UNIVERSIDAD DEL ACONCAGUA

ESCUELA SUPERIOR DE LENGUAS EXTRANJERAS

Didactics I

Characteristics of the young language learner

Objectives of the unit:

By the end of this unit, you should…:

• become conversant with different approaches to the concept of

development

• be able to identify some key characteristics of young learners of

different ages

• be able to describe the young learners

• be able to describe what they can do

• be able to identify what they like to do

• be able to identify individual differences

• be able to understand the implications for ELT

• be able to plan simple activities for young learners

 CHARACTERISITICS OF THE YOUNG LEARNER

a) En each bubble write the characteristics of young

children that you consider most important.

Cognitive development
Physical development

Emotional development
Social development
 b) After having considered the characteristics in the different
domains, state the implications for the ESL class.

Development
Implications

Cognitive development

Physical development

Social development

Emotional development
 c) Decide if these activities are appropriate for young learners.
State your rationale for your decision.

Games taken from: http://www.english-

4kids.com/gamespkwordguess.html

Activities

Activity 1

First the teacher introduces the vocabulary by showing students the cards one after
the other. Then later, holds the cards to the chest, making sure students can't see.
Draw a big smiley face above and about 6 small smiley faces below. The big face
represents the teacher and small faces represent all the students. Students try to
guess what card the teacher is holding to his/her chest. Every time they make a
wrong guess, the teacher gets a point. When they make a right guess, the students
get a point and the teacher pretends to be disappointed that the students are
gaining a point. Keep playing until you have exhausted the cards. The students love
to beat their teacher. Lots of fun with this!

__________________
Activity 2

Skills: Most often used to practice present & continuous tenses with prompting
questions like, “What’s he doing?” Or to practice gerunds using questions like,
“What does he like doing?” Miming games are also good for lessons about daily
routines. For example mime your day and get students to describe what you are
miming.
How to Play:

The teacher starts by miming an action and getting the students to guess what he is
doing or what the action describes.

• After miming a few actions ask students to take turns miming actions and
get the other students to guess. You can go as far as miming a story. This
will blend in well with story adlibbing.

Activity 3

Skills: This is a great game communicative vocabulary game..

How to Play:

Teacher brings two sets of related flashcards to the class. This is ideal for teaching
verb-noun, adjective-noun combinations or associations. The sets of cards could be
on a combination like the following:

Cook – kitchen
Watch-TV
Mop- floor
Set- table
Do- homework
Brush- teeth
Play- computer games

As in the above example, there is a verb card set and noun card set.
The teacher shuffles both sets of cards and puts them in two straight lines face
down according to the sets. Students take turns guessing which two cards from
each set have a combination. A student taking a turn points to a card from the verb
set and another from the noun set which she thinks has a combination. The teacher
picks up the two cards and students see if they have a collocation or association. If
the cards do, then the student has a point when she makes a sentence with the
combination．　

Activity 4

Skills: This is a great game for vocabulary and word guessing.

How to Play:

Stick a card- Word Guessing Game:

With this game the teacher splits the class into two teams and calls up a student
from one team to the front of the class. The teacher sticks a card or word on the
student’s back. Make sure the other students sitting down know what is on the
student’s back, but not the student standing. The student standing has to ask the
others many questions to guess what is stuck on his/her back. Needless to say that
other the students can’t tell the student directly, what the word is. Also, discourage
the use of the mother tongue in helping the student guess. Any student looses a
point if they try and tell the student directly or use the mother tongue.
Students can help him/her guess the word by giving him/her only verbal clues, but
only after the student standing has ask a question.
For example if the word PIG was stuck behind a student’s back, s/he should ask
questions like this: “Is it a person?”, “Is it an animal?” Then the class says “Yes
it is animal.” The student standing can follow up to ask “Is it a farm animal?”
The student asks questions until s/he has guessed the word correctly and scores a
point for his/her team. Set a time limit if need be.
Title: Learning Shapes Workbook Sample

Number Of Printable Pages: 34

This mathematic workbook has 31 sheets focusing on working

Description:
with shapes. Included are sheets for naming and identifying shapes,
doing basic arithmetic with shapes, recognizing patterns, and other
skills. They are appropriate for all elementary grade levels.
 A fun way to review counting and ordinal numbers. We have
Description:
six sets of connect the dots workbooks. In 10, 20-30, and 40-50 dot
printables.