Week 3 -Susan Halliwell in the house peeps!

Oh, well. I mean she's NOT exactly in MK2. But, her piece of writing " Teaching English in the Primary Classroom" is what was introduced. It's totally different from our previous lessons before.

And for us to 'get to know' Halliwell better, we were divided into groups. And for this, we focused on chapter 1 which is ‘Working with Young Language Learners’. For me, I think it's a basic thing to do, first to know and to understand children's learning styles or natural attitudes in their learning process. How they behave and how they tend to respond and to react to situations around them. Only then we would be able to create lessons as well as teaching materials that are relevant to their learning preferences, right?

There are 6 points for us to ponder regarding to working with young LANGUAGE learners. And to understand them thoroughly, we then were divided into 6 small groups. Each group for each point. As for my group, we were assigned with this particular characteristic: "children's instinct for play and fun".

Okay, now spare me some of your precious time to read my words as I'm going to explain what is actually meant by this point. According to Halliwell, learning does take place in 2 ways: DIRECT and INDIRECT. For direct learning, it's a formal learning where the learners are conscious with that they ARE learning. Meanwhile for indirect learning, it is and informal learning where it's completely contrasted to direct learning in which the learners ARE learning unconsciously.

And it is mentioned that children often appear to learn at their best in an indirect way. They will subconsciously acquire knowledge and skills when there is some elements of fun in their learning. And the fun elements will define how is exactly INDIRECT learning

taking place in the children's learning.

In fact there are times where the children would be in their own world though the teacher is there in the class. What I mean is, the young learners would make the learning be as to what they wish it to be. This is where they will put some fun elements that would surely inject their learning process.

For instance, let's say the teacher gives a game for the children to play in order to practice their knowledge and understanding in giving directions to places. And that, there is a map with clues of places for them to practice giving out the right directions to the places mentioned. So, instead of making the game to be deadly dull for them, they sure would give some fun to the game. Adding sound effects of a honking car while giving signals here and there or even acting as if they are the taxi drivers while showing the directions to the 'tourists.

This proves that they are learning to practice giving out directions in an indirect way during their 'make-believe' play. They bring in whatever experiences they have from the outside class into their lesson to make their learning process be as fun as possible yet effective.In fact, through their sense of fun and play, the children are living the language for real. Also we can say that games do play a central role in individualizing personalities of the kids.

The discussion was completed by creating a slideshow for the given topic. Then each group was asked to present the topic and to explain it well to the class. We learned a lot from the clear and detailed presentations and explanations from each group.