Tag: esl

New Sight Words Song – Learn 10 High Frequency Words

I use sight words, along with phonics, to teach my students how to read in English (ESL, EFL) .  Sight Words are commonly used words that young learners are encouraged to memorize by sight.  More below the video!

Sight Words Song Series

I started using sight words a few years ago when I wanted to give my students a boost in their reading skills. Phonics are great, but it can take a long time to get students to begin reading. Encouraging students to memorize words that occur often in text help them read faster, and gain confidence in reading.

I chose the words for my song series from the “Top 150 Sight Words” list, with some modifications based on my experience teaching English to young learners.  The basic idea is like the lyrics to the song, “Listen. Read. Remember.”

How to teach

Show the students the video, and then on the second or third try ask them to read the words with me. You can also write the words on the board and pre-teach them before watching the video. The list of the words for this video is: the, I, and, a, to, in, is, you, that, it.

Game Idea

You can play a simple touch game with the words. Write each word on a separate sheet of paper. Put all of the words on a table and have a group of 2-4 students sit around the table. Call out one of the words, for example “the.” The student who touches the word first wins the round.

These are just some ideas to get you started with sight words. Stay tuned for the remaining videos of the series on the Dream English Kids Youtube Channel!

 

A to Z Letters Song Album now on Spotify and iTunes

The A to Z Letter Songs Album is now on Spotify and iTunes! 26 Songs, one for each letter of the alphabet. Each song introduces one letter and three words that begin with that letter. For example, “A, apple, ant, alligator.” Great for the ESL and EFL classroom!

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Song Videos on YouTube

Above you will find the YouTube Playlist with the 19 Today’s Letter Song videos that are now on YouTube. We are currently through letter S. The remaining videos will be uploaded in coming months.

How to Teach

Teachers can use the videos to teach the vocabulary in the song, or simply an alphabet chart and some pictures on the board for the vocabulary.  First, teach the vocabulary slowly, and then try to have the students sing along with the song. Be sure to do the actions in the songs, clap, shake, and dance!

Activities

After singing the song, have the students sit down and write the letter on a piece of paper. Next, ask the students to draw something that starts with the letter. For example, if you are starting with letter A, ask the students to write letter A and then draw an apple. For younger students, you may need to help and draw an apple first on the board so that they can follow along.

These are just some ideas, be creative and come up with your own!

Happy teaching!

New Action Song: “My Feet Are For Walking”

My Feet Are For Walking Action Song

This is a fun and simple song for your children’s English class (ESL, EFL). Your students will love the fun and silly actions. Have a look at the video before reading the below teaching tips.

Lyrics:

My feet are for walking (x2)
Walking fast, walking slow
My mouth is for talking (x2)
talking fast, talking slow
My legs are for jumping (x2)
jumping fast, jumping slow
My arms are for swimming (x2)
swimming fast, swimming slow

Teaching Tips:

Start out by teaching the lyrics to the song. Teach them slowly, and have the students repeat after you. If you are not sure about pronunciation, have the students repeat after me as I say the lyrics at the beginning of the video.

I recommend teaching the actions and lyrics at the same time. This helps the students remember. Practice the walking fast, and slow part. This will be really fun for the students, and get them ready to sing. Finally, give the song a try! If you teach your students weekly, try to sing this song at the beginning of class every week for a month! By the end of the month, I’m sure the students will be singing very well. Encourage the students to sing in a loud voice.

Game idea:

Start a phrase of the lyrics and the students have to finish. For example:
Teacher: My feet are for….
Students: walking!
Next, ask a student to come to the front of the class to start the phrase.

Get the song:
“My Feet are for Walking” is available on YouTube, iTunes, and Spotify

YouTube Video link: Click here!
Download this song:
Spotify: Click here!
iTunes: Click here!

Happy teaching!!

