There are many ways to do this. This is one way. We hope it helps you and the children you meet.
We have been teaching English to Polish people for more than twenty years as native English speakers. We were never trained to teach and everything we learnt was through trial and error and experience. To begin, we did not teach children, but parents kept on asking and eventually we started. It was not easy. However, after many years of trying and with the help of friends, family, teachers, and parents, we developed an approach which works reasonably well. This guide is a summary of our approach which includes the advice of many of the people who worked with us teaching children over the years. The advice we give is basically just common sense, a list of things that worked and why and a list of things that did not work and why. It may well be that some of things that worked for us won’t work for you and some of things that did not work for us will work for you.
However, we hope that by reading about our approach you may avoid some of the pitfalls and problems that you may have along the way.
Of course, but it is not a good idea. From our experience, we know that one child will be better than the other and one child will enjoy the game more and the other child will not be happy. Unless you are very experienced, teach one child at a time.
The place is not important, but a small quiet room (about 3 metres by 3 metres works well). A table (about 80 cm by 80 cm is fine) and two chairs are best. It is best if you are alone with the child, but another adult who speaks the child’s native language should be very close by.
No, never. You must never let the child hear you speak their language. It is best if you do not understand their language at all. And if you do understand it, behave as if you did not, always. Some children are not aware that there are people who don’t speak their own language. Finding this out is part of the learning process.
You don’t. It is not necessary. Just play board games and talk or listen, all the time. The child will learn your language by listening to you.
You don’t. The child does not need to learn grammar from you. They will learn grammar at school.
Children are children. Let them move. You stay where you are and carrying on with the game. Most of the time the child will return. If they leave the room and do not return, then the other adults will look out for the child. Your task is to play the game and speak with the child.
Thankfully, this does not happen often, but when it does you should react immediately. It is best to very quickly ask one of the other adults who speaks the child’s native language to find out the reason why. Sometimes, the problem is very simple and the child returns to the game after about 15 minutes. You should not start to speak the child’s native language as this may lead to even more confusion, so let the other adults take care of the child.
This is normal and usually is the case with children who are just starting to learn English. We have observed that it can take even up to two years of playing board games once a week for children to start speaking. However, this depends on many factors and most children start speaking a few words at least within one, two, or three months with one or two lessons a week. It is also normal that a child will start speaking during the first lesson.
What the parents say is not important. You will find out the truth soon enough. So just assume the child cannot speak or understand English and start the lesson as normal.
As I said before, what the parents say is not important. You will find out the truth soon enough. So just assume the child cannot speak or understand English and start the lesson as normal.
This is irrelevant. With experience, you can teach any child with any level of English. Almost every child can learn a language naturally. Assessing the child’s level of English is not necessary. Start off with a simple board game and see how they manage. I always start with Super Farmer, which is describe below. This is a simple game, basically a counting game, which can be played with many different types of rules for every level of English and with every age of the child. Within five minutes of starting this game, I know almost everything I need to know about the level of the child.
Yes, this is more difficult, but it does not really happen too often. Usually this happens when the child does not want to learn English at all. It also happens with younger children and for a number of reasons. The best approach is to take a large number of board games with you into your room (often you may already have some there as well) and to start offering the child one or other board game to play. Naturally, they will say no to everything. So, just choose one in the end, and start opening it. Choosing the game becomes the game.
This is OK. Playing a particular game is not important. We have found that some children want to change the game even up to three or four times in one lesson.
Rules of a board game are not important. Of course, some teachers like to follow the proper rules. But other teachers are happy to make up new rules if necessary. Most of the very popular board games have alternative rules or variant rules or house rules. So the rules are not really that important (but we know that many people think that the rules are important, and we agree to disagree on this). If the child is old enough, you can enter into a discussion about the rules and maybe expand the conversation.
