Every few months, the British Council run a free professional development course ‘English in Early Childhood: Language Learning and Development‘. This course is perfect for enhancing your knowledge of teaching kindergarten (EFL or ESL) English to very young learners.
Course structure
First, its useful to note that the course doesn’t follow the traditional (thematic) format that most books on teaching English to very young learners do. That is, it doesn’t cover storytelling, crafts, songs, games, in-depth training in techniques, and so on.
However, this doesn’t in anyway negate the value you can gain from it. And these topics are sometimes touched upon in other contexts throughout various units of the course.
Next, the course is designed for a broad group of participants, not just English language teachers. One reason for this is probably that the British Council are opening language centres around the world where they teach English to very young learners. Potential customers (i.e. parents), are a part of the target market for this course.
In terms of its structure, the English in Early Childhood course is fully online, and runs for six weeks. It covers the following topics:
How children learn
- Early childhood development
- Children and language acquisition
- Learning through play
The importance of play
- Creating the right environment for play
- Developing language through play
- How to talk to young children
Encouraging emotional development
- Developing language through interactions
- Learning: English and everything
Developing the whole child
- Learning English in context
- Guiding the learning experience
- Positive relationships and enabling environments
Helping children feel safe and happy
- The importance of knowing the child well
- Watching children learn
Every child is unique
- Observation
- Assessment in the early years
- Planning: building on what children can do
While that description doesn’t sound all that exciting, I can assure you that there is plenty of content in the course that will challenge and extend your thinking.
What I like about the course
There are a few things I really like about the course.
First is that the course has really good instructors, who have a lot of experience in early childhood teaching. They’re very supportive in your learning, and willing to share what they know and also point you to other resources that might help you. They encourage participants to actively contribute to class discussions.
Similarly, there are a few in-class videos, which gives you a rare opportunity to see how some of the teachers at the British Council work with Very Young Learners.
Next, there’s your fellow course participants.
People from all around the world join the course. That means you’re going to be able to tap into their knowledge and experiences, which are likely different from your own. Its an enormous opportunity to learn about VYLs. This course is very much a case of the more you put into the class, the more you will get out of it. I would strongly encourage you to be generous with your contributions.
Finally, while not all of the course content was relevant to my particular situation, they do have some really interesting and thought provoking content. The recommended study time per week was around 2 hours, however, you could easily spend much more time. Again, the more you put into the course, the more you’ll get out of it.
Where to find out more
You can find out more about the course (and sign-up) here. The course runs a few times a year, so if you miss the start date, just enter your email address to be notified of the next intake. Be aware that you can join after the course starts. However, many people don’t read posts from the previous weeks, so if you want to engage in a discussion with others, you should try to quickly catch up to the current week.
In summary, the British Council’s ‘English in Early Childhood’ is an excellent course to supplement your knowledge of how to teach English to two to five year olds.