How to Teach Children to Say “My name is …” in English

Children learning English (ESL/EFL) love to introduce themselves in English. Asking the students, “What’s your name?” and having them answer is a daily task in my classes. Here are my top tips for teaching this:

Top 5 Tips for Teaching Children Self Introduction with Name

    1. Introduce yourself first: I always begin by saying, “My name is Matt.” Next, I will invite a student up and after learning their name help them say for example, “My name is Bell.” The students can slowly repeat each word after you.
    2. Use puppets to introduce the idea: I often use small hand puppets that I bought at a local store to model saying, “My name is…” I have a dog puppet, and a cat puppet. I introduce myself by saying, “My name is Matt” then I pull out the puppets. I make a silly dog voice and using the dog puppet say, “My name is Douggy Dog. Woof, woof!” Then I take out the cat puppet and say, “My name is Catey Cat. Meow!” The students start seeing that we are introducing ourselves.
    3. What’s Your Name? Song: After introducing the idea of saying our names, we sing the What’s Your Name? Song. You can get a free mp3 download of that song here. And check out the simple video here:
    4. Game Idea: Have the students stand in a circle. Use a ball, and have the students throw it to each other. The student that throws the ball has to ask “What’s your name?” The student who catches the ball answers, “My name is _____.” See if they can gradually speed up without making mistakes. If the students are younger, ages 2-5, you can have them pass the ball and say their name.
    5. Name and Numbers Quiz: When the students are comfortable saying, “My name is …” you can combine asking the student’s names and a number quiz. I do this in big classes with students ages 4-6. I invite a group of students to the front of the class. I ask, “What’s your name?” and they all answer. Next, I show them a number card usually from 1-10 and ask, “What number?” and they answer for example, “Five!” Then I ask those students to sit down again, and invite another group up until all of the students have had a turn. This is fun, simple, and gives young learners confidence in English!

      Tip:       Simplify! If something is too difficult for your students, you can always simplify the activity. For example, in the game above if the students are not ready yet to ask “What’s your name?” have them pass the ball and say, “My name is…”

I hope this helps you get your students introducing themselves in English. Happy Teaching! – Matt

New Video: Sing, Draw, and Write # 3: Vehicles Learn English Kids

The Sing, Draw, and Write series is a fun way to get your students and children interacting with the video. Get a crayon and paper ready and let’s draw and write along! More how to to teach below the video:

Song Lyrics:

Where is the car? Where is the car? Here!
We see the car. We see the car. car!
Where is the truck? Where is the truck? Here!
We see the truck. We see the truck. truck!
Where is the motorcycle? Where is the motorcycle? Here!
We see the motorcycle. We see the motorcycle. motorcycle!
Where is the train? Where is the train? Here!
We see the train. We see the train. train!

Key words: where, here, we

How to Teach:

  1.  Pre-teach the vocabulary and lyrics to the song so that students can try to sing along, or at least be familiar with the vocabulary.
  2. Watch the video one time through with students. Encourage them to point to the vehicle when Matt sings, “Where is the car?” and for other vehicles
  3. Watch Matt draw the car, and have the students try to draw their own car. They can be creative, color the car, and have fun. Anyone can probably draw better than Matt. : )
  4.  After singing the song faster the second time, watch Matt write car on the paper. Have your students write the word car on their paper.

Check out the first two videos in the Series on YouTube:

Sing, Draw, and Write # 1 : Where is the Lion?
Sing, Draw, and Write # 2 : Where is the Tiger?

Listen to a podcast on how to use the video in your class:


I hope this helps you get the most out of this video. Can you think of other ways to be creative with this video? Maybe ask your students to draw all of the vehicles and then make a play where they act out the video. Give it a try! Happy Teaching! – Matt

Dream English School Show – Casablanca, Morocco, December 2, 2019

It was my first time visiting Morocco, and I was very excited to do my first Dream English show in Africa! I have been fortunate to do Dream English shows in Thailand, Japan, USA, France, Italy, Spain, and now Morocco! More below the photo.

Dream English-Morocco

The students were fantastic and sang the Dream English songs so well. I was invited by teacher Hind at the EIC – Almaz school in Casablanca. She uses many of my songs like Good Morning Song, Shake It Out, and more in her classes.

The Show

The show took place in a beautiful auditorium in the school. There were 9 kindergarten classes, the smiles from the children filled the seats. For many of the songs the students joined me on stage singing and dancing. We had a blast!

Here are the Dream English songs we sang at the show:

1. Good Morning Song
2. Hello Song
3. Let’s Count 1 to 10
4. Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes
5. The Weather Song (The Sun Comes Up)
6. BINGO Song ( with guitar)
7. Days of the Week Song (with guitar)
8. Baby Shark
9. Colors Action Song
10. Shake it Out
11. Wake Up Song
12. Goodbye Song

(Free downloads of most of these songs can be found here.)

