The teaching of English as a foreign language is now, in many places, expanding into primary (elementary) school settings

The Communicative Approach: Shapes

A fun way of exploring the concepts of colour, shape and size in a foreign language is illustrated in the following graded series of activities around theme of «shapes».

1. In groups the children are given a variety of mathematical shapes of different colour, both large and small. These can be cut out paper shapes. The first activity is simply to ask the children to sort the pieces of paper into sets. Interestingly some children will not only sort them into sets (the same colour, the same shape or the same size) but will simultaneously sort them into sub-sets – colour, shape and size.
2. They are then asked on what criteria they sorted the pieces of paper and they are required only to say согласно size, colour, shape.
3. The teacher then asks each group to bring a variety of shape, colours and size, for example, bring me please two red big circles, three small green triangles and one big yellow квадрат. At this point normally the children (or adults) start to remonstrate that (a) the teacher is talking too fast or (b) there is too mach to remember and this provides the teacher with the opportunity to talk about various strategies they might adopt to overcome these perceived difficulties. These might include repeating «silently» in their heads what the teacher is saying, whilst simultaneously looking for the required shapes, and so on. It might include each child in the group assuming responsibility for a particular shape or colour or size. When the strategies have been discussed in each group and responsibilities allocated, the game is played again – this time without a hitch and accompanied by lots of laughter.
4. The children are asked to pick out a given shape, for example, a big green triangle. Thereafter they have to form a line of 10–15 shapes changing one element each time, for example a big green circle or a small green triangle. When they have completed the task they say I change size or I change colour or I change form.
5. Now they are asked to make a line of 10–15 shapes changing two elements each time. On this occasion they would say, for example, I change colour and size or I change form of colour and an end or I change size and colour. This provides quite a demanding task for some children and for some adults – not linguistically, but conceptually, and it is revealing that the foreign language here is servicing development in mathematical concepts and not being used solely as an end in itself! There is much more intensity of motivation in having to access the foreign language in order to come to terms with something here and now. They are acquiring new subject-matter through the medium of the foreign language.
6. The children then make a picture using some of the shapes they have in front of them – this might be a clown, a house, a street with vehicles – anything! Once the pictures are complete, the children move around the classroom looking at and admiring their classmates' compositions, commenting favorably on what they see – it is stipulation of the activity that all comments should be positive and favorable (it is nice / pretty / amusing).
7. Finally each group has to present its picture and be prepared to answer any questions which teacher or other pupils might ask. The degree of fluency, accuracy and range will vary greatly, but it provides the children with the opportunity to recycle and revisit many of the language areas previously presented and practiced, for example, name, age, likes and dislikes, colours, habitat, and so on. At this point there is frequently a breakdown in the children's ability to talk: they want to say much more than they have the resource for and this is one of many object-lessons in language acquisition – it is a normal stage in linguistic development and one that we as teachers should neither shirk from acknowledging nor discussing with them. Because motivation is high, because they are engages there is a greater likelihood that they will incorporate some of the coping language which they will undoubtedly have been taught. How do you say…?
Finally, in this section on developing the skills of speaking, it would be unwise not to mention the child's love of language and sounds and the role we have as teachers in encouraging this playing with language (3).

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