Need advice from a teacher

Bernice101

I want to teach a 9 yr old the concept behind conjunctions. Any advice and ideas for lesson/learning activities would be most appreciated

2011abc

Im a secondary teacher (not ' English ') and got a B in honours English in Leaving Cert and dont have the first idea what a conjunction is !Do seven year olds really need to know?

Mardy Bum

Depending on the reading level of the student you could use a cloze sentence exercise leaving a space between the two clauses to illustrate the concept and the importance of conjunctives in joining clauses.

Bernice101

im only targeting spoken language, I wont be using the word conjunction, ill just say its a word to join up two small sentences to make a big one, a "joining up" word I plan on saying. she currently only uses and and because and her sentences should be much longer than they currently are. ive been lookin on sites, they say each conjunction needs to be explained, introduced on its own. what words would yea use to explain the conjunction and concept when? and what activities?

thanks

Mardy Bum

Bernice101 wrote: »

im only targeting spoken language, I wont be using the word conjunction, ill just say its a word to join up two small sentences to make a big one, a "joining up" word I plan on saying. she currently only uses and and because and her sentences should be much longer than they currently are. ive been lookin on sites, they say each conjunction needs to be explained, introduced on its own. what words would yea use to explain the conjunction and concept when? and what activities?

thanks

Is the child a native speaker?

Bernice101

yes, but shy

Mardy Bum

I would use cloze sentences so and that will reinforce it. As the child is a native speaker he/she will be aware of most conjunctions so just show him/her written examples and then have him/her make her own.

You could use train carriages as an analogy.

evolving_doors

Not too sure what you mean but I think I did some games on this yonks ago in TEFl.

Basically its chain storeys. Student Starts with a given statement like "When I go to school tomorrow Ill bring my lunch" student throws ball to the next person and you chain on the topic with the conjunction " When Ill be eating my lunch Ill see a unicorn" .."when I see the unicorn Ill....etc If they are incredibly shy you can prepare flash cards with pictures to prompt the next topic.

Am I on the right track?

Bernice101

Thank you both for your tips Mardy Bum and Armelodie, I will use the train carriage and chain stories. But before using these I need to teach the concept to the child. That basically means explain it out doesn't it? Ive been told I need to teach the concept so im a bit worried about only using examples. Last week I explained that "you use the word when when you want to join two smaller sentences together to make a bigger sentence and gave examples and used the cloze sentences to make sure she understands and was then told that wasn't teaching the concept. How does one teach such a concept to a 7 year old? would it be something along the lines of "the word when helps you to talk about two different things that might happen one after the other" is this how its done? could anyone suggest more appropriate wording for a 7 year old?

Thanks for your time

Pwpane

Try posting on Educationpost.ie. Go to Resources, then Message Board. There are more primary teachers there than here and they could give you good advice.

evolving_doors

Pwpane wrote: »

Try posting on Educationpost.ie. Go to Resources, then Message Board. There are more primary teachers there than here and they could give you good advice.

Ah there's no craic on educationposts.ie why would anyone want to leave boards:pac::pac::pac:

There's also a Primary and Pre-School forum in the Edu section OP if you want to try there.