How to teach English to children around ages of 5-7
By wonga94
@wonga94 (218)
Singapore
March 25, 2012 4:44am CST
Hi mylotters! I live in Singapore and the majority of Singaporeans do not speak English at home but rather their mother tongue such as Malay, Chinese or Tamil. Recently, my colleague over at my part-time job approached me to tuition her 5 year-old daughter English because she doesn't know English and speaks Chinese at home. However, I totally do not have a single bit of experience in tutoring. And it becomes especially hard since English consist of components like reading, writing(grammar,vocabulary,spelling) etc. I plan to start on reading however using phonics is not really that effective as not all word sounds the same. Any ideas on how to teach reading?
I would also like to have your opinions on how I should conduct the lesson and should I construct a lesson plan? If so, any suggestions on a lesson plan suitable for a 5 year-old child? I searched all over the internet for help, tips and suggestions but all of them was for children who speak English at home and were more open to the language unlike this case. Thanks for the help, tips, suggestions and advice in advance! Have a good day!
2 people like this
6 responses
@adhyz82 (36249)
• Indonesia
27 Mar 12
i think the childern around that ages is full of exploration and like for playing
so don`t push them for learning like the adult or teenager learning style
maybe you must be patient for facing them..
sometimes one day, they won`t teach one word..
but tomorrow, they are so agile for learning and studying..
sometimes they can`t be predictable too..
so i always believe when we teach this ages (5- 7 years old), we must be so patient
@webearn99 (1742)
• India
26 Mar 12
You can start by making up small sentences to talk to them to. Like "What is your name?" Make it look like a game, children love games. Get them to chant some nursery rhymes, get them to shout them. Their own voices will flow back through their ears and implant the words in their brains. Be liberal with praise, and spare with scolding. Gradually they will have learned the basic communication and then it becomes a habit.
Some bit of formal teaching has to take place also. You can use the "Chalk Talk and Chant" method. It is how we learned our alphabet in Asia. The teacher, used to write the alphabet on the black board,(The chalk), pronounce it (The talk) and make the students chant it(The chant). This is a very effective way of teaching children.
Never forget to make it a fun activity, fun actually means more learning.
@laydee (12798)
• Philippines
25 Mar 12
I think you should just simply practice talking to your kid in English. You know, start with words so that he/she would be familiar with the words. Play children's English songs or something like that. Eventually, he/she will catch up and then you could start talking in English with him/her completely.
Just don't forget to incorporated your mother tongue with the kid so that he/she will be well-balanced. After all, you are in Singapore and right now China is starting to mold itself as a super-power country, we may all need to learn Mandarin Chinese soon.
Have a great MyLot experience!
@katie0 (5203)
• Japan
25 Mar 12
I started to study it by my self at 12, so to kids I think the best would be letting them watch a dvd of animation once with subtittles on and then if they can to repeatedly watch the same animation for like 8 times, that's the how many times I did, I would pay attention the first time and then repeat the same movie (to kids cartoons, animation is best I guess 
) and then repeat the 8 times so it really got into me. I never studied writing so I'm terrible at it, but when I got into voice chat full of americans I asked them where they thought I was from and they said California, Because of the movies. That was a relief to hear!
) and then repeat the 8 times so it really got into me. I never studied writing so I'm terrible at it, but when I got into voice chat full of americans I asked them where they thought I was from and they said California, Because of the movies. That was a relief to hear!
@hemantbatra0 (194)
• India
26 Mar 12
try to make them understand like playing. try to make understand them the situation that in this situation how would two person talk in english and in another situation how would they talk. give them examples for it.