That’s OK. You must decide whether to tell the child that they are not following the proper rules. This depends on the individual child. Obviously, you can ask the child to explain their rules and then you can use them too. We notice that when children make up their own rules, the game becomes unplayable. But that is OK. As long as the child is engaged in the game and speaking and listening to English, then changing the rules is acceptable.
This is irrelevant. Parents want to see or hear progress. However, in general, parents have no idea how to assess this progress. Some parents test their children by asking them questions and expecting a reply. This only results in children learning to recognize those questions and then memorizing a standard reply. In the first three months, we should be happy if the child understands you and has started to say words in English and never speaks their native language with you. If they do more, then everybody should be very happy.
Again, this is not really relevant. It takes a new born baby two or three years to start saying their first words. Listening to and recognizing a language is the first skill that a child needs to master. The next is to be able to create words in that language and have the confidence to say things. This all takes time. We have noticed that some children who learn to speak English very well after three or four years were still saying nothing after one year.
Again, this is not really relevant. Each child makes their own progress. It is not important how long it takes, what is important is that they have the opportunity to make progress. Contact with a foreign language gives them the chance to learn it and to develop their language skills.
That’s OK. There usually is a good reason. Sometimes the child simply wants to go to the toilet and does not know how to ask. Maybe the child wants to drink some water. Sometimes the child is hungry, but this is not usually the reason. As long as there is another adult close by then everything is OK.
That’s OK. Depending on what they are doing, you should express some interest. However, this is not always necessary. This may happen with younger children. Most children will just play with something else for a while and then return to the game.
This depends on whether you speak their language or understand their language. Many children will be thinking this anyway. You have to be careful when you say their names. Are you using the English version of their names? Are you saying their names in an English or in a Polish way? Are you pronouncing their names with a Polish accent. If you are, then you could be giving the children a clue about your knowledge of their language.
It is best not to get into a discussion about this, and simply move onto something else.
Look at the parent and simply speak to them in English, starting with “I am sorry, but I don’t understand”.
We have found that the youngest age is seven and the oldest is thirteen or fourteen. Older children also like to play the games, but you can usually have a conversation with older teenagers.
Four or five. It is possible to play simple board games with a child of four or five. They most certainly will not be playing with the proper rules, but they may be able to develop a set of rules that works and could even win the game occasionally. It is best to let children of this age win.
Don’t. There are a number of problems with this. First, it is difficult to make sure that the children do not start speaking Polish when they are together. Second, if the children are at the same age and more or less the same level, then one child will be better than the other and may dominate the lesson. When the age gap is bigger, this is not so much of a problem as the younger child will accept that the older child knows English better.
This is possible, especially with very small children, but is not really advisable. We don’t have much experience with this type of teaching, so we cannot advise you how to do this.
The board games are just tools to help you teach. Picture cards with words are fine for learning vocabulary in a structured way, but not all children like to just sit and look at cards. Boards game are interactive, and often the children already know and like the board games. Many board games can be used, but here are some hints on what we found works best:
We have found that the optimal length is about 30 minutes of contact with a native speaker of English. Longer is not necessary. For younger children, 15 minutes or 20 minutes works well. Once a child can speak comfortably then the lesson can be as long as the child is still interested.
You don’t. This is not necessary. If a child spends time with you playing a game, their English will get better. Sooner or later. If the child enjoys the time, they will learn more and quicker. Monitoring their progress is not your problem. Don’t think about it and don’t worry about it.
You should always ask the child. We always had a big bookshelf with about fifty games. Of course, most of the time, we played with twenty of them. We only occasionally played with the rest. Ask the child, for example: “What shall we play today? Super Farmer? Ticket to Ride? Monopoly?” Let the child choose. This is part of the fun.
By speaking with and listening to the child. By making the lessons fun. If you do this, children will make progress. One of the most important effects of these kinds of lessons is that children become more motivated to learn English at school. Therefore spending half an hour with a child is the motivation a child needs to study for the rest of the week.
