UNIT 4: COMMUNICATIVE SITUATIONS IN

PRESCHOOL EDUCATION

In the development of the child as a social being, language has a central role. A child
learns to act as a member of the various social groups through the medium of language.
Social groups are: the family, the neighbourhood, the classroom.

Language is learnt through interaction. A child learns the language he hears around him.
The classroom offers different communicative situations and routines that encourage the
children to use language to interact with others. A child may of course learn a second
language such as English if he is exposed to it and there are conditions for it.

Everyday activities in preschool classrooms are associated with routines like: greetings,
meals, circle time, play activities... . In these situations children have opportunities to
learn everyday expressions in their mother tongue and in English.

Language comes to life only when functioning in some environment. We do not

experience language in isolation- but always in relation to a scenario, some background
of people, actions and events. This is referred to as the SITUATION, so language is said
to function in “contexts of situation”

Some types of situation in the classroom or nursery are, for example:

 Teacher welcoming children in the morning. Greetings.

 Teacher saying her name to the children. Introductions
 Time for breakfast
 Circle time (songs, stories, rhymes)
 Teacher and kids looking after plants or animals. Feeding the pet.
 Time for lunch
 Expressing your mood
 Playtime
 Naptime
 Asking for permission to go to the toilet
 Celebrating someone´s birthday
 Kids following teacher´s instructions
 Kids saying good-bye to the teacher

We have to define what peculiarities of vocabulary, grammar or pronunciation can be

accounted for by reference to the situation. The notion of REGISTER is a form of
prediction: if we know the situation ( in this case the nursery routine) we can predict a
great deal about the language that will occur.

Recurrent concepts in the preschool classroom are:

Body
Colours
Numbers
Food
Animals
Weather
Days of the week and months of the year
Family
Spatial concepts (on, under, over ...)
Geometrical shapes (triangle, square, diamond, rectangle ....)

THE ENGLISH CORNER

We should create a physical area in the classroom where to teach English to very young
learners. We shall call it THE ENGLISH CORNER, where they can play and learn
recurrent themes related to the English language in preschool years that we have just
seen. (greetings, colours, numbers, animals, family....)

All these concepts are basic in preschool years and are highly motivating.

This corner may be decorated with a nice sign displaying “ENGLISH CORNER” . We
will use it to hang all the drawings and worksheets made by the children in English, to
play games, to practise daily routines such as saying hello in the morning: HELLO,
GOOD MORNING, or saying good bye: GOOD BYE, or SEE YOU TOMORROW.

We may also use this corner to learn new words and to revise already learned ones,
trying to do it the same way as in Spanish. For example, if we revise the days of the
week in Spanish everyday, one weekday we may do the same in English. All these
concepts which are basic in the programme for very young learners should be worked in
a parallel way.

GREETINGS

HELLO, WHAT´S YOUR NAME?

We will ask the children in turns. As soon as one of them says his name ( Miguel, for
example) we will shake his hand. Then we will ask another child to help us inquire the
name of others.

WHISPERING NAMES (susurrando nombres)

Once they know the meaning of Hello and What´s your name?, we will sit on the floor
in a circle and the children will whisper What´s your name in our ear. We will answer
the question, whispering in his ear so that he can then say our name aloud for the rest of
the children. We shall go on doing the same in turns. If any child doesn´t want to say
anything, we will not insist. We´ll simply pass on his turn to the next child.

COLOURS

To introduce children to a colour for the first time, we may take relevant objects in the
same colour to the classroom. For example A RED APPLE, A YELLOW BANANA, A
GREEN LEAF. We may also talk about the colours of the clothes the children are
wearing that day.
THE COLOURS TRACK
To play this game we need to photocopy the outline of a footprint in various copies, we
will hand them out to the children and we will ask them to colour them in their favourite
colour. Once they finish we will cut them out and place them on the floor so that we
will create a multicoloured track that will cross the classroom. One by one, the children
will walk over the footprints saying the names of the colours as they step on them.

FLASHCARDS
We shall prepare many vocabulary cards or flashcards using the colours we are going to
learn. Once they are coloured we will protect them in plastic to play with them.
We may also do them in paper and hang them on the wall, in our English corner.

NUMBERS

We will teach children the numbers from 1 to 10 according to their age and what they
already know in Spanish.
We may create flashcards that we will use for games and for colouring.

