Teaching Vocabulary to Young Learners Through Brain-Based Teaching Strategies by Setenay Çelik

Okay. Hello everybody. H I want to start my presentation with a well-known dance and I want everybody join in my dance like a good morning dance. Okay. And it's a dance called hacker dance. If you want to join me and please join me h get

a comfortable place for yourself and can you please stand up please? [Music] Okay. Um, because of time limitation, I want to make it so quick. Do what I do.

Say what I say. Okay, here we go. It's weird, but fun. I use it in my classes. Okay. I I a chicka chima. A chicka chickba. A

mushy mushy mushy. A mushy mushy mushy. I

ei cha chimber. Cha cha chima. A mushy mushy mushy mushy mushy mushy. You're perfect. Make a clap

yourself. Okay, this is a kind of energizer I use in my classes. And my name is Tetani Chilik and I'm from Turkey. I have been teaching English for four years uh to young learners. That's

why you must always be energetic with them and while I'm teaching um I came across with some difficulties and challenging with the young learners. As you all know, the problems I had mostly

were based on their characteristics because young learners were are actually uh so energetic and they are curious and these are some pictures uh from my

students. As you can as you all know they are so energetic and cris but uh one of the most important features they have was they are really like uh imitating the teachers their gestures and their

speaking styles but the thing made me search on this topic was that they learn very easily but they can forget very quickly and I'm teaching I'm trying to teach vocabulary to them one lesson they're okay when when we come back, oh

my god, they forgot everything. So I said, what can I do? And the other one was that uh they have a very short span of attention. They can try to do with other things. When you see someone there and then you turn back and come back

there, he's not there. Where is he? He's trying to find some more um lovely things. That's why I needed to to be try I needed to I tried to get their attention more and then I came across with the idea of

brain because I'm not a neurologist. I'm not a scientist but I learned that if I can get their brain I can teach them because each part of our body has a function. When it comes to learning, we

need to be aware of the brain's facts, not like a neurologist, but as a teacher. So, let's go very quickly. I asked the question, what goes on in my students hat? And I found out the idea of neurons. The neurons were like that.

If you want to join me, you can do it. Um, you can see your arm um showing the neurons parts. This is the axon part. This is the uh neuron part and these are the droids. If our students learn

something new, something very new, it doesn't matter how important it is. The neurons connect with the other neurons axon part. This connection is learning.

And if we can um make this connection clear and stronger, it means that the learning stays forever. If we don't do anything, if we don't repeat the information we give, if we don't um

teach the vocabulary the way they like, the connection gets broken. So they start, they end with forgetting it. Sorry. And this is the very general picture of neuron. And in a in a people in the

people's brain there are 1,000 billion neurons. So it's so miracle. We can do whatever we want if we can use it with the kids. Very very general. Of course there are other parts of the brain but my favorite one is the amygdala. This is

like the heart of our students brain. If we can get the heart of students brain, we can teach them however we want. Learning occurs in this part in hypocmpus part. But if amydala is not interested in learning, if it's not

having fun, then it hijacks the hippocmpus. So learning is not the way we see. That's why as teachers we firstly get the heart. We must be funny. If there's no fun, there's no meaning for the kids. Let's do whatever you want

in a funny way, not a strict way. And to do this, we need to meet the students brains needs. And the movement is so important. Let them move around the classroom. I always let them move. Uh, of course, as long as they they

don't disturb the others, they move around. Whatever I do, I do with the physical things. They don't sit like that. We okay stand up and let's do an activity like this. Movement is the key. Vocabulary is the most important

one for the young learners because they take the first step like the bird in ELT the talks they take the first step to learn vocabulary because um without vocabulary they have struggle in uh

expressing their thoughts and ideas. and how we do it. First impression, repetition, personalizing are the three keys I use in my classes. First impression is the funny step. They must

think that okay, Mr. Tennai is doing something fun and I want to learn it. This is the first impression. If you can't get their first impression very well, they they never will care about what you do. Repetition. Do whatever you

want quickly and quickly. and in other contextes and in different places at different times. Repeat it all the time as long as you can do. Personalizing is so important because they put something

from their heart to the thing they learn for the vocabulary. I want to show an example um the thing I do in my classes with repetition and personalizing. Who wants to play a memory game with me here? Just

just to show what I do in my classes. Just one young learner. I want nobody. Okay. Thank you. Quickly. Okay. These are the pictures I use in my classes. You can

come here and I will show you the pictures. Uh think that I taught them to you to her. Okay. There are some pictures and at the back side there are other pictures. I will show you the pictures one by one to you. I want you

to remember what is the back side of the p of each picture. Okay. Sleepy box cold

door. Thirsty or we can say tired. Tired. Window. Dizzy dizzy mirror

hungry the picture hot scooter are you [Laughter] ready okay what was the back side of it

clapper Yeah. Cold. Door. I knew that. Yeah. Door and sleepy box. Congratulations.

Was that It's hot. Scooter. Scooter. Okay. Scooter. Yeah. Quickly. Quick. Hungry. Was there a shower? in the picture.

Dizzy, dizzy, dizzy. Mirror. Yeah, very good. But clever. Thank you. And no, no, no, don't go. Thank you for joining me. This is from Turkey. Thank you so much. Thank you. And um if I tell a story

about these pictures, you will remember them very very easily. This is personalizing how he is dizzy because of the beauty of the girls on the mirror. Okay. And these are the stories

that are told by my students in my classes. Not not my students, not my myself, my students stories. H he's dizzy because of the beauty of her on the mirror. Okay. She's so hungry that she

wants to eat the picture. Okay. She's so hot because She's hot because because Yeah. This is the subconscious of my

friend. Okay. She She's hot because she has played with the scooter. She's sleepy and she wants to sleep in the box. Funny things. She's cold. So she closes the

door. He is so tired that he cannot reach the window and put a close. So now this time all together I will show the pictures and shout very very quickly what is at the back side of the picture.

She's hungry. What? No, just say the word. Just say the word picture. Very good. Mirror, mirror, mirror. Very good. Very good.

Val, very good. Congratulations. Nothing else. Just cooler. So, this is personalizing. Okay. If we make up stories, they personalize. This is the

little poem I wrote for you. As teachers, we need to be ready for the lesson. For young learners, we need to be always active. Uh we need to be interested in dinosaurs, cartoons. Wimpiket is so famous nowadays in

Turkey. And we need to be neuron connectors. Thank you so much for listening to me. Thank you.