Putting on a show to parents and to the school assembly every term is really great thing to do to demonstrate what you have all been up to in class time. It motivates children during lessons and is a really fun and satisfying thing to do. If you can have someone film the show for you you can even give a copy to the children at the end. If you are teaching small groups privately this is ideal and it helps your teaching business grow as well as enhances your lessons. Parents like to see what is going on too and children love to show off so everyone wins.
Ideally you want to put on a show every term but don't panic, it doesn't have to be Broadway! A few songs, some English language games in action and perhaps a short play if you have a small group are all it takes.
If your children enjoy songs have them perform a couple of songs in English with actions. You have the children play some language games so parents can see them responding to listening games and hear them speaking. And you can also have the children act out a story while you read it. Children can also be given some lines in the story where these are simple, such as counting or naming the colours, or saying a line if it is the same each time. Then if you have a small group you can do mini-role plays, but this does not work with a large class or there is too much sitting around for everyone. A twenty minute "English" show is enough with 5 minutes beforehand for parents to arrive and sit down, and 5 minutes at the end.
If it is the first show the children may be dumb struck with nerves, daft as it seems! Therefore start the show off easily with some listening games where the children show they understand words and sentences you have taught followed by a song with actions every one sings together. Many songs have far too many words so you can always do verse 1, chorus and verse 1 again. You can also simplify the words by repeating lines 1 and 2 as lines 3 and 4, if that fits OK. Now the children are warmed up you can do some speaking games and finally any role plays and plays.
Enjoy!
Shelley
PS Wonderful ideas for preschool games and stories!
Hi Shelley and all!
ReplyDeleteI am a mother tongue "teacher" from the states, and I subscribed to your site last year as I began to teach English at the Asilo (preschool) that my children attend here in Italy. The children were 5-6 in their last year of preschool before going into 1st grade. I had a lot of success with your program and to get to the point we did a show for the parents at the end of the year using story #1. Over the year with the retelling of the story the children responded to the question "Who does the spider eat?" with "The spider eats the ant!", etc, etc. (Later in the year with further vocabulary acquisition, I could ask after a drill of the spider and the ant, etc., "What does the cow eat, and some of the children where able to make the leap to "The cow eats grass! (Using the "S" in the third person! Or "What does the baby eat, the baby eats milk....") At the end of the year we sang what I named HI HO Ecology (I'm and Ecologist by training) to the tune of The Farmer in the Dell: The ant came out with a hup to three four keep it up to three four STOP! Then the children sang "The spider eats the ant, the spider eats the ant hi ho ecology the spider eats the ant. Yummm!" (sung slowly) We used hand motions every time we said spider, ant, etc and moved one arm bent with a fist back and forth to the hi ho part. There was one child with a mask for each of the animals and when we sang, for example the spider eats the ant the spider chased the ant and caught him with a "yummmm!" yelled by all at the end of the verse. The kids loved it, the parents loved it! We followed it up with 'The Little Indian' song (complete with headbands they made in class learning colors) dividing "boys" and "girls" with one Indian standing up for each number. The final song was 'Head shoulders knees and toes' sung with increasing energy and silliness. The show was a complete success and I still get lots of complements about the Ecology song!
Thanks and Enjoy!
Lissa
Dear Lissa
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment. I'm glad the story idea went down so well and it sounds as though you did great things with it too.
I had feedback from some teachers where they did not like the fact that the animals got eaten, so at the end the lion hiccups, and out comes the fox, who hiccups, and out comes the next animal and so on.
I've got a CD of songs out for those stories now with matching vocabulary. The song for the I'm Hungry story revises greetings and the animal vocabulary.
Anyone interested can hear that song here:
http://www.teachingenglishgames.com/eslsongs.htm
All the best and thanks again for sharing your creative ideas.
Shelley