Young Learners. Sarah Phillips

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      Sarah Phillips

      Young Learners

      Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP

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      First published 1993

      2016 2015 2014 2013 2012

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      ISBN: 978 0 19 437195 7

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      Acknowledgements

      I would like to thank the many people who have, in one way or another, contributed to this book: readers, colleagues, teachers on courses, children I have taught, friends, and above all my parents John and Maria, and Angeles. Finally, I must thank Julia Sallabank, whose meticulous work on the manuscript has greatly added to the quality of the book.

      The publisher and author would like to thank the following for their kind permission to use articles, extracts, or adaptations from copyright material. There might be instances where we have been unable to trace or contact the copyright holder before our printing deadline. We apologize for this and if notified the publisher will be pleased to rectify any errors or omissions at the earliest opportunity.

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      The author and series editor

      Sarah Phillips trained as an English Language teacher at the Bell School, Norwich, and took her MA in ELT at Edinburgh University. She has held various teaching posts in Europe and has taught on primary teacher training courses with the Norwich Institute of Language Education. She has worked with the Regional Government of Galicia to prepare training courses and materials for teachers of English. She was part of a team that produced a video of children’s songs and games with LINGUA support. At the moment she is working on a textbook for children and teaching at the Instituto de Idiomas at the University of Santiago de Compostela. She is the author of Drama with Children, in this series.

      Alan Maley worked for The British Council from 1962 to 1988, serving as English Language Officer in Yugoslavia, Ghana, Italy, France, and China, and as Regional Representative for The British Council in South India (Madras). From 1988 to 1993 he was Director-General of the Bell Educational Trust, Cambridge. From 1993 to 1998 he was Senior Fellow in the Department of English Language and Literature of the National University of Singapore. He is currently a freelance consultant and Director of the graduate English programme at Assumption University, Bangkok. His publications include Quartet (with Françoise Grellet and Wim Welsing, OUP 1982), Literature, in this series (with Alan Duff, OUP 1990), Beyond Words, Sounds Interesting, Sounds Intriguing, Words, Variations on a Theme, and Drama Techniques in Language Learning (all with Alan Duff), The Mind’s Eye (with Françoise Grellet and Alan Duff), and Learning to Listen and Poem into Poem (with Sandra Moulding). He is also Series Editor for the Oxford Supplementary Skills series.

      Foreword

      Interest in the teaching of English to younger learners has been steadily growing in recent years. This is no doubt partly in response to the rapidly growing demand for it to be taught at even younger ages by parents who want to provide their children with a competitive educational advantage.

      It has found expression in the large numbers of private language schools catering to this age-group which have sprung up in many parts of the world. Ministries of Education too have begun to respond, with large-scale expansion of provision for foreign language teaching at primary levels in countries such as France and Italy. The need for good materials is all the more pressing, given the minimal standards of many private schools, and the inadequate provision of trained teachers and suitable materials for the state systems. Yet the demand for English keeps on growing.

      The growth of primary English has, moreover, had the effect of a ‘shot in the arm’ for the TEFL ‘profession’. TEFL has tended to develop separately from the mainstream of educational thought and practice. There has, for example, been rather little cross-fertilization between TEFL and the teaching of other foreign languages. While this has undoubtedly enabled TEFL to develop some highly innovative and valuable practices and procedures of its own, ultimately such isolation is damaging and can lead to a comfortable parochialism.

      The awakening of interest in teaching young learners offers TEFL one way back into the mainstream of education. Teachers of young learners need special skills, many of which have little to do with the language, which becomes a by-product of learning activities rather than a centrepiece. Helping the child to learn and develop becomes more important than simply teaching the language. The approach and techniques are therefore drawn from good general educational theory and practice rather than from a narrow TEFL repertoire.

      Many EFL teachers wishing