It’s difficult to find a teacher of young learners who does not believe that lessons should be fun. While having fun should not be the main educational objective of a lesson, it certainly can bring a smile during a long day of study, increase motivation to learn, and provide some relief from the challenges and pressure of learning (and teaching). So, let’s look at 5 fun activities to make sure everyone enjoys the classroom!
The idea of fun is complex. We all have different ideas of what is fun, and so do our young learners. When trying to bring fun into the classroom, we must be careful to choose a variety of activities so that everyone gets their own moments of joy while learning.
McManus and Furnham (2010) have researched types of fun that people have, and while their study did not focus specifically on young learners of English, it inspired me to think about planning for different kinds of fun in the young learner classroom.
Idea 1: Plan for Sociability
This type of fun is the kind we feel when we are ‘hanging out’ with friends. It is the joy we get from light-hearted interaction and cooperation. Having this type of fun in class can simply be accomplished by letting students work together on tasks and exercises instead of always going it alone. It is the type of fun that children have when they play games in their own groups, not as whole classroom competition.
Source: Fun Skills Level 5
Take for example this coursebook vocabulary activity. There is an opportunity for sociability here, and if we look at the suggestions from the Teachers’ book, we can see how leading into this activity can provide this kind of fun:
Source: Fun Skills Level 5 Teachers’ Book
Modeling the game and then letting the learners play it their own small groups for five minutes brings in this kind of fun in the classroom before the book is even open and provides a great lead-in to the first activity in the pupil’s book.
Idea 2: Plan for Contentment
The idea of contentment-type fun is the feeling that some of us get while listening to music or gardening. With young learners, helping them to recognize their contentment and pleasure for being in the moment can be done simply by listening to songs or expressing themselves through coloring. Bringing in activities for mindfulness and gratefulness can help teach students at this age to feel the fun of contentment.
Even bringing in extensive reading where the focus is on giving students time to read for pleasure (not to pass a comprehension test) can bring this type of enjoyment into the classroom. As teachers, we often like to reward students with a game, but why not sometimes reward them with time to read something they want?
Idea 3: Plan for Achievement
This type of fun involves reflection of accomplishment after something that was difficult or challenging. A sense of achievement is something that can really motivate young learners. This is especially true if we are preparing learners to sit exams. One idea to bring this kind of fun in the classroom is to let students keep a portfolio of work that they are proud of.
The important thing is that they get to choose what goes in this folder or box, whether it is some piece of work that got a high mark or a picture they colored that was part of a task. It is a way that they can look back and visibly see how much they have learned. Also, training students to be good at self-evaluation can lead to this kind of fun, and for more on this, watch Jane Ritter’s webinar: Self-Evaluation With Young Learners.
Idea 4: Plan for Sensory Fun
Many young learners, even older ones, enjoy using all their senses. One way to engage the senses is to make use of videos, which connect to the senses of sight and hearing and provides multimodal input. Getting tactile and incorporating the use of touch in class can also be fun. One thing I enjoyed using as a teacher was homemade playdough. Students could play games where they had to make shapes with the playdough and have others guess it, or it could even be used to create 3-dimensional visuals for story telling or role-plays.
Idea 5: Plan for Energetic Fun
This is the kind of fun that many people think of when we think about bringing fun into our classes. We need this type of fun, but I think it is important not to over-do it. While so many of our students do enjoy this type of fun, some would rather be in the corner reading the book (I speak from personal experience here).
Energetic fun is great to break up longer lessons or help students relieve that built up energy. I think it is even more powerful when it is incorporated into the lesson and not just offered as an extra or a reward.
This is also the type of fun that fits with action songs and stories with movement. Teachers should remember that when planning a lesson that is going to have energetic fun, they need to also carefully consider how they will transition to other parts of the lesson.
Putting it all together
It would not be possible to plan for every type of fun to be in every lesson. The key to making sure every learner can enjoy the classroom is to make sure we are varying the type of fun we plan for in our lessons. Giving students the chance to experience the feeling of contentment or the pride of achievement is just as important as giving them the exciting experience of an action-packed game.
References
McManus, Ian & Furnham, Adrian. (2010). “Fun, Fun, Fun”: Types of Fun, Attitudes to Fun, and their Relation to Personality and Biographical Factors. Psychology. 01. 159-168.
For more FUN ideas for to use in your classroom, check out Claire Medwell’s 5 FUN stories for nurturing universal values in the young learner classroom.