Dream English Teaching Tips Blog
Fun Thoughts and Creative Ideas for Teaching Children English
Happy 2021! Let’s start our classes out this year with the Dream English Happy New Year Chant. A great warm-up song to use after a long holiday break. Get a Free Song Download. See below for the video for link.
Happy New Year Free MP3 Chant Download– Click here.
Check out our Free Downloads page for more songs downloads to get your year off to a great start. Happy teaching in 2021!
One of my favorite ways to start a new English class for young learners (ESL, EFL) is to sing Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes. The song is fun, simple, and active. After this song, the class can sit down and settle down for a fun class.
Recommended Ages: 3-7 Years old
Target Vocabulary: Body Parts
Give the song a try in your class! You can also download a free MP3 of the song here. Happy singing!
The Hot Cold Song is a fun song to teach young English learners (ESL, EFL) about opposites. Watch the video and see below for how to teach.
How to Teach:
I teach this song by first doing the actions of feeling hot, and feeling cold. You can watch how I do it in the video, or make up your own gestures.
Next, I show pictures of hot things like the sun, soup and say, “hot sun, hot soup” Then, I show pictures of cold things like ice cubes and snow and teach that they are cold. Flashcards work well for this.
Next, I teach the vocabulary of the song.
Hot Cold Song Lyrics:
Hot, hot, hot, hot (repeat)
cold, cold, cold (repeat)
The soup is hot.
hot, hot, hot
The sun is hot.
hot, hot, hot
hot soup
hot sun
The ice is cold.
cold, cold, cold
The snow is cold.
cold, cold, cold
cold ice
cold snow
hot, hot, hot,
hot, hot, hot
cold, cold, cold
cold, cold, cold
Is it hot or cold?
After the song quiz the students by holding up flashcards of hot and cold things and ask them, “Is it hot or cold?”
This song is a great class warm up!
Happy New Year! I hope you had a great holiday, and that you are ready to get started with the New Year! This week I will be doing the New Year’s Chant song and review in all my classes. Check it out here:
You can download the chant to use the song in your classes. Click here to get a free download MP3 of the Happy New Year Chant!
Sample Lesson Plan for the New Year’s Class
These are some ideas to get you started with your classes. You can also do crafts, coloring, or use a textbook. The main idea is to give the students a lot of comprehensible input in English.
Let’s make it a great year and be the best teachers we can be!
Brrr! It’s cold! I LOVE saying, “brr, brr, brr” in classes. The young students always laugh and smile. When it’s cold we have to bundle up in our hats and jackets. I made this fun song to teach young learners of English (ESL, EFL) the target language of “put on my jacket.” Learn how to teach below the video!
How to Teach the Winter Clothing Song
I start teaching this song by pointing outside (if there is a window) and saying, “brrr, it’s cold!” and make it look like I am really cold. A bit of acting skills come in handy here. You can see how I do this in the video above. Then I use flashcards to show the winter clothing items in this song: hat, jacket, gloves, scarf, boots. Or you can show real clothing items.
Next, I use the target language of the song and say, “hat, put on my hat” and act like I am putting on my hat. I have the students follow along and repeat the vocabulary if they are ready. Remember, it is not necessary for young learners to repeat and say the language right away. I do not like to rush my young learners. Let them ease into the language in a fun and natural way.
Fun Tip: I always say, “brr, brr, brr” after saying each phrase like this, “put on my jacket, brr, brr, brr” The kids always laugh at that.
Then simply play the song and sing along with your students, or watch the video and sing along. It’s that easy! Kids will follow along soon enough. Download a Free MP3 of the song here. Happy Singing!
It’s been an amazing year at Dream English, thanks to your support from around the world. I got to visit students in Thailand, and had a wonderful time making songs and videos for teachers and students around the world!
Start off your New Year with the Happy New Year Chant! A great chant to clap and dance your way into the New Year! Check it out here! Happy Teaching!
