The following video is me working with 3 to 4 year olds. (My favorite age group)

I think 40 minutes a week with these kids is just not going to cut it! I need them everyday but I’m dealing with the way it is in Japan with the current structure of “Eikaiwa”.

Some points worth noting here:

1. Be fun and exciting.

If you’re fun and the energy you radiate is exciting with a sense of spontaneity you’ll notice a freshness in the air and your students will get caught-up in it.

If the time drags in your class, chances are your energy is low and this could be because your lesson plan is stale or you’ve over played the games and activities.

2. Voice Variation

Watch and listen to how I use my voice. It’s a way to control the flow and energy of the class. If your class starts to drag, you can use your voice to pick up the pace.

Using your voice variation is a great way too to get your ESL students paying close attention to points you want them to. For example, use a fast upbeat voice to gain rapport and when you want them to repeat something bring what you’re saying to a whisper is one way of many. give it a try and play with your voice because in doing so, you’ll make your own distinctions on what works and what doesn’t.

3. Rhyming

The best (Fun Too) way I’ve found to teach little students expressions, is to make a silly rhyme. Like in the video, you hear me saying “I got it, I got it, ha, ha, ha, ha!
This is for them to let me know they’ve put the bingo chip on the word/picture I’m teaching but the “me being silly part” is to build and maintain my rapport with them and teach the expression “I got it”. Works like a charm.

I would say the most important ingredients for teaching someone anything is rapport. If you have and maintain a high level of rapport with your students where the underlining message is, “I like you, you like me, we are enjoying our time together today learning English and everything is just fine the way it’s moving along”, things just have to work out for you and them.

I started thinking deeply about all this after my mentor Bill told me “Be the best you can or stop teaching because you are doing your students and yourself an extreme disservice being average”.