Rhyming Is Fun: an Interactive Approach in Tefl to Young Learners
Prof. dr Slobodanka Đolić
Rhyming Is Fun: An Interactive Approach in TEFL to Young Learners
Anyone involved in language teaching will know that “pleasure for its own sake” (Richards, 1969) has been an important element of language learning no matter of the level of language proficiency. In this paper we will focus our attention to young learners of English as a foreign language at the pre-school and early primary school level. Our main concern will be directed towards such qualities of teaching materials which bring enjoyment into the classroom through pleasant sensory images, beautiful words, and subtle descriptions. To enter the children’s world of expectations, ideals, visions and images, one must enter the world of song, play and dance, the world of rhymes and games, the world of bright-colored books with beautiful illustrations full of surprising, mysterious and fantastic elements interwoven with the elements of everyday life. We need language sources that will help develop children’s imagination through rhymes, laughter and happiness. We also need the narrative side of the story which stands beyond any rhyme only if we, teachers, know how to get the story out of a rhyme. Stories are necessary because they satisfy a child’s curiosity about what is and what appears to be. Children tend to seek a story in any rhyme or a game played with rhymes. There is an incredible urge to imagine the things, to sense the imagination, to act according to the imagination. “Don’t tell me of a man’s being able to talk sense. Can he talk nonsense?”(William Pitt). Children need stories with characters created by the imagination where fantasy and magic intermingle. They want to dramatize, illustrate, play with puppets and tell stories their way, followed by the desire arising from their imagination and dreams. They must be emotionally attached to the characters of the story in order to become co-actors in the dream-like setting.
Within the scope of the theory of challenge or
Rhyming Is Fun: An Interactive Approach in TEFL to Young Learners
Anyone involved in language teaching will know that “pleasure for its own sake” (Richards, 1969) has been an important element of language learning no matter of the level of language proficiency. In this paper we will focus our attention to young learners of English as a foreign language at the pre-school and early primary school level. Our main concern will be directed towards such qualities of teaching materials which bring enjoyment into the classroom through pleasant sensory images, beautiful words, and subtle descriptions. To enter the children’s world of expectations, ideals, visions and images, one must enter the world of song, play and dance, the world of rhymes and games, the world of bright-colored books with beautiful illustrations full of surprising, mysterious and fantastic elements interwoven with the elements of everyday life. We need language sources that will help develop children’s imagination through rhymes, laughter and happiness. We also need the narrative side of the story which stands beyond any rhyme only if we, teachers, know how to get the story out of a rhyme. Stories are necessary because they satisfy a child’s curiosity about what is and what appears to be. Children tend to seek a story in any rhyme or a game played with rhymes. There is an incredible urge to imagine the things, to sense the imagination, to act according to the imagination. “Don’t tell me of a man’s being able to talk sense. Can he talk nonsense?”(William Pitt). Children need stories with characters created by the imagination where fantasy and magic intermingle. They want to dramatize, illustrate, play with puppets and tell stories their way, followed by the desire arising from their imagination and dreams. They must be emotionally attached to the characters of the story in order to become co-actors in the dream-like setting.
Within the scope of the theory of challenge or
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