Sunday, December 30, 2012

Action Book

Z is 3 years 4 months old

Although Z goes to a preschool where English is the medium of instruction and also hears a lot of English at home as well, it is still her second language. One area where she still stumbles is when saying things in the present continuous form. So she says 'dolly sleep' instead of the dolly is sleeping or 'boy cry' instead of the boy is crying.

To help her out, I decided to use pictures to elicit and practice sentences with her. I have done this with my EFL students before- using pictures from magazines to elicit target language and extensively practice so that they get comfortable using those words and they begin to come naturally to them.

I scoured my magazines for appropriate pictures and stuck them in a spiral sketchbook to give them a book feel since Z loves poring over books. Then we both sat together and looked at each picture while describing it - the baby is sleeping, the boy is digging, the woman is vacuuming etc




I also had a sheet of stickers with action pictures that she stuck onto cardstock while saying out loud the actions in sentence forms (she needed help with that) which I punched holes into and bound with ribbon.





I intend to keep coming back to both the books with her till she becomes proficient with the sentence form. I also intend to build upon sentences with the same pictures to further enrich her vocbulary and sentence forms InshaAllah so that she can say The woman is vacuuming the carpet, the girl is brushing her teeth , the girl is swimming in the water etc. Later, these books can also be used for writing practice as well.

What method did you find effective to teach your child action sentences?

Linking to

Montessori MondayFor the Kids FridayI Can Teach My Child