Pre-schoolers need calm, positive handling, and as much time on social and motor skills as on English. Young learners need predictable routines, small choices and visibly fair treatment.
Very young learners (Elliott)
- Alternate engaging and calming activities; attention spans are ~5 minutes at most.
- Repeat favourite songs, stories and routines; add harder material when they tire of them.
- Small, single-step tasks; praise the behaviour you want.
- You don’t need a puppet; your face, voice and flashcards do the same job.
Young learners, ~7–12 (Gowers)
- Fixed routines at the start, during instructions, and at the end.
- Small choices (where to sit, which of two activities).
- Repeat target language with variation (new partner, whisper, shout).
- Apply rewards and attention evenly: perceived unfairness is children’s commonest complaint.
- Accept some noise (e.g. a running dictation), but have a clear end signal; move on early if the class is restless.
Limits
- A short taster of an IH Journal article; no research cited; experience-based.
Apply in my context (Claude)
- “Perceived unfairness” is a concrete risk for Tanga. Audit coin distribution per child per month; skew signals teacher attention bias.
Connections
Behaviour management is mostly pre-emption · Songs carry chunks and phonology · Rewards undermine interest in the rewarded activity