Effective English Teaching: Pedagogical Tenets, Multiple Intelligences & Language Development

Posted on Mar 23, 2025 in Early Childhood Education

Pedagogical Tenets to Promote English in the Classroom

  1. Active Methodology: Engaging students through active participation.
  2. Using Realia: Incorporating real-life objects and materials.
  3. Comprehensive Approach: Addressing all aspects of language learning.
  4. Setting Routines: Establishing consistent classroom procedures.
  5. Short and Varied Activities: Keeping lessons dynamic and engaging.
  6. Promote Communicative Activities: Encouraging interaction and communication.

Multiple Intelligences

  1. Verbal-Linguistic Intelligence: Sensitivity to words, both written and spoken.
  2. Logical-Mathematical Intelligence: Ability in mathematics, logic, and abstractions.
  3. Musical Intelligence: Ability to understand, create, and interpret music, hearing, and rhythm.
  4. Visual-Spatial Intelligence: The ability to “think in pictures”, to perceive the visual world, and recreate it.
  5. Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence: The ability to use one’s body to perform activities. They normally learn better when carrying out activities physically.
  6. Interpersonal Intelligence: Ability to interact with others. They often learn best when working in groups or pairs.
  7. Intrapersonal Intelligence: Understanding of one’s own emotions and self-reflective capacities.
  8. Naturalistic Intelligence: Sensitive towards nature and the world around.

Baby’s First Words

The transition from sounds that mimic real words to meaningful speech is difficult to pinpoint exactly. Some babies find the consonants ‘D’ or ‘M’ easier to pronounce. The age when the first real word is spoken varies a great deal. According to experts, the average baby can be expected to say what she means and mean what she says for the first time anywhere between ten and fourteen months.

Long before the baby utters her first word, she will be developing her linguistic skills, first by learning to understand what is said. This receptive language starts developing at birth, with the first words the baby hears. Gradually, she begins to sort out individual words from the jumble of language around her, and then one day, about the middle of the first year, you say her name and she turns around. She’s recognized a word. Pretty soon thereafter she should begin to understand the names of other people and objects she sees daily, such as mummy and daddy. In a few months, she will begin to follow simple commands, like bye-bye.

Hints on How to Help Develop a Baby’s Language

  1. Label, Label, Label: Verbally label objects in the baby’s environment. Play eyes-nose-mouth. Don’t leave out people; point at other caretakers, teachers, etc.
  2. Listen, Listen, Listen: As important as what you say to the baby is how much you let your baby say to you. Even if no words are identified yet, listen to his/her garbled speech and respond. Oh, that’s very interesting.
  3. Concentrate on Concepts: Be sure to say the word for the concept as you and baby act it out.
  4. Become Color Conscious: Start identifying colors whenever appropriate. See, that balloon is red just like your shirt.
  5. Urge Baby to Talk Back: Do you want bread or crackers?
  6. Keep Directions Simple: Sometime around the first birthday, most toddlers can begin following simple commands, but only one step at a time. Please, pick up the spoon.
  7. Correct Carefully: When a baby mispronounces a word, use a subtler approach to say it correctly to protect the baby’s ego. If the baby says “pelota blue”, respond with, that’s right, it’s a blue ball.
  8. Think Numerically: Counting may be a long way off for the baby, but the concept of one or many isn’t. Comments like, one, two, buckle my shoe.

Games Babies Play

  1. Peek-a-boo: Teaches such concepts as object permanence. Where’s mummy? Then uncover your face and say peek-a-boo, I see you. Be ready to repeat until you collapse. Most babies have a voracious appetite for this game.
  2. Clap Hands: As you sing, clap, clap, clap your hands together.
  3. The Itsy Bitsy Spider: Use thumb and point fingers.
  4. The Little Piggy Went to Market: This little piggy went to market, this little piggy stayed home, this little piggy had roast beef, this little piggy had none, and this little piggy cried wee, wee, wee, all the way home.
  5. How Big is Baby?: Or how big is another student, and then help the child spread his or her arms as wide as possible and exclaim, so big.
  6. Ring-a-Ring o’ Roses.

Reading to Babies

It isn’t until the second half of the first year that baby becomes an active participant in the reading process, if only by chewing on the corners of the book to start with.