Teaching Big, Small, Fast, and Slow to Young Learners of English in a Fun Way

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!