Promoting Language

I have been looking for ways to increase the oral language capabilities of my ESOL and less confident learners. I have two ESOL children in my room who have good English language skills but struggle with matching the correct tense to verbs as well as three other children who are reluctant to speak to others or in groups.

After doing some research I found this blog article on card games for ESOL learners. https://busyteacher.org/17617-deck-of-cards-5-simple-language-activities.html

I have used card games in the past to teach co-operative skills to Autistic children so thought this could be a good strategy for ESOL learners as well. Due to the repetitive nature of simple card games and repeated sentence structures I am hoping it will increase confidence among these learners.

Reflection:
I introduced Go Fish to a small group of children (my 'target' children along with some other more confident children to act as models). Before beginning the game I set the following expectations:

• you must use the sentence "Do you have any...."?
• you must look at the person you are talking to
• you must address the person by their name

After a few rounds all the girls were displaying the expectations and enjoyed playing. I had to correct VL several times from Do you got... to do you have? but by the end of the game she was using this sentence structure independently. I am hoping over time the girls will become more confident playing this game and using the appropriate questions and people's names. These skills will then hopefully be transferred into other learning areas.