Carol Read: The SECRET of working with children

Hi everyone!

Today I am going to do a short summary and a brief reflection on a very interesting video, published on the on the British Council’s site, called: The Secret of working with children. It is a recording of Carol Read's talk at the British Council in Warsaw

Her talk covers a range of primary issues and she give us a number of invaluable tips about teaching primary students. Here I leave the link to the video for those who want to watch it. Although it lasts an hour, I sincerely advise you to watch it because it is very useful and interesting.

Link: www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/carol-read-secret-working-children

In the first part of the video, during the first half hour, Carol Read talks about different types of activities that we can use with our students. In turn, she shows how each of them are carried out. They are very varied activities with songs, flashcards, TPR activities, to draw...  She talks about activities that integrate real content, what children already know, so that language and contents are in harmony. 

She also talks about how important it is for teachers to plan our lessons well. In other words, she says we should not use random activities. We have to choose carefully the sequence, taking into account the characteristics of the children. For that reason, she explains the four phases of the Accelerated Learning Cycle:

                                 

In the second half hour, Carol shows us what is the secret of working with children. To do this, she uses the letters of the word "SECRET".

• Sensory acuity: We have to use all the multisensorial information we get from the people who are with us, our students, (gestures, voice, eyes, movements...). So, we have to be aware and decipher what the signals mean. 
• Emotion: Here she refers to emotional intelligences. It means, it's the perception point, the way that we look at the world. She says that there are three positions or perception points, which are: Self-position (I), other people points of view (empathy) and distant position (observe). And she explains that to be good teachers it's best to adopt the third option. 

• Communication: On the one hand, Carol talks about how important is the body language and the influence that our gestures and our gazes have on the receivers. This is because the message is coming through our body language. She also explains that we have to talk slowly and give children time to respond.
  

  On the other hand, she says that we have to take into account how bad negative and positive rewards are. The important thing is to explain to children why it is good or bad and not just say "good " or "bad ". We must give them reasons, give them imput and show them what we value.
• Rapport / Relationship: It is very important that we have a good relationship with our students, but not as friends. In addition, we must do group rapport because we have many children to do it individually. We have to breathe, put ourselves in the third perceptive position (distant position) and act.

• Evaluation: This refers to our own evaluation as teachers, not only to the evaluation of our students. This reflection cycle must be carried out constantly. We can always get better.

• Tactical talk: It is very important to offer them the opportunity to choose whenever we can. We have to give them options and let them decide for themselves. For example, ask them if they want to draw or play. Things like that.

To finish her talk, Carol Read makes a brief summary of the most important of the session and ends by saying the following sentence:

THE SECRET LIES IN YOU!

I have to admit that although I was lazy to see this video because it was very long, I loved it. I think the second half of the talk is indispensable for any teacher. Although it is focused on primary, everything it says in the second half hour, the key to the secret of working with children, is good for any teacher. For this reason, I recommend you watch it. I think I have learned a lot thanks to this conference. I'm very grateful.  

Comment on one article: Kids and stories

A few weeks ago, I posted a post about storytelling activities, in which I explained different activities to do before, while and after a story.  As this year I have been working on the subject of narration this topic, stories, I wanted to improve my knowledge by choosing this article: Kids and stories. It is an article that I found on the British Council’s site for young learners. It is about different types of resources to work on reading (that are quite similar to the listening activities).

For those who are interested in the article, here I leave the link so you can read it. You can also find links with stories and activities that are very useful for young learners. www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/kids-stories

I will not explain all of them because I think they are very well explained in the article. However, I am going to talk about which ones I find more suitable to use in Infant Education and I am going to make a brief reflection on them.

 Activities to prepare children for reading

This kind of activities are done before reading (or storytelling in case of very young children) in order to familiarize students with the text they are about to read. I believe the four activities that are proposed are suitable for carrying out them with young learners.

• Using illustrations: It is always a good idea to help the child understand and visualise the story. We can use flashcards, pictures, photos or even drawings to help improve reading comprehension.
• Pre-teaching vocabulary: As teachers, we can teach first some thematic vocabulary. We can pick up a few key words from the text and explain them or maybe do different activities to practise and familiarise students with the new vocabulary. 
• Introduce the theme: We can also introduce the topic of the book doing different activities. However, I think that this activity can be included in the last activity, in pre-teaching vocabulary.  
• Input cultural background:  I think this is very interesting. But, more than an activity, I think this is essential when you learn a new language.

 Activities during reading

These are the activities that children will have to do during the reading.

• Use a variety of ways to read: Reading or listening to a story is an activity in itself.  For that reason, in the classroom it is important to vary the kind of reading. Nowadays infant education teachers have a lot of resources that we can use to read a story for the whole class. Some stories can be read as texts with illustrations. Other ones can be read to imagine. We can also use a projector, a CD... It is essential that, as teachers, we know how to narrate and tell stories, keep the class motivated, stop at convenient pints to make questions, read with different voices, … 

• Total physical response: From my point of view, TPR is the best way to work with our students, with very young learners. In this activity the story can be mimed while the teacher reads and the children listen.

Post-reading activities:

These are activities that we will do once we have read the story. They provide students a way to summarize, reflect, and question what they have just read.

• Quick comprehension check: As the article says, “It is always a good idea to do a quick comprehension check when your learners have finished reading the story. This may take the form of a few ‘gist' questions about the text in oral or written form, or asking children for a response.” I totally agree with this since I think it is important to see if the children have understood the story.
• Make a poster/illustrate the story: It is a good activity in which the child is creative, expresses himself and shows us what he has learned. It's his way of summing up the story.
• Role-play/acting out: Although I think this is a slightly more complex activity, once the story is over, we can make a small theatre. 

This is the post. I hope you liked it and gave you ideas on how to work the stories in child education.