Hello, everyone! My name is Lesley Ito and I had a great time sharing teaching tips and classroom ideas as a writer of the Teacher’s Guides for WE CAN!
WE CAN! student books are great to use in the classroom, but what can you do with the class that needs more? The WE CAN! Starter is a very useful tool for teachers who find that their students need more review or are ready to expand on the lesson.
The Starter Level of WE CAN! is great as a textbook for pre school children and can also be used as a picture dictionary as it includes a lot of the same vocabulary used in the first three levels of WE CAN! Students studying out of Levels 1, 2 or 3 can use the Starter to expand on what they have learned.
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First, let’s talk about classes that need extra practice with the vocabulary. For these students, experiencing the same vocabulary in a different context can be very helpful. For example, if you are teaching colors in WE CAN! Level 1 Unit 1, (My friends / page 8) turn to Starter Unit 3, (Colors / page 8 ). Ask the students to take turns pointing to the jellybeans in their textbooks, saying the color and then finding the same color jellybean on pages 8 and 9 of the Starter. |
Then, have students take turns singing the “Rainbow Song” on the same page while pointing to the correct colors of the jellybeans on the pages in the Starter. Finally, find objects on the pages of the picture dictionary, show them to the students, and try to elicit the color. For example, turn to Starter Unit 16 (Food / page 38 and 39) of the Starter, point to the bananas and say, “Bananas are. . .” and try to get the students to finish your sentence by saying, “Yellow!”
Here are some more page number suggestions to help you get started with this activity:
[Starter]
Page 21 - “A lobster is. . .” (red)
Page 34 - “This square is. . .” (purple)
Page 43 - “The snake is . . .” (green)
Page 48 - “Snow is. . .” (white)
Page 54 - “This dress is . . .” (pink)
Page 64 - “The sky is. . .” (blue)
Page 72 - “The teddy bear is . . .” (brown)
Page 74 - “The stapler is. . .” (black)
Page 74 - “The textbook is. . .” (orange)
(To find the page numbers easily during the activity time, bookmark them with Post-it notes before class.) Even students who are complete beginners can fully participate in this activity because they only need to know how to say their colors.
How about classes that are ready to expand on the lesson? As our brains learn new things more quickly when they are linked to previously learned ones, use the Starter Level to teach new words that expand on the same theme.
For example, after teaching the birthday party lesson in Level 1 Unit 4 (Happy Birthday / pages 30 and 31) students can expand on the party theme by learning new vocabulary in Starter Unit 7 (Parties and Goodies / pages 16 and 17). After learning about party food and other party things, give the students a piece of paper and tell them they have 10 minutes to draw a picture of their own imaginary birthday party. Students should draw different colored balloons, party food they like and a birthday cake with the same number of candles as their age. Walk around the room and check on their drawings to keep students on track.
When the time is up, ask students questions about their pictures: “How old are you?” (as you point to the birthday cake), “What’s this?” (as you point to the food) or “What color is this?” (as you point to one of their balloons.
If you wish, collect the pictures afterward and save them until they have learned about Level １Unit 5(Toys /page 38). Pass out the pictures again and ask the students to add drawings of wrapped birthday presents in the picture. Then have the students make pairs and guess what is in the box of the birthday present in his or her partner’s picture.
Using the Starter as a picture dictionary adds so much to our lessons and requires little advance preparation by the teacher. Next month, I’ll talk about how to best attract your students’ attention to the pictures in WE CAN! series and the Starter and share some more easy-to-do picture dictionary activities!
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