In order to keep the attention of young learner classes, it's important for the teacher to come prepared with new activities. This lesson, called "Disappearing Chant," uses repetition, gestures, memorization, and chanting to solidify vocabulary comprehension, sentence structure, and pronunciation as a whole class or in a competition with small groups.
ESL Disappearing Chant Young Learner Activity Objective
Too teacher-centered to be used as an entire lesson for young learners, it's best to keep this activity at a maximum of twenty minutes. It's a great way to end class because students have the opportunity to put all of their classroom materials away and chant, something that may cure restlessness.
ESL teachers may adapt this filler activity to fit the current unit's vocabulary and grammar, work on specific pronunciation issues, learn a song, or even to have fun with basic tongue twisters.
ESL Disappearing Chant Young Learner Activity Materials
Preparation time should only take ten minutes and consists of planning a chant for students.
- Four to seven lines of a chant created by the teacher. The length of chant lines and the amount used should depend on the age of the students, their English level, and time restraints.
- A chalkboard or whiteboard plus chalk or board markers and an eraser.
ESL Disappearing Chant Young Learner Activity Procedure
The teacher can either use this activity with the whole class or divide them into teams to make it competitive. This depends on the personality and level of the students.
- Teacher writes the chant clearly on the board so that everyone can see.
- The whole class repeats pronunciation of each line after the teacher. If the focus of the chant is on verb vocabulary review, the teacher can use gestures for words like jump, run, walk, or skip to aid memorization and engage the class while students are repeating.
- After the students have repeated the chant a few times (boys only, girls only, high voices, low voices are ways to make repetition more interesting) the teacher erases the first line. The class must repeat the chant using their memory and gestures from the teacher for help on the first line.
- Next, the teacher gradually removes lines 2, 3, 4, etc. until the students are able to recite the chant on their own without any words.
- In a very small class, the teacher can ask students to repeat the chant individually. If the class is divided up into groups, a team can receive a point for every round successfully chanted.
- For homework, the students can write the chant in their notebooks or using a fill in the blank worksheet provided by the teacher.
Example of ESL Disappearing Chant
In this particular chant, students practice the order of the days of the week, verbs in the first person present tense and activities in English.
- On Monday I play basketball
- On Tuesday I practice piano
- On Wednesday I do my chores
- On Thursday I ride my horse
- On Friday I eat pizza
- On Saturday I meet my friends
- On Sunday I do my homework
The "Disappearing Chant" activity is adaptable to many situations and can be used to review a variety of lesson components. At the same time, it's a useful way to break up the day's lesson and challenge students in a fun way.
Katherine Kocisky - Katherine graduated with a degree in English Education and French in 2004 from Illinois State University. Since then, she has taught high ...
