When something doesn't go 'as planned' in a lesson, it becomes a creative learning moment for the teacher. This couldn't be closer to the truth when I said hello again to teaching YLs (under 11s) after a whole school year.
Back-up activity format/arrangement
The original GTKY idea was having my students stand in two circles. Either the outer or inner circle was going to rotate left or right, so that the students could say hello to each other and repeat several sentences about basic personal information.
While it'd worked magically well with a CEFR A1/A2 group last year, there was confusion among this particular group of students at level A1. After another attempt, I had to come up with a different arrangement - asking my students to stand in two rows and move like a conveyor belt. It worked very well this time round.
What have I learnt from this?
The effectiveness of a YL lesson isn't necessarily measured against how closely an activity follows the plan, but how flexible a teacher can be when making decisions. I think there lies a delicate balance between when to insist on trying and when to use a back-up arrangement. In any case, the aim of my GTKY activity was achieved regardless. (So I knew what to do next time if things didn't work!)
Listen to the teacher
Some YLs (at levels A1/A2) can be talkative and although they're using a lot of L1 to socialise, I think it would be unrealistic to demand such students to use English for that purpose. There's often little point in either forcing the use of English or discouraging YLs from socialising with each other. It only becomes an issue when YL students keep talking during critical moments of a lesson, such as task setting or instructions.
Based on my observations, I'd like to outline three probable causes as to why this happens in a YL classroom:
- YL students don't understand when exactly it's appropriate for them to stop talking and listen. This might not be a behavioural issue.
- There's no reward system connected to student behaviour, which makes it harder for YLs to know when it's appropriate to stop talking.
- There's a lack of clear attention-grabbing signal on the teacher's part, but even the classic 3-2-1 countdown cannot save a teacher's day if there's no reward system.
As you can see, points 1 to 3 are interconnected with each other.