LET´S COUNT
Every morning, as soon as the children have asked and answered Hello, How are you?
We may go on with HOW MANY CHILDREN ARE THERE HERE TODAY? HOW
MANY CHILDREN?(always the same sentence and using the same gestures as we talk)
and we will start counting boys and girls. This is the first step to learn to count in
Spanish as well as in English.
We may also count other elements in the classroom: HOW MANY WINDOWS ARE
THERE? HOW MANY WINDOWS? / HOW MANY DOORS ARE THERE? HOW
MANY DOORS? We will let them count out loud. The same with other objects in the
classroom: BAR OF GLUE, PENS, RUBBERS, SCARVES...

THE DICE
We need an enormous dice, made out of foam, cork, fabric, card..... showing the dots
on each face (from one to six dots), either drawn or stuck on the dice.
A child throws the dice and another one calls out the numbers that come up.
Another possibility, a bit more difficult is as follows: a child throws the dice , the rest
call out the number and the thrower should go around the classroom to find that same
number of objects. If a 3 comes up, the children say THREE! And the first child should
find 3 pencils, 3 books, 3 rubbers or whatever.

TRESURE HUNT
We may ask the children to close their eyes and we will hide some objects around the
classroom (sweets, for example). Then we shall tell them to open their eyes and start
searching for the sweets saying FIND THE SWEETS AROUND THE CLASSROOM!.
As soon as they find one we will place it in a basket and in the end, we shall count them
up and, of course, we shall eat them!

SKITTLES
We need some coloured plastic skittles to do this activity. First of all we shall count the
skittles in a loud voice and we shall place them on the floor keeping a distance of 30
cms. between them. We will show the children how to play. We will skip over the
skittles counting them at the same time as we hop. We shall give a round of applause to
every child even if he gets the numbers wrong or cause them to fall down.

RHYME
This rhyme is very easy to practise with the children:

ONE POTATO, TWO POTATO, THREE POTATO, FOUR.

FIVE POTATO, SIX POTATO, SEVEN POTATO, MORE!!!

HOME AND FAMILY

THE HOUSE

With this activity the children will get to know the basic rooms at home: KITCHEN,
BEDROOM, DINING ROOM, BATHROOM, and the basic word HOUSE

We will show them flascards , photographs, or drawings of different objects at home,

and we will say the name of the room where this object should be.
We need a house made of card, with four different parts: kitchen, bedroom, dining
room, bathroom. We shall draw a representative object in each place so that children
recognise the different rooms. We will give them the different objects, representative of
the room and they should stick them to the apropriate place, calling out loud the name
of the room.

BUILD A HOUSE

We teach them a simple rhyme by using gestures and movements so that they can see
how we build our own house, while we revise the numbers 1 to 5 and learn the word
house and brick. Show them a photo of a house and a brick.

We shall recite slowly so that they see what we do, they learn it by heart and finally
they want to join us:
Build your house with five bricks:
One, two, three, four five.

We shall do this by placing our open hand on the floor. We will hide each finger as we
go counting from one to five until we have closed our hand and we just have our fist,
which is the brick we have used to build our house. We go on doing the same with the
other hand placing it over the first brick. And so on, one hand over the other and letting
them imagine how tall our house is now.

THE FAMILY

Our objective is to get the children know vocabulary related to the members of the
family. MUMMY/DADDY/SISTER/BROTHER. The most common terms

GIVE ME
We may use a card game with different families, which is very common in early
childhood education. We have the four members of the family. We place all the cards
on the floor and the children sit around the cards, in a circle. We ask them to give us a
special card. For example, “Carlos, please, give me .... daddy animal!”

MY FAMILY

We ask the children to bring photographs of mummies, daddies, babies, brothers... or

even their own family´s photos. We will draw a big house on a card and we will ask
them to stick different members of the family on it.
“Find a mummy and stick it to your house”

ANIMALS

Preschool children will learn the names of those animals which are more familiar to
them, that we have in masks, in stories, those which produce well-known sounds that
they imitate in class, etc...
We will use different methods: imitation of sounds, flashcards, pair games,
storytelling....

ANIMAL MIMES
The children sit around us on the floor. We start imitating the movements of an animal.

What is it? – Qué es esto?

Un conejo, yes. Look! A rabbit. It´s a rabbit
Hello rabbit!!!

What is it?
Look! A cat. It´s a cat
We shall ask the children to imitate the typical gesture of their favourite animal. We will
say it in English and we will imitate them.

