TEFL to preschoolers

hi,
i have to do a project about teaching english as a foreing language to preschoolers, what methods are the bests?
how should i do it?
thanx!

[Tdol]

I'm afraid I only teach adults. I'm trying to find out some stuff about very young learners for someone else and will pass anything on that is of interest.

thanx anyways :)

[Dandelion]

Use songs and chants. Posters with brightly-colored pictures are good. I believe it is not a good idea to teach small children to read or write a foreign language before they are able to read and write in their own language, so show them a picture of an apple (or any other fruit they are familiar with) and say the word. Then have them repeat it. Use flash cards (only with pictures - no writing) and yes, play all kinds of games with the kids. Children love games. I hope this helps.

[queenmaabd]

I teach EFL to a group of 4 year olds and it isn't easy.

Fisrt of all you have to have a clear list of you basic objectives (none of them can include writing or reading!)

Once you know what you want them to learn, you have to feed it to them slowly and repeat it constantly, or else they will forget EVERYTHING!

I for example started my lessons at the beginning of the year by asking each student a simple question in turn (if you know them start by asking the one most likely to answer correctly). Once they get that down, add another one. I have got to the point where I don't ask the question. I let one of them sit at my desk at the beginning of the class and ask all the other students their name, age and how they are. They LOVE to "be" the teacher.

Flash cards are VERY useful. If your kids can stand a bit of competition and dont get angry when they lose, you can set up two teams, make pairs of opposing team members and flash the cards at them. Whoever hits the table first (they love to make noise) gets to try to tell you the name. At the end team with most correct guesses wins!

For numbers do simple things like tap the table and ask "how many?" or play ring the nubmer. Write numbers on the board (numerically) and make teams. As a number is called out the first to circle the number gets a point.
These are some of the basic activities as well as playing simon says an just openly asking "How do you say 'winter'?"

I hope to have been of at least some use.

[Dandelion]

Hi!

Many thanks.

I'm sure your post will be of great interest and help to Atalanta83 who started this discussion since you have provided great tips with specific examples. All my students are adults and I've never taught children this young. I wonder if I would be patient enough. Hummm... Congratulations and good luck!

[Teaching English Games]

I realize this post was started a long time ago, but did want to add to it for anyone else out there that might find the information useful.

First of all, I do agree with using games for the preschoolers since they don't know how to read and write at this point. In fact, teaching these young learners is my specialty and teaching with games is my method of preference.

The above post gives a lot of useful information as games are what kids of this age like doing best anyway -- so it's logical to teach with the games as well.

In addition to teaching numbers, you can alter that board game to do any type of vocabulary you want to teach. Put up pictures of different kinds of food if you are teaching food vocab, family members if you are teaching family vocab or animals if that is what you are teaching.

When teaching with games, especially to young children, you'll want to take into consideration the competition factor. While competition is often a motivator for older kids, preschoolers can easily get discouraged if competition is weighed too heavily on the game, so you might want to consider finding ways to make everyone "winners" or just play the games "for fun".

Kind Regards,
Shelley

Receive free games and ideas to make teaching children more fun on: www.teachingenglishgames.com