(4. Listening and Speaking) 1. Listen and Do Activities

“Simon says: touch your head.”
“Simon says: touch your eyes.”
“Simon says: touch your belly.”

The previous examples are the listen and do activities in EYL class. They can be used to start the class and to introduce the lesson. From this two-way communication the teacher can easily notice that the students have understood the message or not. There are some activities for listen and do activities such as moving about, put up your hand, mime stories, and drwawing (Scott and Ytreberg, 2002).

Moving about
Young learners develop physically by moving. That is the reason why you need to make exercise and movement possible in EYL class. Some silly movements are fun for children, sometimes. For body parts lesson, you can say “touch your nose” while you are touching your mouth. By this activity the students may be confused but they are happy when they make mistakes because they are following what you are doing without paying attention to what you say. By this activity, the you can check the students’ understanding.

Put up your hand up
Young learners are happy when they can find your missing words or your mistakes. You can ask your students to put their hand up if you miss numbers from 1-10. They also can put their hand up when you mention name of vegetable when you mention about tame animal. Besides, you can ask your students to put their hand up when they know people who work in public places that you explain. Do you have any other idea related to put your hand up?

Mime stories
Mime story provides physical movement and gives the teacher a chance to play along with pupils. Look at the example of a mime story:
“We’re sitting in a boat, a small rowing boat. Let’s row. We row and row. Now what’s that? A bird. A big bird flying over the water. Now, it’s gone. Row, row, row, row. That’s the bird. No, that is not a bird. Where is the bird? I am tired. Let’s lay down.How do you feel? Close your eyes. Sleep. Sleep.”

This mime story uses simple and short sentences that the students can understand and follow the movement well. The advantage of this activity is that you do not need any media because imagination is essential. Try it with students with modification. It will give a lot of fun.

Drawing
Listen and draw! You can ask your students to draw something that you say. Here is the example. “I have two dragon fruit sized circle. They are put side by side. Draw a triangle under those two circles. Then a small regtangle is put under the triangle. Draw bigger circle outside those two circles. What do you see?”
Different children may have different picture because they have different undertanding about what you have said. However, it is no problem beause the children is always happy with their work if the teacher always gives encouragement to them.

Do you have any other idea?