In the final post in her series on motivating young learners, Karen Saxby, co-author of the course Fun for Starters, Movers and Flyers and author of the Storyfun for Starters, Movers and Flyers books, offers some advice on teaching spelling, and using visualisation activities.
What can we do to improve children’s spelling?
Reassure your learners that L1 children have a lot of difficulty too! Explain that English spelling is difficult because many words were ‘imported’ from other languages that had different spelling and phonetic systems. Teach some general rules (and do an internet search for more):
- Magic ‘e’ makes a letter say its name in one-syllable words. (e.g. hat > hate, hot > hotel, us > use, plan > plane)
- If ‘l’, ‘f’ and ‘s’ end a one-syllable word, they’ll nearly always be double. (eg ill, cliff, class)
- If ‘c’ is followed by e, it’ll sound like ‘s’. If ‘c’ is followed by ‘o’ or ‘a’, it’ll sound like ‘k’.
- ‘ck’ end words with one-syllable words after short vowels. (e.g. clock, thick, sock, but NOT picnic (from French) and mechanic (from Greek)
You could also teach ‘twin’ letters that look alike but sound very different bd, mn, vw, pq or that use similar vowel sounds when you say the letter’s name (ah, pt, cdeg, jk, lmns, qu).
Teach homophones (e.g. there, their, they’re).
You can also have fun with word searches and word wheels from the Fun books. For more ideas, check out different fun spelling activities in the Fun books (e.g. Movers edition 3: pages 23, 33, 41, 42, 47, 53, 93).
How can we use visualisations in class?
In the seminar, I invited participants to take part in a visualisation (imagining a scene). This kind of creative-thinking activity results in everyone in the class realizing they are unique and that no-one’s imagined picture is wrong.
To do this in class:
- Find a picture containing 6-8 key content words that learners know. Do not show the picture to your class. Tell learners to close their eyes. They should not speak during the visualisation. Describe different parts of the picture. Do not say where each object or person in the picture is. Ask a questions about each object or person. For example. You can see a castle. Is it large or small? You can see a girl. What’s she carrying? Learners answer these questions in their imaginations. Pause after each question for about 5 seconds for learners to choose their answer. These ‘answers’ will help learners to ‘build’ their scene.
Visualisation follow-ups…
This type of exercise is good practice for Movers/Flyers RW part 2, Listening parts 1 and 5 and the Find the difference and story telling tasks in the Speaking paper.
The possibilities are endless but here are a few:
- Learners draw their picture.
- Learners add 5 extra details to their pictures. They choose (eg a bird/star/fish).
- Learners label their picture. They choose what to label. Encourage dictionary work.
- In pairs, learners take turns to ask yes/no questions about their imagined picture (present or past simple). For example: Can/Could you see the top of the mountain?
- In pairs/groups, learners compare their pictures.
- Learners say what they liked best about their own and their partner’s picture.
- In pairs/groups learners decide and then write what happened before and after this scene.
- Learners in groups or open class create a story that this picture illustrates. You could use the storytelling format I also demonstrated.
Catch up on Karen’s webinar Keeping Young Learners Motivated in the Classroom and discover the previous posts in this series on motivating young learners:
Building a supportive environment
Praise, personalisation, and multi-level groups