It can be very difficult to get and keep the attention of very young learners. I was once teaching a class about toys when a boat sailed past the classroom window. How can you compete with that?! Whatever you do to get the attention of your very young learners it has to be more interesting and fun than just shouting “sit down” or “look at me”. Below are my four favorite refocusing strategies. Each of these packages “sit down and look at me” in something more fun than whatever is distracting your class. Start whenever you feel your students’ attention is beginning to wander. Everyone will join when they see the fun.
Where to look? This technique only involves eye movement. The teacher names various objects for the learners to look at, such as “look at the door” “look at the window” “look at Johnny” and finally “look at me” or “look at the whiteboard”. Ideally, include at least seven steps so learners have the fun of moving their heads to focus on different things. The final step of either “look at me” or “look at the whiteboard” ensures that the learners’ eyes end up focused on whatever you want them to look at.
Bums on chairs. This technique works well with restless students who want to move around the classroom and is also good for practicing classroom objects and body parts. When you sense learners are becoming restless, give them a commands of what body part to put on what surface, such as “put your ear on the window”, “put your elbow on the floor”, “put your hand on the whiteboard”, and finally “put your bum on the chair”. Again, your learners end up sitting when you want them but after burning up some energy.
Verbs and destinations. Very young learners usually enjoy acting. This attention grabber again gets learners to move around the room, but in different ways, practicing different verbs. Start with something away from their chair, like “swim to the door”, “fly to the window”, “hop to the wall”, and finally end with “tiptoe to your chair”. This ensures the energy level drops towards the end of the refocuser, when you want learners to calm down and be ready to focus again.
Actions on seats. Sometimes you don’t want your students to run around the room, in which case you can use this instead. Give (and demonstrate) some simple imperatives, such as “stamp your feet” “clap your hands” “touch your nose”, penultimately, “go to sleep” and finally (after a five second pause) “wake up”. Lots of opportunities to practice different action verbs and move the energy level up, then down.
You can vary these by asking learners to make some of their own and choosing an action verb, who to look at, what body part to put on something, where to put it, etc. Whatever was distracting your learners, it’s unlikely to been as fun as any of these refocusers, (even if it is a boat!).