Hi, Friends! A few months ago I began the Dream English Teaching Tips Podcast. I’m hoping this podcast will help teachers to have even better classes. Maybe you missed some of the podcasts over the summer, so here is a quick summary of the episodes. The podcast is also available on iTunes. All free, so please have a listen! Click on the link to go to the podcast on the PodBean.com site.
In this episode I talk about using warm ups, songs, games, and simple questions to start your English class with young learners. Very useful!
In this episode I talk about a favorite subject of mine, teaching English with songs! I talk about how I teach songs in the classes to young learners. I also talk about different kinds of songs like action songs, finger play songs, and more!
In this episode I talk about my Top 5 Classroom Games for teaching English to young learners. You only need a few good games that you can use over and over again with differnet vocabulary. Have a listen for some of my students favorites.
I hope to do a bunch of Lesson Plans Podcasts to help everyone with planning their lessons. The first episode in this series is Colors! Colors are a basic part of English for your young learners class, and can be lots of fun. In this episode I talk about introducing colors, color songs, and color games.
Today on the podcast we will listen to a conversation I had with Mark from MES English about our basic philosophy in teaching very young learners English. We talk about how to relax in class, what to expect from the students, and how watching Sesame Street can help you with class ideas.
I hope you get some useful ideas from these podcast episodes. Happy Teaching! – Matt
Many of you may know the popular children’s song Family Finger. I have made some new versions using different vocabulary. I like this song, because it teaches other vocabulary such as, “Where are you?” I also use these songs to teach actions like dig, mix, and more. More below the video:
How To Use This Song in your Classes
This song can be used as a warm-up song or in the middle of your classes as a song break time. You can begin by teaching the Construction Vehicle names, then the actions. Then watch the video and have your students do the actions and sing along. Here are the full lyrics:
Excavator finger, excavator finger where are you?
Here I am, here I am. How do you do?
Let’s dig like an excavator
Bulldozer finger, bulldozer finger, where are you?
Here I am, here I am. How do you do?
Let’s push like a bulldozer
Road roller finger, road roller finger, where are you?
Here I am, here I am. How do you do?
Let’s roll like a road roller
Dump truck finger, Dump truck finger, where are you?
Here I am, here I am. How do you do?
Let’s drive the dump truck.
Concrete mixer finger, concrete mixer finger, where are you?
Here I am, here I am. How do you do?
Let’s mix like a concrete mixer.
So give it a try and get moving in your class! Here we go!
Fun should be at the heart of your English class, right? Well, there should be times when we get serious, but I try to have as much fun as possible with young English learners (ESL, EFL). I often start the classes with a simple warm-up song or two and opposites are great for this! More below the video:
Big and Small
It is really easy to teach the concept of big and small with our bodies. Simply make your body big and say in a loud voice “big!” then make your body small and say, “small.” You can see examples of me doing this in the video above. Next, you could point to some images and ask the students, “Is it big, or is it small?” I like to use easy to recognize images like elephants and mice.
Fast and Slow
In the same way that we used our bodies for big and small, we can teach fast and slow. Run quickly in place and say “fast!” then move your body very slowly and say “slow.” It is fun to go back and forth between fast and slow, students love this!
These are just simple ideas to get you started. Have fun with it! In the video above there are three songs teaching these target words. So practice with your students, watch the videos, and sing along. The students will learn the concepts in no time!
I teach children English (ESL, EFL), and I always play music on either the CD player or through YouTube before the class starts. Of course I always play songs with English singing. Sometimes I put on some nice folk or blues music, but most often I put on the songs we will be singing in class that day.
Top Five Reasons to Play Music Before Class Starts
Whatever songs you are singing in class, I recommend making a CD or a playlist to play at least 10 minutes before class starts.
Halloween is coming up soon and we are singing many Halloween songs in the class. So now I am starting out the class with the Dream English Kids Halloween Album you can now listen to for free on YouTube.
As you can tell, I love music! Add some more music to your class today to give it a boost!