Llengua anglesa a primària. Competència digital

English for little children is a project of the Centro Nacional de Información y Comunicación Educativa (CNICE-MEC). The site is an on line application with materials to learn English as a foreign language addressed to very young learners (infantil and cicle inicial), and its main objective is to be a resource to teach the language to little children using the potential of the multimedia.

The materials offer an opportunity to practice the language in a communicative way. All the activities are oral and while the students listen and do, they consolidate vocabulary and grammar structures. The exercises are varied: match images, sounds and words, drag and drop, follow instructions, etc. All the activities are presented in Flash animations and are easy to understand and do.

• Go to the English for Little Children site. Click on the arrow Entrar. (http://concurso.cnice.mec.es/cnice2005/132_English_for_Little_children/).

The activities are grouped into two levels of difficulty and there are 10 different topics in each. The topics are: the school, the body, the clothes, the house, the family, the toys, the food, the transports, the animals (pets and farm animals) and the wild animals.

• Choose The Family circle in level 1 . As you can see, there are some icons at the bottom of the page. They are common to all the units:
  • leave the activity
  • go back to the previous activity
  • move to the next activity
  • restart the activity
  • and choose another topic and level

The icons on the top of the page:

• tells you the unit you are in
• the score

All the units are presented following a similar structure. The first activity is to present the active vocabulary of that topic and the five next activities are to practice both the vocabulary and some simple language structures related to it.

• In The Family unit they introduce the names of the family members.

• First activity: The names of the family members

• Second activity: Click, dragg and match the silouette

• Third activity: Make pairs

• Fouth activity: Identify the family member. “Listen and click: (Mum)”.
• Fifh activity: Indentify the family member. “Listen and click: Where’s my (sister)?
• Sixth activity: Exploit the stars. “Listen and click”.

• Now you can either leave the site or move into another unit.

• Methodology: It is advisable to put the students in pairs in front of the computer. They can work autonomously. The instructions are easy to follow and do. They can start with one topic in level 1 and move to the same topic in level 2 afterwards.
• Timing: Every unit can be done in ten minutes, but the timing will depend on the children ability to understand and do the activities correctly.
• Resources: Computers and earphones.

You can have more information about English for little children and how to exploit the application with your students in the Guia de la aplicación didáctica.