New Sunrise Preschool C Teacher's Guide Unit 1

T5 Total Physical Response One of the challenges faced by language learners is to communicate while feeling uncertain about what they are asked to do, and children are no exception to this. That is why instructors need to think about first language acquisition: there is a delayed speaking period as children receive a lot of input before uttering their first words. This has been transferred into language teaching within a general approach named the Comprehension Approach. Within this approach, several methodologies have emerged, and one of them, Total Physical Response (TPR), has been adapted by New Sunrise . In TPR, teachers’ speech has the form of commands and instructions. The mechanics underpinning TPR activities are rather simple: instructors tell students what to do (“Stand up,”“Walk around,”“Everybody jump,”“Touch your head,” etc.); after this is done, they act the commands out for students to imitate; little by little, children will follow the commands without being led and eventually will issue commands on their own according to the requirements of the activity. In New Sunrise , TPR activities are used to introduce or reinforce topics and relieve learners’ anxiety, as these activities usually take the form of chants, games and mini-skits. The idea is to motivate students and establish a relaxed atmosphere conducive to learning. By integrating elements of TPR, the series makes language learning enjoyable and, at the same time, promotes communication. In the meantime, teachers can make sure children internalize sets of themed vocabulary and simple structures which are then transferred naturally into new contexts. Learner-centeredness New Sunrise has been developed according to cognitive and metacognitive, motivational and affective, developmental and social factors, in the interest of building a learner-centered framework. The rationale behind the series’ cognitive and metacognitive scheme is an understanding of learning as an active construction of knowledge, which is mainly placed on the learners’ shoulders and coached by the teacher. The activities are goal-oriented, suit different learning styles, and often motivate students to link prior and new knowledge. The different activities have also been designed to foster an appropriate environment for language learning, which is directly affected by motivation. Intrinsic motivation is not only considered but promoted through activities that allow children to construct knowledge socially. The series places the fundamentals of communication within this social perspective. The units promote rich and diverse learning experiences that draw on school, home and community sources, which help teachers and students bring individual, local and global knowledge into the English class. Learning Styles Keeping in mind that children (and, by extension, all individuals) have different ways of learning, teachers need to take advantage of a wide variety of techniques. Designing activities to cater to different learning styles will make lessons more enjoyable and motivational. For this reason, it is essential that teachers get to know their students. (With large classrooms, it can be best to use a mixed learning approach.) The following chart can be used as a guide to understand the nature of the activities proposed in the three levels of New Sunrise : Children who like to: …are usually good at: know what words mean, tell stories memorizing, describing, interviewing, predicting, inferring, expressing feelings count, solve problems naming, identifying patterns, organizing, classifying, scoring, memorizing draw, paint observing, imagining, describing, explaining with pictures, comparing act out, practice sports, manipulate things following instructions, playing, experimenting, arranging, building sing, remember tunes and lyrics repeating, expressing feelings, composing, appraising, memorizing