ANIMAL SOUNDS
This time, we shall imitate animal sounds. The children will try and say the name of the
animals in English. If one of them gets it right he shall take our place and produce more
sounds for the others to guess.

Moo moo (cow)

Miaou miaou (cat)
Woof woof (dog)
Quack quack (duck)
Baa baa (sheep)

MY BOOK OF FARM AND JUNGLE ANIMAL

The children will make their own book of animals in English, so that they recall the
vocabulary better and they keep a book made by them. They may take it home and read
it with their parents, tell them how they did it, which animal they like best, how they are
called in English etc... . We will give them an empty album and they will stick
photographs of animals to it, or drawings made by them ....
FOOD

We will work the concept of food through games and activities that will estimulate the
children´s “appetite” for the English language. We should include activities with fruits
since it is important to include them in the children´s breakfast. Therefore we shall be
doing two things at the same time: practising English and promoting healthy eating
habits.

We should bring food that the children eat regularly to the classroom, either natural
food that we shall eat afterwards, or food made with plastic, which is sold at toy´s
stores.

BLIND TASTING – WHAT IS IT? GUESS IT!!

We shall use different types of food that the children can name in english, and we will
add a little container with salt. We will hide their eyes with a handkerchief and they will
have to try and taste different food. They should guess the names from tasting the food.
The salt will be an element of surprise in the game.

GAME WITH FRUITS

For this activity we need to take seven different types of fruit that we are learning. We
place the fruit on the floor and the children sit in a circle around the fruit. We will ask
them to look at them closely and to say their names and colours out loud. Afterwards
they close their eyes and we will hide one piece of fruit behind us. Once they open their
eyes again we will ask: OPEN YOUR EYES! WHICH ONE IS MISSING? The child
who guesses earlier will be allowed to eat the fruit.

MAKING A SANDWICH
We will take to school all the ingredients which are necessary to make a sandwich:
bread, butter, tomatoes, cheese, ham

What would you like, María? Some ham?

Yes, some ham

We will give the children little pieces of cheese or ham and we will help them made
their sandwiches.

What is there in your sandwich, Sara? Ham, cheese and bread?

Yes, ham, cheese and bread.

This is a good activity to do before the break.

FRUIT SALAD

We will choose some fruits that we want the children to learn. The fruits should be
peeled, and cut into little pieces. The children should place all the little pieces in an big
plastic container, add a little sugar and, later on, they shall name the different pieces of
fruit as they take them and place them in their own bowl. Then they may eat them.
We may also bring to the classroom supermarket advertising papers, cut out different
photographs of the fruits and the children stick them to a card to make a colourful
collage.

ASKING FOR PERMISSION TO GO TO THE TOILET

Children should be taught to ask for permission to go to the toilet.
May I go to the toilet, please?
I want to do pee-pee / I wanna do pee-pee / I need a pee / I need a wee
I want to poo / I wanna poo

EXPRESSING MOODS AND FEELINGS

How are you today?

I´m happy / I´m sad / I´m angry
I´m hot / I´m cold
I´m tired
I have bellyache / I have tummyache / my belly aches / my tummy aches

We shall use drawings to show this.

Or emoticons (emotive icons)

Are you hungry? The emoticon is smiling/laughing/winking/

Yes, I am surprised/crying/upset.
Are you thirsty?
No, I´m not

INSTRUCTIONS and OFFERS

Do up your zip
Put on your smock (mandilón) / apron (mandil)
Tie your laces. Shall I tie them for you?
Shall I button your coat?
Unbutton your coat. Take it off
Shall I change your diaper/nappy? Is it wet? Is it dirty?
Be quiet
Raise your hand
Don´t cry! Come with me. A big smile!
Switch on the light / swith off the light
Stand up / Sit down
Turn on the tap and wash your hands
Blow your nose.
(Sneeze) Bless you!
Look!! Repeat with me!! Altogether now!!
Thumbs up!!
Stomp your feet! / Stand on one leg! / Hop!
REQUESTS
I don´t understand. Can you repeat, please? / Repeat, please
Pardon? / What?

SAYING GOOD-BYE
Bye!
See you!
See you on Monday!
Good bye!
Have a nice weekend!

THANKING PEOPLE and being polite

-Thank you!
You are welcome / Welcome!!
That´s OK / OK!!

-Do you want a sweet?

- Yes, please
- No, thank you

- Oh! I´m sorry