I’ve mentioned in a previous post what some of my best tips are for being a language assistant but now that I’ve been in the role for slightly longer, I thought it would be a good idea to go into more detail and look into what I’ve learnt since then.
It’s important to learn as many of the children’s names as possible because I find that they will rarely volunteer themselves to answer a question or engage in an activity and so you need to pic on them at least every so often. By far the most important thing is get them to speak for as much as possible because that is in effect what you are there to do so it’s always worth considering that when making your lesson plan. For example one of my most successful lessons has been the ‘Design your own reality TV show’ lesson, where I put the students into groups and ask them to come up with an idea for a reality TV show and then come up to the front and explain it to the rest of the class. It is best to avoid ‘handouts’ and other written work as much as possible.
The resources I use the most are Cbbc Newsround and the British Council Learn English sites. A lot of the time, particularly with the primary school children, I will introduce a topic, such as Superheroes, with a short video before asking them to give me words and ideas that they associate with that topic. The British Council Learn English website tends to provide me with such content whilst I use Cbbc Newsround for fun or interesting articles. It’s also a good idea to make a powerpoint, I find it makes it easier to visualise the structure of the lesson and gives it continuity.
Of course, it is always a good idea to ask your tutor or the teachers that you are working with for advice, different schools or different teachers may want different things from you. Different children learn in different ways and different classrooms can have different dynamics so that is also worth bearing in mind.
#LanguageAssistant #Advice
Callum En Asturias 