Page 50 - Teaching English at Primary Level: From Theory into the Classroom

Approaches to Language Teaching

Classroom Insight: Warm-up Routine
Petra uses a number of routines in her En- Every time, the pupils were eagerly waiting
glish lessons with first graders. One of them to see and learn the new movement and Pe-
is a routine physical activity at the begin- tra sometimes surprised them by adding a
ning of every lesson. The pupils are in a circle ‘funny’ movement, like ‘Pull your nose!’ When
and together with the teacher they do a se- she was sure they had picked up the com-
ries of movements following her commands mand, she asked for volunteers to give com-
based on a rhythmical sequence, for example mands instead of her.
when she says ‘Clap up!,’ the pupils stretch She noticed several advantages of using this
their arms and clap their hands above their ‘choreography’ at the beginning of the les-
heads, when she says ‘Clap down!,’ they bow son. First, since they started with English right
and clap their hands near their feet, when she away, the routine worked as a signal to switch
says ‘Turn around!’ they spin around, and so to the English language. Secondly, as this was
on. The learners are encouraged to join the a routine, the children were always ready,
teacher in giving commands so after a while they knew what they were supposed to do,
they can take the role of the teacher. so she did not need to spend time calming
In her observations of the pupils’ reactions, them down or giving instructions. Another
she realised that the children were really advantage was that everybody liked to join
looking forward to this activity so she de- in, even the shy pupils eventually joined the
cided to add a new movement every week. chorus.

physical games in FL instruction, we can create a number of opportunities for
providing rich and meaningful input of language use as well as opportuni-
ties for spontaneous purpose-oriented communication and meaning nego-
tiation in L2. A good example of a movement game which requires intensive
meaning negotiation is Charades in which learners take turns physically act-
ing out words or expressions and guessing.

Multiple Intelligences
The idea of multiple Intelligences (MI) is based on the work of the American
psychologist Howard Gardner who developed the theory in 1980s. Gardner
(2011) questioned the traditional IQ or intelligence tests which were primarily
focused on measuring logic and language. He argued that there are differ-
ent types of intelligences and that human beings differ in the strength of a
particular intelligence and their combination. As an instructional approach,
MI is learner-based in the sense that it emphasizes the differences between
learners, their different learning styles, their preferences, and advocates in-
structional methods which take into account these differences (Richards &
Rodgers, 2001).
Gardner’s eight-dimensional model consists of eight types of intelligences
and in practical terms offers a rich source of language-learning activities and

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