Making Books for Beginners

Adjust these ideas to suit the age of the child and the nature of the school.

Take photos with a digital camera (you will want to change the image size and you may need several copies of some images).  Let the pupil join in if possible.

If you decide to take photos of pupils, make sure that you have permission and that you follow the school's policy about use and storage of images.

Examples of photos you may take:

• Places: eg school gate, front door, secretary's office, toilets, playground, car park…
• People: eg secretary, classroom assistant, head, caretaker …
• Things: eg pen, ruler, table, library book …
• Routines: eg coming in to school, taking the register, setting out a page, having dinner.
• Activities: eg the different stages of making a model.

Run off a sequence of about 8 -10 photos which go well together and stick them in a book.  Use the book and extra copies of some pictures.  Have a 

selection of post-its and flash cards ready.  Choose some of the following activities to do with the new pupil (or direct somebody else to do them).  Make sure you do not use too many cards and pictures at once in one activity.  You will soon work out how many are appropriate for the pupil, but between 3 and 6 is a good enough rule of thumb:

·      Name people, places and objects in the pictures in English and (if possible) in the pupil's preferred language.

·      Label one or two items in each picture, again in both languages if possible.

·      Make flash cards of the labels in English.

·      Match flash cards to the labelled pictures.

·      Run off extra pictures and match the flash cards to them.

·      Make an extra set of flash cards and match the two sets.

·      Play 'which word have I hidden?'

·      Match flash cards in both languages.

·      Ask the pupil to copy the flash cards into a personal vocabulary book (perhaps in both languages).

·      Ask the pupil to illustrate the vocabulary book.

·      Make a list of the words, leaving some letters blank to fill in.

·      Ask the pupil to learn the spellings at home.

·      Test the pupil's spellings, give plenty of praise..

·      Ask the pupil to make flash cards for the real objects and stick them around the classroom.

·      Play snap with pictures and labels.

·      Run off extra pictures and cut pieces off them, blow up the images and play 'Guess what this is?' (a lot of other pupils will enjoy this, too – it is an opportunity for the new pupil to operate at the same level as everyone else)

·      Alternatively, give the pupil the picture with a piece cut out, ask them to draw what they think is missing

·      Give the pupil one of the pictures mounted on a larger piece of plain paper, ask them to continue the picture onto the plain paper with what they think they might see outside the picture if they were in that place

·      Use the images as a source for art work, eg collage, putting colour on top of photos, changing images digitally.  Let everyone do this. 

·      Play 'kim's game' (where you have to remember a set number of objects) and 'pelmanism' (where you have to match pairs of cards face down).  Encourage other members of the class to play these games with the pupil – they will build everybody's memory skills as well as helping the new pupil to make friends.

If the images form a natural sequence (eg the story of a trip to the library, or coming up the drive, hanging up a coat, putting a bag away etc), try some of the following as well:

·      Run off an extra set, mix up the pictures and ask the pupil to put them in order.

·      Hide one and get the pupil to tell you which one is missing.  This will create an ideal opportunity to move the pupil towards saying longer phrases because the more often you play this game and variations of it, the more the same language will be practised and built on.

·      Hide one and get the pupil to draw what might be missing, then compare it to the original, talking about what s/he remembered and what was forgotten.

·      If it seems possible, make up joke sequences by mixing in an image from another set.  You might be able to teach an expression like 'No, because…' or just 'It's a funny one!'.

·      Sort two mixed sequences.  You might be able to teach 'This is about…'

As you continue work with the images, you will know when the pupil is ready to move from short labels to longer captions of two or more simple sentences.  This may take a surprisingly short length of time – perhaps only a day or two.  Choose some of the following ideas:

·      Generate the captions for each picture with the pupil.  Write them on post-its to start with.  As a rule of thumb: write out the full version of shortened words eg 'do not' rather than 'don't'.  Accept either pronunciation, and know that this is something you will be explaining to the pupil later.

·      Take off some of the post-its and see if the pupil can put them back in the right places.

·      Transfer sentences on to a card reader (sometimes called a language master) so the pupil can practise with them independently, perhaps in both languages.

·      Make extra copies of the captions, match these with the post-its.

·      Make extra copies, with blanks to fill in.

·      Copy them into the image book and send it home as a reading book.

·      Cut copies up and ask the pupil to put the words in the right order, self-checking with the book.

·      Substitute some of the words with other known words and see if the pupil can read them (eg turn 'she hung up her coat' into 'she hung up her bag'.  Note: Try to keep expressions like 'hung up' as one unit.  We know it is correct enough to say 'She hung her coat up', but it is harder for the pupil to remember the 'up'.

·      Put the whole story on to a program like 'Clicker 4', 'All My Words' or 'Developing tray' so that the pupil can continue working with it independently.

·      Play 'true or false' both orally and in writing.

·      Introduce a new image on a similar theme and see if the pupil can produce spoken or written labels or captions.

·      Try similar approaches with a story the pupil knows (use dual-text stories, or find out a story from the parents).

·      Introduce a new caption or captions and ask the pupil to draw the image/s (again, this can be done independently).

These lists are not exhaustive.  When you have an individual pupil in mind and you know the background of the school and class, you will be able to devise your own activities.  Remember to keep a balance between intensive, adult-led sessions and independent practice.  Give the pupil some homework if others in the class have homework.  Remember also to try to spread the influence of the books so that other class members become involved.  Slot them in to the curriculum if you can.  New pupils learn most English from other pupils.

You will find a lot more interesting and useful ideas in their recent book:

English as an Additional Language: Meeting the Challenge in the Classroom.

Liz Haslam, Yvonne Wilkin and Edith Kellet

David Fulton  (www.fultonpublishers.co.uk)

ISBN 1-84312-186-7