Developing Communicative Skills

Year 1 of Primary School

San Gregorio School.

As an English teacher I try to improve not only the vocabulary and grammar of my youngest students but also their use of English.

Sometimes when we try to deal with communication and conversation in our lesson we just ask questions to our students and we wait for their correct answer. But in my opinion I think it is very important to have time for talking with their classmates in English. This is when they are really using English because they are looking for information about something real and important for them .

This is why I spend nearly fifteen minutes everyday to develop these communicative skills with them since they start Primary School. In the following photos you can see all the support material. 

In each English topic I introduce one or two of them which usually are related with it. In this way students are learning:

●     How to make questions.

●     How to have a conversation, and the rules of it. (Greetings and farewells, taking turns)

●     To use the vocabulary of the topic. And also to revise the previous vocabulary.

●     And in most cases they are learning new vocabulary because they want to say something more than what they have learnt in the lessons.

●    They also feel really confident with the English speaking skills if you use it as a daily basis.

In the following video you can see how two of my 7 year-old students have an eight minute conversation about their personal things following the patterns they have learnt. 

I hope you like it and you have found it useful for your lessons.

Javier Ramos Sancha

@javiramossancha

http://sgaguilarjramos.blogspot.com