There is always a lot of preparation that goes into teaching anyone ESL. However, teaching children is entirely another ballgame. You need to remember that your are teaching a room full of children and you cannot expect to use the same tactics that you would if you were teaching a room full of adults. When you are teaching children ESL expect to be playful, patient, and attention grabbing. Treat these children with the same respect you would give to the children in your own life.

Depending on the age group you are teaching, you already know that children's attention spans are still developing. Therefore you should try your very best to keep your activities engaging and interesting. This is a great reason to include ESL games in the school day. The lesson will surely be more memorable to your students if they had fun learning it. Some great ESL games include:

Charades: Divide your students into two teams. Have your vocabulary for the week on balloons. Pick someone from the first team and show them the balloons. Have them act it out for the second team. If the second team cannot guess what the vocabulary word is the first team gets the point. Take turns and have fun.

Time Race: Have an egg timer and a bean bag ready. Pick a category like food or animals. Set the timer for 1 minute. Have your students stand in a circle. Start the game off by saying a word from the category you picked. Then throw the bean bag to a student. They must say a word from the category before they can toss the bean bag to the next student. Change the category when the egg timer goes off.

Another fun thing that your students will love is ESL activities. You can find a project to do with many of the lessons you are teaching your class. One type of activity that children particularly enjoy is crafts. They will have fun making the project and when they are done you can decorate the class with them. When its time for the next craft you can let the students take the other project home to their parents. Some nice craft ideas include:

The Name Project: This is a great craft to do when you are teaching the alphabet. Depending on the age of your students you may want to print out there name in block style for them. If your students are older let them write their names in block style. Allow them to decorate the papers with crayons, or colored pencils. Be creative with this project and keep it fun.

Yet another great idea you can use that your students will love is to set up a classroom mailbox. It can be as simple as a cardboard box that you let the class decorate. Once a week have your class write letters to each other with the vocabulary you are teaching them. Make sure you assign who your students write to so no one is left out. Then have them put their letters in envelopes, address them and let them put them in the mailbox. You can even let them all write a letter to you or their parents to mix it up.
Hopefully these ideas will keep your students interested in learning English.

To find out more about learning English visit our website at http://www.everydayell.com