In general, yes, it is a good idea. However, it is possible to read the rules of a new game with the child ... this is usually possible with older children. However, a lesson is not the time to learn how to play a game. If you are faced with this situation then you can just make up some rules. That can work too. If you decide to read the rules during the lesson, then you should make sure you engage the child in the process of learning the rules. Make learning the rules part of the game and part of the lesson. Of course, you may be lucky and find out that the child already knows how to play the game. Then you can ask them to teach you the rules.
Certainly not. Many games cannot be finished within half an hour if you play by the proper rules or some games finish too early. Small changes to the rules can give you a chance to finish the game within the 30 minutes.
Remember, if the child already knows the rules and you also know the rules, you can always pretend you don’t know the rules and ask the child to teach you the rules.
We once had a very interesting situation, we had been teaching a young ten year old girl for two years. She was very quiet and barely said a word. We constantly wondered whether she enjoyed the lessons. But she was happy and her mother was happy. One day a new teacher started. He did not know any of the games yet. We decided to invite young Sophie to speak with him. We told Sophie that Robert was new (she obviously knew this as she had never met him before) and did not know how to play the game. We asked her to teach him the rules. She agreed. And for the first time ever, she spent the whole lesson explaining the rules to Robert. Of course, we were all shocked. Children may often not talk if there is not a good enough reason.
Yes, of course. It does not matter. Most children will eventually want to play another game.
Playing the same game, ten or twenty times a week with children can eventually get boring for the teacher. However, you should remember that you are not playing the game for yourself. You should be constantly thinking of things to say to the child or things to do that will generate a new response from the child. A little silence sometimes is OK, but there should always be the sound of somebody’s voice.
You should make mistakes! Often, the best way to get a child to say something is to do something obviously wrong. Children often will not make a comment if you are always playing the game correctly. However, if they notice you making a blunder or breaking a rule, they may suddenly start telling you that it was an illegal move, for example.
We have observed that seven is the youngest age, because this is the age when children first go to school. At this age, children are able to sit down at a table without moving around a lot. Younger children tend to get out of the chair after ten or fifteen minutes and lose concentration.
We do have some experience with children as young as five years old and the approach works for them too, but not always. We have found that help in the form of an older sibling or another child (about nine or ten years old at least) can help. For example, we observe that the older child explains the rules (in their own language even, which is not bad) and then the younger child can take part. Sometimes, the younger child learns by copying the older child.
This approach works best for children from the age of seven to thirteen. Usually, children older than thirteen are able to talk and then it is often better to move them onto normal conversation. However, board games are a good icebreaker for teenagers who are ready to talk but not yet talking. For teenagers who know English well and are around 16, board games are also a good option. In this situation, you can give them the rules to read in English and then ask them to teach you the game and then play it. This works as well. You don’t have to be in the room when the older teenager is learning how to play the game.
These are the best games that we found for teaching children a foreign language.
There are many more games that are good. Click on a link to find out how we played the games.
For children who don’t know the language
For children who know some words
For children who are beginning to talk
For children who are talking
We used traditional board games to teach children to speak English for more than fifteen years. This guide is a brief summary of the best advice that we can give others who want to teach a language to children. You do not have to have any teaching experience to follow this advice. What is important is your energy and enthusiasm.
When you read this guide, you may start to think that this is all too easy and too obvious. And that is true. The best way to use this guide is to read it a few times and then start to use what works best for you. The most important thing is to keep on looking at the child (without staring, of course). If the child is happy and smiling, especially at the end of the game, then you have succeeded.
We play a variety of board games with children from the age of 7 to 13. Some of the children speak English quite well and some are only just starting to talk. Before you start to play games with children, you need to learn the rules of some of board games mentioned above.
Once you have learned how to play a game and you know all of the rules then you have to learn how to play the game to teach English. The following are important:
For example:
Speaker: “What colour do you want to be: red, yellow, green or blue?”
Child: “I want to be red.” or “I want red.” or “Red”
Speaker: “Oh, you want to be red. Good, then I will be green.”
