Listening Skills for Staff

Getting the right balance between adult-led and child-initiated learning As an early years practitioner you will know the importance of creating the right balance between adult-led and child-initiated learning. Help all children learn and develop with this guide. Adult-led activities are based on our own professional understanding of what we should teach young children and what experiences they should have. Through adult-led activities we can introduce children to new ideas, provide opportunities for them to develop their skills and ensure that they experience all areas of learning in the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS).

IELTS test format explained You will talk to a certified examiner in the IELTS Speaking test. The test is interactive and as close to a real-life situation as a test can get. A variety of accents may be used, and the test will be recorded. How can parents and teachers best educate young children? What principles can both teachers and parents bring to the education of very young children? Gillian Craig, who was part of the Learning Time with Shaun and Timmy writing team, explains. As teachers and parents, we follow certain principles in our roles. 21 of the Best Early Years Books for International Friendship Day We know that skills like empathy aren’t fully developed until later in a child’s life, which is why there are so many stories on friendship and how to treat people aimed at Early Years. International Friendship Day, then, is a great opportunity to share some of these amazing books with your children. It does, however, fall on Sunday 30 July. So celebrating on the day itself is going to be difficult, doubly so for Reception classes who are on summer holidays.

MIT Brain Study: Back-And-Forth Talk Key To Developing Kids' Verbal Skills New MIT research finds that for children's brain development, parents don't just need to talk to their kids — it's important to talk with them, in back-and-forth exchanges. "What we found is, the more often parents engaged in back-and-forth conversation with their child, the stronger was the brain response in the front of the brain to language," said cognitive neuroscience professor John Gabrieli. Story continues below Importance of play for babies & children Australian Government Department of Education and Training (2009). Belonging, being and becoming: The early years learning framework for Australia. Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia.

IELTS test format Test format – Academic Writing 60 minutes Topics are of general interest to, and suitable for, test takers entering undergraduate and postgraduate studies or seeking professional registration. There are two tasks: Task 1 - you will be presented with a graph, table, chart or diagram and asked to describe, summarise or explain the information in your own words. The Power (and Peril) of Praising Your Kids What do we make of a boy like Thomas? Thomas (his middle name) is a fifth-grader at the highly competitive P.S. 334, the Anderson School on West 84th. Slim as they get, Thomas recently had his long sandy-blond hair cut short to look like the new James Bond (he took a photo of Daniel Craig to the barber). Unlike Bond, he prefers a uniform of cargo pants and a T-shirt emblazoned with a photo of one of his heroes: Frank Zappa.

This ‘Kindness Curriculum’ Is Free And Should Be Used In Every Classroom Imagine living in a world that valued kindness enough to teach it along with academics. Educators would teach kids to manage their emotions in addition to standard curriculum such as math and science. Sounds pretty amazing, doesn’t it? Well, the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has created a free “kindness curriculum” for kids, designed to do just that. It’s a mindfulness-based curriculum for preschoolers that will bring kindness into the classroom. “Faced with mental and physical health challenges at a global scale, we conduct rigorous scientific research to bring new insights and tools aimed at improving the wellbeing of people of all backgrounds and ages,” states the Center’s mission statement.

The Brain-Changing Power of Conversation The Science Researchers used highly faithful audio recorders — a system called Language Environment Analysis (known as LENA) — to capture every word spoken or heard by 36 4–6 year olds from various socioeconomic backgrounds over two full days. The recordings were analyzed to measure the number of words spoken by each child, the number of words spoken to each child, and the number of conversational turns — back-and-forth exchanges initiated by either adult or child. Comparing those measurements with brain scans of the individual children, the analysis found that differences in the number of conversational turns accounted for differences in brain physiology, as well as for differences in language skills including vocabulary, grammar, and verbal reasoning. Read the MIT News story for a fuller summary of the research.

Primary school shake-up to focus on ‘play-led’ learning Children at primary schools would not study traditional subjects until as late as 10 years of age, under proposals being considered by policymakers. Instead, there would be a much greater emphasis on creative play during the early years of primary school, and broader areas of learning in later years. The reforms are based loosely on some of the features of top-performing education systems in countries such as Finland, as well as new research on how children learn.

Free IELTS mobile apps Our free IELTS apps allow you to learn English flexibly – wherever you are and whenever you want to prepare. IELTS Prep App The easy-to-use IELTS Prep App gives you instant access to free practice tests, grammar tips, exercises, quizzes and more. You'll also find sample questions for Listening, Reading, Writing and Speaking, as well as vocabulary practice.

Schemas in Children’s Play - N a t u r e P l a y Written by Clare CaroSchemas in Children’s Play are such an important concept when it comes to the development of our children that it’s worth taking the time to understand them so you can facilitate them when you see them.What are these schemas?Well it’s really a fancy word for the urges that children have to do things like climb, throw things and hide in small places. They appear through play; perhaps it is the way they choose to do things, or what they desperately need to do out of the blue! Bringing It All TogetherAfter looking at each schema individually to get to grips with what each 'urge' is all about we may already be able to recognise some of the different ways they can appear in your child.Rotation, Trajectory, Enveloping, Orientation, Positioning, Connection, Enclosure/Container, Transporting and Transformation are urges that show in all children starting as early as their first birthday, some times before.How Can Knowing About These Urges Help Us?