Phonics Activity: Spaghetti letters

  Recently, I experimented with making words/letters out of spaghetti with a Starter class (although there’s no reason you couldn’t do this with a Kindergarten level class). It worked really well. All you need is an inexpensive packet of spaghetti....

Top Tip: Steal your best ideas

There’s a common saying in EFL, that teaching is all about stealing; that you steal your best ideas. I think there should be a little asterisks on that: like any good thief, you need to know what is worth stealing. It also brings up the difference between...

Free PowerPoint Spinner (Spinning Wheel) Template

  I have been playing around with this nifty little PowerPoint-based spinner in my classes. There are many ways you could potentially use this template in the EFL VYL or YL classroom. For example, it could be used to select students (children always get a kick of...

EFL + ESL Kindergarten Games: Twister

Here’s a fun activity for teaching phonics to your higher level kindergarten English classes: Twister. You set it up much like the classic game of Twister (illustrated above) by drawing a 3×3 or 4×4 grid on the floor with an erasable whiteboard marker....

Ideas for using flashcards

  Here’s a video with some great ideas for using flash cards in the classroom. Its presented by Carol Read, a leading author of teaching English to Young Learners. I’ve noticed a lot of teachers at my school use PowerPoint for introducing new...