Any ideas for teaching a group of extremely high energy 6th grade boys English?

Question

I am an ESL teacher overseas and I will soon have a group of 10 or 11 6th grade boys that probably all have ADHD and/or learning disabilities and currently know little to no English. I had them last year mixed with kids who did not have difficulty paying attention or other learning disabilities, and I have decided to seperate them this next year to try a more effective approach for both groups. I need some extremely high energy (or extremely interesting and calming) lesson plans that can be done with very little space (I have a very small room and the weather doesn't always cooperate for outdoors activities), and little to no extra materials besides paper, pencils, a black board, etc... I really need to go over the basics with them again (numbers, colors, alphabet, etc...) and any other subjects you can think of for beginning ESL students. I don't really have a curriculum to follow. Also, any ideas you have on classroom management with these boys would also be welcome.

Answer 1

I would use their energy and keep them up and moving. Some brief ideas:

1. Use the room as a game of hide and seek.  Give them a number, for example, and tell them they need to find the number after it, or the number they would have if they added 3.  

2.  Give each student a card with a word, like little.  They need to find a student with another word that is related (synonym, antonym, homonym, etc).

3.  Gallery walks and response.  Hang pictures along the walls with paper underneath that they have to respond to.

4.  When you get them writing, you could post their writing on the wall and have the kids respond to it with post-it notes.

5.  Music.  Can you teach them songs with body movements?

6.  Make your own jigsaw puzzles...maybe even using text like a poem or song that they know.  Make it a big floor puzzle and have them work together to solve.

I don't teach elementary kids...those are just some ideas off the top of my head.  I don't really know any "calming" lesson plans...my kids call those boring.  :)

Answer 2

First off, I wouldn't go self-diagnosing ADHD and LD kids.  You're not qualified to do that, and I think "separating" (read: isolating) them is a huge mistake, ESPECIALLY with ELLs.  It is very difficult, even with current testing tools, to diagnose a LD in an ELL.  It's so difficult to discriminate between normal behavioral/cognitive development in an ELL, and a bonafide learning disability.  

As far as classroom management with high energy kids - you need to keep them up and moving, keep activities short, and keep them on a short leash.  Sandwich high energy with 'calm' activities, and keep everything short.  

I also hope you are writing objectives for your lessons, overplanning your activities, keeping an agenda on the board, so everyone knows where we're at.  There's no quicker way to lose a group of kids, than by being unclear on what we are learning, and unorganized in how we're going to learn it.  

Here's an answer I posted to a similar question a few days ago. This EFL teacher of 4-6 year olds wasn't able to control her classroom, complaining about the high energy, etc.  

What's the quantity/quality of input you're giving them? Depending on their proficiency level, you could be overwhelming them with too much English input. That would account for the tuning out and ignoring you. Keep it simple.

I also wonder if some of the behavior you're seeing might be a culture bump. I'm not sure what country you are in, how conservative it is, the kids' exposure to white women (I'm assuming this, based on your Avatar...), white women in authority, if you're wearing the hijab or not, etc. Since some of them, you say, have never been to school, there could be some confusion with this, too.

I also wonder what sorts of activities you are doing with them. 4-6 year olds can't easily sustain interest in formal instruction for 30 minutes. You'll need to do many different little activities for the two hours.

The nature of your question makes me want to ask what your qualifications are in EFL instruction. I see this a lot: expats working in the EFL/ESL field, feeling overqualified and confident, simply because they are native speakers. Then they fall flat on their faces, and their only resources are on Yahoo Answers... It's like, I've BEEN to a dentist, so can I BE a dentist??? This sort of logic is what perpetuates teachers not being treated as professionals -- gee, anyone can do it. Well, it's not that easy, now is it? Here are some suggestions below, not pulled out of my butt, but actually thrown together using my EDUCATION and EXPERIENCE as an EDUCATOR. If you're in this situation, please at least do some reading up on EFL methods, using comprehensible input (how about krashen's i+1 theory?), and bridging cultural gaps. Ok, I'm off my soapbox, I want to help:

Think in 15-20 minute blocks, easy/uncomplicated things that don't take a huge amount of paying attention to directions (at first). Once they see that it's paced, fun, organized, and easy for them to be successful at, they'll settle down a bit. Focus on a general theme for the day, or an objective, and run with it.

Here's an example: ANIMALS

Show some pictures of animals. Let them use L1 (first language) to identify the animals. Follow up with English, listen, repeat, reinforce. You could also talk about where these animals live- zoo, house, farm, etc. Use L1/L2. Animal noises would also be fun, although the difference between L1/L2 might be confusing (what do you mean, a rooster says kockadoodledo?). Categorize animals, hang them up. 20 min

Get them up and moving around.

Sing and dance. Old McDonald? Use those pictures to help comprehension. 15 min.

Have a quiet story time, just one book. Short, comprehensible. 15 min.

Follow up with a worksheet with some info from the book, coloring, etc. Build some structure into the passing out/collection of materials. Get the kids involved as "helpers." 20 min.

Teach them a simple playground game in English, like do hopscotch, but have them say the numbers in English as they hop. Stuff like that. Alternatively, you could use those pictures you were just working with, and put those down next to the numbers in the hopscotch boxes. 20 min.

Get them settled again, play a round of Animal Bingo. Get the kids involved again with the passing out/collection. 20 min.

Get them up and moving again. Another song or animal dance? 15 min.

Ok, that's over half the class. Just keep them up and moving around. They like consistency, too. So feel free to follow the same pattern (active vs. quiet work), just substitute themes/objectives. Always be spiraling the content, and do little informal assessments (like thumbs up/down or cultural equivalent) to monitor where they are at. It could also help keep you (and them) organized, if you put up a daily agenda on the board. Also, prime them for every activity - let them know, "Now we're going to do X. These are the steps... This is what I need from you..." You might need to use some phrases in L1 to support things like "quiet," "eyes this way," "sit in a circle," etc - until they learn to respond to these in L2.

EDIT:  What you fail to realize, is that this sample lesson could easily be adapted to your situation.  Notice what there is here -- a topic, varied activities that alternate activity levels. When something says "20 min" - that includes moving around, frontloading prior knowledge, setting the stage, the actual lesson (which may only last 5 min), reinforcement, clean up/move back.  As a teacher, you should be able to adapt the lesson to your particular teaching situation.  Like, if you don't want to do something for 20 minutes, then don't!  Wow.  Don't take everything so CONCRETELY. Are you expecting someone to post 20 weeks worth of 50 minute lessons for you?  Sorry, but you are a TEACHER.  It is your responsibility to create your lessons, and GOOD TEACHERS don't separate their classrooms based on SUSPECTED LDs.  If you were to go to your principal in the US and say, "I think we should move these 10 kids into their own class, because they are unruly, and I think they have LD," you'd be laughed out of the field.  I could send you my MA thesis on the invalidity of testing ELLs for LD, but I don't think you'd even read it.  And no, the cultural element won't relate 1:1 per se, but if you were to just reflect, rather than taking everything LITERALLY, you would probably realize that there is a cultural element in your situation, as well.  I'd suggest a few books here to help you with classroom management, how about Tools for Teaching (Fred Jones), and Discipline with Dignity (Allen Mendler).