Dear Reader,
Do you know the feeling when three-year-olds ski down the mountain at lightning speed next to you, while you are desperately trying to stand on your two feet to reach the base of the mountain, if possible alive? That’s exactly how a one-year-old made me feel using her iPod. About two years ago we visited our friends whose baby girl was about one year old that time. The little girl’s (D.) favourite toy was her mother’s iPod touch, which was full of educational apps for kids. For D. finding her game was a piece of cake, like she was born with it. Humiliating! But what happened after that is why I am telling you this story. Her favourite game was an English language app for very little children about animals. She had to follow instructions to spot the animals, colour them, or complete a puzzle. She could not only follow these instructions but also every time she finished the task she listened to the animal’s name and automatically repeated it with crystal clear accent. Here I should add that D. did not speak a word in her mother tongue that time, and her parents did not teach her English, her only source of input was the game. The youngest autonomous learner I know:) I found it pretty impressive and probably that was the time I set my mind on pursuing a career in teaching young learners. The same day D.’s three-year-old brother taught us how to play Angry Birds- it took me some time to learn just the use of the touch screen. Humiliating, again...
Children of this generation are born with using technology. Teachers and parents have to find the way to embed it into children’s everyday life and education to make a good use of it.
As an ESL teacher I’ve been teaching mostly adults in the last 10 years. My near future plan is to extend my teaching experience to young learners. In this blog my plan is to collect on-line tools I think can be useful assets of classes. Hopefully, teachers working in this field will find some apps worthy to bring something new to their classrooms, at the same time I also encourage parents who would like/ like teaching their children at home to take a look at the apps and try out some of them. Please, leave some feedback, I’m curious which ones you find useful or have been using successfully.
Also, I’m doing an online session on Young Learners with Moodle4teachers.org, Teaching EFL for YLs EVO15 in the next 5 weeks, so I’ll share with you every bit of interesting information so you could also benefit from it.
Remember, if you can become a child again and enjoy your own classes your pupils will enjoy it, too! So I say:
“Would you like and adventure now, or would like to have your tea first?” :)
(J.M.Barrie, Peter Pan)
Love,
Verus
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