Page 56 - Teaching English at Primary Level: From Theory into the Classroom

Approaches to Language Teaching

Classroom Insight: Crazy Pizza
Teja decided to carry out a task-based activity She encouraged the use of the structures ‘On
with fourth graders related to the topic ‘food.’ our pizza, we have ...’ and ‘The name of our
In the pre-task stage, she explained the task pizza is ...’
which was to prepare a new type of pizza for In the follow-up activity, after each group
a pizza restaurant to include on their menu. presented their pizza, the teacher wrote the
An important part of the task was also to give names of the pizzas on the whiteboard (chil-
the pizza an attractive name. Before the task dren came up with expressions such as Crazy
itself, the teacher and the children discussed Pizza, Rocket Pizza, Pizza Big bang and so on).
the words for different ingredients usually In addition, they classified the pizzas into two
put on a pizza and the names of pizzas the categories, ‘healthy’ or ‘unhealthy’ which pro-
children were familiar with. voked a lively discussion. Reflecting on the
In the main part of the activity, pupils were lesson, Teja commented that she had rarely
workingingroupsofthree drawingtheir piz- seen the children so engrossed in an activity.
zas on a poster and writing down the names When they were preparing their pizzas, they
of ingredients. They also had to come up with kept looking for her to ask for the words they
an interesting name. During this time, Teja needed for their task. There was a lot of noise
helped them with the words of ingredients in the classroom, some groups had heated
they needed for their pizza. A time limit was arguments about the names of their pizzas,
set for the learners to finish this part and then some asked the teacher for translations into
they had 15 minutes to prepare the presenta- English, for example, they asked how ‘štirje
tion of the pizza. Again, the teacher was avail- letni časi’ (‘the four seasons’) would be trans-
able for support with presentation language. lated in English.

Key Takeaways
• The communicative approach has significantly changed the language
teaching theory and practice by introducing the concept of communica-
tive competence and meaningful communication.
• The teacher may play different roles in the language classroom, from class-
room manager or organiser to tutor and facilitator.
• The one-method approach to teaching an FL is today seen as ineffective,
combining different approaches for different learner types is preferred.
• Some approaches, such as TPR and the story-based approach, are particu-
larly effective with YLLs.

Further Reading
Brewster, J., Ellis, G., & Girard, D. (2002). TheprimaryEnglishteacher’sguide. Pear-
son Education.
Garton, S., & Copland, F. (Eds.). (2019). The Routledge handbook of teaching En-
glish to young learners. Routledge.
Valente, D.,&Xerri,D.(Eds.). (2023). InnovativepracticesinearlyEnglishlanguage
education. Palgrave Macmillan.

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