problem is I also work so don't have a huge amount of time for preparation!

[Penhacked]

I don't make a lot They are as happy to hold a wooden block if it is from your house! Toy plastic animals, coloured drinking straws, playfood etc. They. Don't need one each. They love passing along too!

[Heirhelp]

Baby one - sing 'Old McDonald' and hold up pictures of animal, 'Wind the Bobbin up', '5 little ducks' using rubber sucks and actions, '5 little speckle frogs' etc

[blaeberry]

Tell a story using puppets or soft toys? E.g. Goldilocks and the three bears?