Classroom Visits

The next morning I visited all 9 classrooms and we sang some more songs together, and I had a chance to ask some basic questions to many of the students. The English level of the students was excellent, and it was a pleasure to meet them all. They were all also very kind and gave me many nice handmade gifts (see photo).

students and photo - EIC

Thank you to teacher Hind, the administration and staff of the school for having me. Also a big thanks to the students for singing with me. It was a dream come true to do a show in Morocco!

Dream English School Show – Brescia, Italy, October 16, 2019

It was such a pleasure to visit northern Italy and do a performance with great students! The students sang so well, and were enthusiastic for the whole show! More below the photo:

Italy-Show-1--Insta-Post

(Photo: Matt and students singing Shake it Out)

The Show

There were about 30 students at this show, which made it fun and easy to interact with everyone. We could make a circle, and sing in a circle. We did this for a few songs.  The teachers and students were very helpful and enthusiastic, which made for a very fun show!

Here are the Dream English songs we sang at the show:

1. Let’s Count 1 to 10
2. Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes
3. The Weather Song (The Sun Comes Up)
4. ABC Song ( with guitar)
5. Days of the Week Song (with guitar)
6. Baby Shark
7. Colors Action Song
8. Shake it Out
9. Do You Have a Pet?
10. BINGO (with guitar)
11. Goodbye Song

After the show I was invited to see how the students practice Dream English songs in the classroom. It was amazing to see my videos on a large smartboard. We even sang the Weather Song and the Goodbye Song watching the YouTube Videos together. It was a blast!

I had so much fun at this school. A big thank you to teacher Linda, the other teachers at the school, and of course the wonderful students for an amazing morning!

Dream English School Show – Rome, Italy October 24, 2019

I had a lot of fun singing with the great students at a primary school in Rome, Italy! There were about 200 students, and we did three shows for the different age groups. Read more below the photo.

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(Photo: Matt and students singing the Weather Song)

The Show

We split the students into three age groups with about 70 students per show. The first group were 6-7 years old, the second group 7-8, and the last group 8-9. Each show was a bit over 20 minutes, and the energy was amazing for each group!

I was so inspired by the students singing, dancing, and enthusiasm that it helped me to perform. It was exciting for all of us!

Here are the Dream English songs we sang at the show:

1. Let’s Count 1 to 10
2. Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes
3. The Weather Song (The Sun Comes Up)
4. ABC Song ( with guitar)
5. Days of the Week Song (with guitar)
6. Baby Shark
7. Colors Action Song
8. Goodbye Song

One of my favorite parts of the show is singing the Days of the Week song with students. I always invite a few students up to the front to sing and do the actions, while I play guitar. It is amazing to hear all of the children singing a song that I wrote.

Thank you to teacher Isabella, the other teachers, and all of the students at the show for making this a wonderful afternoon of music and fun!

Dream English School Show – Paris, France Show # 1

One of the best parts of Dream English for me is meeting teachers and students around the world. I have been fortunate to do Dream English Shows in Thailand, Japan, Spain, U.S.A, and now France!

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The Speak N’ Play English school just outside of Paris, France was my first show in France. I was invited by the school owner, Eliza. She is very nice, and a great teacher! If you have children in the area who are looking to learn English, I highly recommend Speak N’ Play.

Show And Songs

There were about twenty students, a nice number and I could really interact with all of the students. It was my first time meeting these students, so I started out by doing simple warm-ups. I used repeat after me action warm-ups like this, “clap your hands, clap, clap. wash your hands, wash, wash.”
It was important for me that the students feel relaxed before starting into the songs.

Song List:

We did the following Dream English songs at the show:

1. Let’s Count 1 to 10
2. Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes
3. The Weather Song (The Sun Comes Up)
4. ABC Song ( with guitar)
5. BINGO (with guitar)
6. Baby Shark
7. Colors Action Song
8. Goodbye Song

The students were great. They had a lot of energy and were focused throughout the show. I had a lot of fun singing with the students, and their teacher Eliza.

A big thank you to Eliza for inviting me. Until next time! Goodbye, see you, thank you!