OVERVIEW

For many reasons—class size, children’s attention span, children’s level of literacy in their native language, lack of time, etc.—we tend to focus on oral language skills in the young learner English classroom.

Listening and speaking skills are of course key areas of focus for young English learners, but it’s possible, and in fact vital, to develop their written language skills at the same time to ensure our learners have a well-rounded language skill set early on.

In this presentation, we’ll look at:

1. activities you can use to integrate more reading and writing in your classes from very beginning levels
2. why this is important even if you have a listening and speaking focus in your classroom
3. and how to do this while still having fun and remembering the basic characteristics of young learners.