There is no need to push the child to speak. If the child does not want to say anything then that is alright. It is important that the child can hear you speaking and understands what you are saying.
There is no need to correct the child. However, if the child makes a mistake then you can repeat what the child said correctly. For example:
Speaker: “How many new sheep do you want?”
Child: “I want two ships.”
Speaker: “Oh, you want two new sheep. OK, here you are, one new sheep, two new sheep.”
AVOID SAYING: “No, that’s not correct English, the correct pronunciation is SH-E-E-P.”
There is no need to openly correct a child’s mistake. The best way is to repeat the word or phrase in more or less the same form, but correctly.
There is no need to win the game. Many children like to win board games. Some children play board games better than other children and usually win anyway. However, some children are not so good, so it is necessary to play in such a way that you do not race ahead and win the game. You can also decide the conditions for winning at the end of the game. For example, in monopoly, the winner can either be the person with the most money or the most properties. Sometimes, you can win in one way and the child wins in another way.
Setting the board game up is part of the lesson. You can give a commentary on what you are doing and invite the child to answer questions too.
Cleaning the board game away is part of the lesson. Again, you can give a commentary while you put the pieces away in the box. Make sure you leave the pieces in the box properly sorted so that the next speaker will be able to start the game quickly without delay. Very often you will be the next speaker.
Talking with teenagers is different from talking with adults. With teenagers, you should concentrate more on what they do and what they are interested in and avoid talking about yourself. The best tactic for talking with teenagers is to ask questions and wait for answers. However, you should avoid controversial subjects. Good subjects are: travel, holidays, computers, places they have been to in Poland and abroad, places they want to visit in Poland and abroad, sports they are interested in and sports they play, musical instruments they play and music that they are interested in, films, actors, actresses, musicians, pop groups, books they have read. In general, it is not a good idea to talk too much about their school and what they are doing at their school.
Some teenagers are very chatty and others are very quiet. However, with all teenagers, as with adults, it is important to give the student time to collect their thoughts and say something and not to interrupt them too soon. It is very important that you do not complete sentences for them. You should always give them enough time to finish their sentences, even if you wait for up to 30 seconds or more. However, after 45 seconds or so, it is acceptable to ask another question.
Of course, if the student says anything in Polish, you should absolutely ignore what you hear and not react in any way.
We do not normally have conversations with children from 7 to 13 years old. We normally play board games with them. Before you start having lessons with children, you should become familiar with the rules of several games and read this guide to find out how to teach English using board games.
If you, as a native speaker, are learning Polish or are interested in the Polish language then please do not admit this. Try to avoid turning the conversation into a ‘Polish’ lesson. It happens, unfortunately.
Be careful when pronouncing the names of your students. It is best to pronounce Polish names, towns, cities, food, etc., with your normal accent as if you did not know any Polish at all. For example, if you pronounce “Warsaw” as “Warszawa” then a student may guess that you know Polish. You should always pronounce Polish towns and cities with an English accent, i.e., War-saw, Cra-cow (i.e., Cra-co or Cra cow), Lodz (i.e., Lodge). If the student does not understand the place you are talking about then you can say something like: “Lodge, you know, the big city in the middle of Poland.”
Avoid counselling. Try to avoid giving the student advice on areas that you don’t really know about. Sometimes, students have personal or professional problems or issues which they try to share with language teachers. It is best not to talk too much about these problems or issues. In general, it is best not to give advice to students. A foreign language conversation is just that, a foreign language conversation.
Avoid giving help on CV preparation, presentation preparation, letter writing, etc. If you have not done this before, then it is better not to start. It often takes up a lot of time, and if you don’t know what you are doing then you won’t be helping anybody.
Talking about your home country and your friends and family in general are perfectly acceptable, for example, holiday customs (such as Christmas, etc.), the educational system in your home country, eating habits, barbecues, national cuisine, national sports, etc.
It is quite common for older teenagers to ask you why you are in their country and then it is natural to explain why. However, it is probably best, in general, not to talk about your family and private life.