Introduction

English For Fun is a project that aims to give very young children a chance to acquire the English Language through their pre-primary schooling, or through self-help English Language Acquisition Centers.  It’s driven by the belief that if one grows fond of a language very early in life, the relationship with it when one learns it formally as a second language will be amicable.  Years of teaching basic English to adults in the Sri Lankan university system has shown me that a more cordial relationship with the English language is needed by the learners of it who are not exposed to it naturally during their childhood in this country.  Therefore, the English for Fun project is a way of attempting to make English be a part of any Sri Lankan child’s life, given in a way they will remember those moments with love and memories of fun, and not strict instruction.

This happens at these three levels with regard to this syllabus/book:

1. Exposure to story books in English:

(This is based on the belief that the nurseries and ELACs will have some good picture story books in the English language. Even if they don’t, at least this book will be available, in hard or digital form.)

Even if the children can’t read them or the adult facilitator cannot read English, just letting them have a chance of touching/looking at them, turning the pages and seeing English letters, enjoying the pictures in them, will give them a sense of familiarity with the wonder and beauty of storybooks.

2. Story-telling:

The children or the adult with them can play the recorded fairy tales that accompany the words found in this book.  This will give them a chance to hear the language, even as they look at the words on the page.  The level may be too high for some – but that shouldn’t be a problem if the story is also related to them in their mother tongue.  In all instances this book is used, there will be Sinhala and Tamil translations also made available for the adult who is with the child.  She or he can read out the story, or narrate it in their own words, in the child’s native tongue before or after it is played in English, in case the adult cannot read English. In some cases, the child her/himself will be able to read the translation.

3. Nursery Rhymes and Songs:

The songs should be enjoyed simply for the music and the actions that accompany them.  The idea is for the children to have fun.

Just enjoying these stories and rhymes alone would be enough.  However, given that pre-primary education also has space for some instruction, I have built some basic vocabulary lessons and other activities based on this material.  The facilitator (who could be a teacher or an adult who accompanies the child to an ELAC center) could help with these, according to the level he or she is capable of.  Even with nothing but enjoyment, the child will still benefit.

Stories

Some of the most pleasant early memories of many adults are of having someone who read to them in childhood.  Most children might have this in their native tongue.  The idea is to do the same in English.  If it’s done in a classroom, the facilitator can reproduce a home-like effect by keeping the children around her/him in a half circle, telling the story in the native tongue and then playing the CD.  The less “classroom-like” the arrangement – which is the teacher in front of the class and the children on desks before him/her – the better.

Apart from the language acquisition angle, there is another value that stories like fables and fairy tales have: they can open up worlds of enchantment and magic for children.  That, in turn, will activate or strengthen their powers of imagination, which is one of the most wonderful things that can happen to a human being, making them more creative as people.

Songs

The actions that go with the rhymes are specified here.  Getting children physically involved, either through clapping, stamping their feet, swinging their bodies to rhythm will make them ‘feel’ the song, the rhythm and the music more.  It will also make it easier for them to memorize the easy lyrics and sing along.  Please let them sing as loud as they want.  The musicality is not the point here – but the enjoyment of the song.

The ways of building activities on the stories and rhymes

In Tell it Again! The New Storytelling Handbook for Primary Teachers, Gail Ellis and Jean Brewster say that the following can be taught in a language syllabus based on storytelling: functions (such as greetings)/structures (basic grammar)/vocabulary/pronunciation/skills to be developed (eg. logical thinking)/cognitive skills (learning to learn)/cultural and citizenship awareness/awareness of other curricular subjects.

They have shown various ways in which we can use stories to improve the development of children.  Adapting those to a younger age level than the primary school students, we can say that these can be used to

• to make cross curricular links (to talk about other subjects like geography and science/do art and craft based on them/link it with drama (for eg. role play) and music/physical activity (eg. moving like a particular animal)
• to teach them to learn: cognitive development activities (through comparing, matching/classifying/predicting, guessing, inferring/sequencing /hypothesizing, problem-solving/memorizing, memory training/ activating previous content knowledge.)
• Conceptual reinforcement (through teaching them about colours/shapes, size, quantity/time, space (spatial context)/cause and effect/problems and solutions.)
• Citizenship training (cultural similarities and difference/morality and moral values/helping people/friendship/gender/cultural stereotyping/ecology: conservation of energy/animals/extinction.)

The activities that I have devised on the stories and rhymes were done keeping these frameworks in mind.  I have also kept in mind the importance of vocabulary acquisition at every step.  Starting with the alphabet, there are small steps that children can take depending on what the facilitator is capable of giving.

Since children like listening to the same story or rhyme many times, you can repeat these as you wish, changing the activities associated with them each time.  The rhymes can be played over and over again till they learn the words themselves and sing along. The activities built on the stories will make use of the illustrations as well as the story.

This syllabus is designed to be put to use in nursery classes, as well as English Language Acquisition Centers (ELACs), where even one adult facilitator can expose their child/children to this language.  The student book as well as the Teacher’s Guide is available in Sinhala and Tamil as well, so that the facilitator, even without knowing English, can help a child acquire it, as the whole syllabus/book is available as audio tracks. The nursery project is something I had been thinking of for a long time and is now being put to use in the Northern Province through the interest of Dhanya Ratnavale, the Coordinating Secretary of the Governor’s Secretariat there.  The idea of ELACs came about through a conversation I had with my actress friend Thusitha Jayasundera who voiced the first batch of stories here, when we discussed the possibility of having an easily accessible and cost-free place for any child to access good children’s books in English.  I was already aware of the very good library system in Sri Lanka and through the efforts of Dr. Nayana Wijayasundara, librarian of the University of Sri Jayewardenepura, could access it easily.  The involvement of the National Library Services Board, where there were people very open to this idea of making the English language accessible to as many children as possible here, meant that this project could go island-wide.

How successfully this project will bear fruit is up to you.  I hope you have fun with teaching or being a facilitator-adult in this. Look through this guide and pick what you can do – and please add more activities you can think of to this. I have given the barest of instructions; make your own vocabulary lists according the level of your students, and adapt the activities to suit your context.  Your own creativity will be invaluable in making this syllabus/book a good memory in the lives of the children exposed to it.

Dr. Madhubhashini Disanayaka Ratnayake

Senior Lecturer/Department of English Language Teaching

University of Sri Jayewardenepura

(November 2022)

Ellis, Gail, and Jean Brewster.  Tell it Again: The New Storytelling Handbook for Primary Teachers.  Essex: Pearson Education Ltd. 2002 [1991]