'Mini takeaway lesson' as a model for online EFL learning material for young learners

by Anja Pirih & Silva Bratož (University of Primorska, Slovenia)

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With the COVID-19 pandemic, schools and teachers around the world were forced to quickly adopt the so-called emergency remote teaching (Hodges et al. 2020) and, as a result, introduce several adaptations to their pedagogical process. Preparing online materials and conducting online lessons for younger learners proved to be among the most challenging tasks (Kim 2020). The first part presents the ‘mini takeaway lesson’, an independent online lesson format for young EFL learners (8 – 10-year-olds). The lesson is designed to enable independent learning of English as a foreign language, without any direct contact with the teacher or parent supervision and assistance. It can be used in various educational contexts and for different purposes, from online learning or emergency remote teaching to flipped learning and differentiated and individualized learning. Special attention is paid to giving instructions and feedback to young learners. The second part presents the results of a qualitative study which was carried out in the form of an online survey with 43 students of the master’s study programme Primary School Teaching with English at the Faculty of Education of the University of Primorska. The students created mini takeaway lessons as part of their study requirements. We were particularly interested in the challenges and difficulties they encountered in the process of the design and creation of mini takeaway lessons, and the potential of the model for their future teaching. The results indicate that to create efficient online materials for teaching EFL to young learners, one needs not only a good command of ICT tools and programmes but also knowledge and understanding of specific teaching approaches, methods and strategies appropriate for teaching a foreign language to young learners.

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References:

Hodges, Charles / Moore, Stephanie / Lockee, Barb / Trust, Torrey / Bond, Aaron (2020). “The difference between emergency remote teaching and online learning”. In: EDUCAUSE Review, 3.https://er.educause.edu/articles/2020/3/the-difference-between-emergency-remote-teaching-and-online-learning.

Kim, Jinyoung (2020). “Learning and teaching online during Covid-19: Experiences of student teachers in an early childhood education practicum”. In: International Journal of Early Childhood, 52(2), 145-158.