I would like to comment on the benefits of circle and what problems may arise from it.

I would like to comment on the benefits of circle and what problems may arise from it.

I truly believe that circle time is one of the most crucial moments in the language lesson, where teachers have the opportunity to not only interact with them, but also find out information about their families, hobbies and so on.

When in the circle time,it is important to highlight that they all have to listen to each other. IN other words, they will be practicing turn-taking, listening actively and responding to their peers` ideas without worrying too much about Getting things right.

In addition, they are allowed to express their feeling without being judged. So, when a student shares that he or she is afraid of the dark, it may seem to be harmless to teachers, even though some teachers are afraid of the dark, but, it is the moment where teachers can find out the source of the kid`s being afraid of the dark. Moreover, teachers are able to find out if everything is fine in their homes: when there is something wrong, they will not lie about it. Kids cut to the chase. Teachers should and must take advantage of this moment to act on the issues they bring up, and maybe, have a parent-teacher meeting.
When they are listening to each other and they feel that their ideas were listened, they gain confidence to trust the teacher. The kid knows that he or she can count on that teacher.

It is also a fantastic moment to review language items you taught through the story; the teacher may show pictures of people. doing different tasks and they react to them. Teacher may also want to work on the song learners have been practicing.

I firmly believe that a class should ALWAYS start with circle time, so that learners are secure and feel safe to take risks,and therefore learn.

However, teaching YLes is a little bit unpredictable. Some problems may arise. For instance, their attention spam is very short, which means after a long 10-minute circle time, they will be bored to death and. will want to change to another activity. Furthermore, some of them. may. say the very same words they heard their moms yelling at their fathers. (it has happened to me). They are usually very candid, which implies oversharing.

Teachers should be prepared to handle all these issues and have at their fingertips ideas on how to handle them.

Comments

  1. Silvia Montufo UrquízarApril 7, 2016 at 2:47 PM

    Can you give an example of oversharing?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Danilo RibeiroApril 7, 2016 at 7:54 PM

    Silvia Montufo Urquízar sure! Private family-related issues, such as divorce, fights, what-my-mom-thinks stuff and so on.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Juan UribeApril 9, 2016 at 4:31 AM

    Danilo, you surely have experienced a lot of circle time. Setting up rules and modelling is extremely important to make sure that everybody feels safe and comfortable. It is much more than having a moment to know your learners better, it is a moment in which they actively learn social skills. Yes, kids are unpredictable and we have to be able to think fast!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Silvia Montufo UrquízarApril 9, 2016 at 5:45 AM

    Thank you!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Renata TodorovskaApril 19, 2016 at 10:57 PM

    I agree with you

    ReplyDelete

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