Taking on a class for seven year olds with a zero English level - Help!

So to occupy my time this summer I am teaching some of my colleague's children. I have a class of 4 seven year old's who have never studied English before. We are not using a book so I need to find material on the web. I figure I'll start with the alphabet and sounds. I also want to include games so as to keep the class active.

As long as I've been teaching, it's mainly been uni age or corporate training so I really lack experience in this area. I am looking for my more experienced Saloon bar mates to help me out with suggestions for what to teach, games and maybe some website suggestions.

Cheers

A game of Twister, perhaps   And do send Con a PM

Keep it simple and make heavy use of pictures and actions.

Nouns are good to start, you could start with "hello" but how are you going to explain that it is a greeting if they understand nothing?

You can teach simple commands by doing it with them, and combine that with pictures to help with simple grammar.

e.g "sit down" can become "sit down on the chair" or "sit down on the floor."

have plenty of activities and games, the studies say the average child's attention span is 10 minutes so look to change what you are doing every 10 minutes, my personal experience would tend to agree, change it up often.

Your general behavior is also important kids will pick up on your mood and alter their behavior, try to be bright and smiley with exaggerated actions, this is one of the parts that makes most people tired. They will follow and copy everything you do, so unless you want a bunch of 7 years running around shouting screaming "little S*(#s" to everyone they see control that language.

Songs, songs and more songs.

They like to sing and be active.  BINGO is a good one.  Hokey Pokey after they learn a few words. If You're Happy and You Know it.  etc.  Even singing the Alphabet song will help.

A song will break up the learning and let them be energetic.  Then they will be more attentive to the rest of the lesson.

One tip, remember that for kids, stuff like drawing and colouring is useful as well as fun. Go through the alphabet, give them loads of animals and things and have them draw them, that sort of stuff is really useful

Thanks for the advice guys

I'm doing the alphabet tomorrow. I'm using flashcards to go over the letters. The games I'm using are Tic Tac Toe (showing them the letter and if they identify it correctly and letting them put an X or O on the board), the matching game, spreading out the letters on the table and calling out one and the one who puts their hands on it the fastest and Bingo with letters. In between games, I will keep reviewing the letter flashcards. To end I have a video of Sesame Street singing the alphabet song.

A few questions. When I start teaching them words, do I show them the written word even though they are unable to read? Also website suggestions?

The games I'm using are Tic Tac Toe (showing them the letter and if they identify it correctly and letting them put an X or O on the board)

Warning: I recently tried a Tic Tac Toe activity with older students. I would have thought just sketching the 3x3 grid on the board was enough to trigger recognition of the way to play, but it wasn't. (In my lesson, each square had a topic filled in and students chose a square and had to talk on the topic for 1 minute continuously to "win" the square.)

 There was some confusion at first as to how to play. I'm not sure this game is as well-known in China as Tic Tac Toe (or "oughts" and noughts" to the  Brits) is in China. One student piped up finally, "Oh, so you have to get 3 in a row in any direction. We have a similar game but you need 5 in a row." he was probably referring to Go or Chinese chess.

Anyway, you might want to consider a 5x5 grid which might be more recognizable to them, though it WILL lengthen the game perhaps beyond the recommended 10 minute limit for youngers.

Simple games, activities, and words / ideas / pictures.
Lot's of physical games, with actions.
Songs are a plus.
Videos are useful, if less than 1 minute.

Bingo - teach vocab, have them draw them into pre-printed 4x5 grid paper.

Have students call it out and cross it off.

I just wanted to thank everyone for their help. The class is going well and I feel like I'm really learning and improving some different teaching skills I haven't had the chance to practice before.