Teach ESL to Kids

One approach is obviously to just skim over personal questions and spend time more efficiently on the vocabulary and easy structures that kids will pick up much quicker. This is not going to please the mothers, however. If their kids are going to show off their English language to someone outside the classroom, they are much more likely to be asked "How old are you?" than "What colour is the apple?", and ditto if they ever meet an English speaker who does not speak their language. So, we have to cover it and cover it well, like it or not. And here are the problems we might have to deal with:

• Because the answers are different for each person it can't be done well as a whole class chant, and so is more time consuming
• It's difficult to illustrate the meanings of the questions without translation
• It's even more difficult to make fun.

The ideas below should help you deal with all these problems above, especially the last one:

Personal Question Gestures

Using gestures helps reinforce the meaning, aids memory and adds a little fun. It can also teach them gestures used in English and not their L1. Examples include:

• "What's (shoulders hunched, palms up) your (cupped palm towards the person you are asking) name?" "My (cupped palm touching your chest to show possessive) name's~~~?"
• "How old (move fingers up and down as if you are counting very quickly over and over) are you (point both index fingers at person being questioned)?" "I am (touch number of fingers of your age on your chest) three/four/five (show those fingers to the person you are talking to)."
• How (questioning gesture) are (repeat questioning gesture) you (point)?" "I'm (index fingers on chest) fine thank you (thumbs up, shake once for each word)?"

Spin and Point Questions

Rather than just pointing at the student who you want to answer, spin round and round with your arm and index finger out and stop on one person. After they have answered they can then spin and ask the question to someone else. Can also be done with eyes closed.

Throw questions

As a variation of above, throw a beach ball or hand puppet instead

That's a question???

So students actually listen to the question rather than just knowing what to answer from the context (a common problem , or perhaps skill, at younger ages), mix up the question with wrong words or gibberish, e.g. "What's woorlllllll?" or "How are tubes?". If it isn't a totally correct question, students should shout "No! That's wrong!" or the correct question until you get it right, at which point they should answer the question.

Thats Me Too

When a student gives an answer, everyone that is true for stands up and swaps chairs. The person who was standing up and asking the questions tries to sit in one of those chairs before everyone else does. The last person standing (or someone who missed the answer and didn't stand up when they should have) takes the teacher role and asks the next question etc.

What's your answer Mr Wolf?

Similar to the one above, but with all the people who have the same answer as the person being asked can take one (long) step forward from the back of the room. The first person to touch the teacher is the winner.

Pass the question

As the teacher asks a question and gets a reply, he or she passes an object onto the person he asked it to, e.g. a piece of plastic fruit. The student then turns to the student next to them and asks the same question, passing the object on when they get an answer etc. This can be a race if the students are arranged in a circle or straight lines, or you can just pass out more and more objects as you ask questions until students are getting questions from all directions at once and (hilarious) overload ensues.

Questions tag

As a variation of that above, there is only one object to pass and students actually run away from the person trying to pass it. You can add extra language by the person who is "it" changing how people can move, e.g. "Jump" or "Hop"

Alex Case has been teaching students from 2 to 85 in Turkey, Thailand, Spain, Italy, the UK and now Japan for about 11 years. You can find more information and discussion on teaching younger and older learners and living in Japan at his blog www.tefl.net/alexcase

You might also want to look at the lead article on teaching very young learners he wrote for Modern English Teacher magazine at http://www.tefl.net/alexcase/teaching-pre-school-english/