Play For Second Language Learners

        The preschool that I am working at, there are a lot of foreign children, and their first language is not English. Communication for them is hard in the class. However, their language in play seems more advanced than it does in real life. They don't afraid to make mistakes, and they are much more confident to speak what they have learned or heard in the class. Sometimes, I have no idea what they are talking about, or what they want, but their friends who are English speakers can just easily help them translate to me by looking at their friends' facial expressions or gestures. For second language learners, the rich visual and contextual cues that are characteristic of play are helpful in expressing and understanding language meanings. Play provides a rich context for second language learners to make sense of and through language.

       "Not surprisingly, many students who do not speak English fall behind in their studies early, because they are not taught content in their native language."(ASCD 1995,16)

       As a teacher, if you don't speak your students' first language, you could recruit other children in you class, older children, family members, or volunteers to act as first language play partners. 

Kinderchat: Fine Arts In The Curriculum

       On Kinderchat, I checked out the discussion about Fine Arts In The Curriculum. There were so many great teachers sharing their teaching experiences, and the fun activities that they had set up in their classrooms. They talked about the music, book, dance, and art projects that they had used. And the students' reactions to the projects that they had set up. I love one of the teachers' collaborative art project that she has beeing using in her class.

         Putting out materials and a large surface so that the children can all work on it throughout the day.Children can work together through one big project, they interact with their peers, help each other solve problems, and provide each other new ideas.

        Some teachers talked about other ways of doing the collaborative art projects. It doesn't need to be paint and paper. Teachers can also use other materials, like buttons, cloths, and other objects that are availble in the classroom. Try to be creative, and give children different materials to explpore.

Couragement Makes A Big Difference In Young Children's Lives

        The daycare I am working at, young children always ask me to read books to them. Sometimes, after reading the books, I would ask them to write letters to their favorite characters in the book. Some kids would say "I cannot, I don't know how to write!". I would encouraged them, and told them "yes, you can do it! you can draw pictures, I saw you draw beautiful pictures the other day!" Then they would pick their papers and stated drawing and writing! Some of them did know how to write, and they would ask teachers how to spell certain words when they didn't know to to write the words they want to use. As teachers, it is very imortant for us to find the right oppotunites and use thoes moments to encourage young children write.

       For instance, when it's Mother's day, we can ask young children to write letters to their moms. We can also ask them to write letters to their friends who don't come to school that day.

        There are so many situations we can encourage our students to write, and with a context behind it, not just simply ask them to write a certain word for ten or twenty times a day. But find children's interests, and use their interests to encourage them read and write.