English-in-a-Box
The English Garden’s
English-in-a-Box
A series of books, songs, and activities created and written by Deborah Murao
Overview
The English Garden’s English-in-a-Box is designed to inspire the joy of learning English using innovative, exciting and effective theme-based material for young learners. Each entertaining unit-based lesson is a comprehensive self-contained kit providing a hands-on unique story, an original song, and a variety of fun activities to interest and support all types of learners.
Why I decided to write original material for my pupils…
For over a decade, I have been a teacher of young children. My journey started in New York City and for the past seven years I have been an ESL teacher in Japan. The inspiration for English-in-a-Box began with a jump rope lesson for my Immersion English homeroom class. My 4-year olds, having never jumped rope, needed the lesson broken down into simple, manageable steps. By the end of the first lesson, everyone succeeded in jumping rope. The English Garden’s English-in-a-Box was born!
Just as my kindergarteners had to learn the proper way to hold a rope before they could jump over it, my pupils also had to learn the basic patterns of vocabulary before they could speak English. The unit-building lessons in English-in-a-Box teach these prerequisite vocabulary patterns and the learning concepts necessary for language acquisition.
Being a professional singer/actor/voice-over artist by trade and armed with a Master’s in Music, I began teaching and quickly entered that elite teacher-training school commonly known as “The School of Hard Knocks”. I learned that I needed something for everyone. Experience showed me that tactile learners need to do something with those busy hands – to open things, to spin objects, to play with stickers, games, and to build crafts; visual-based learners need colorful and amusing illustrations of familiar, recurring characters; and audio-based learners need rhythmic music and memorable songs – songs so catchy and fun they’d sing them all the way home!.
Unlike Japanese, which is quite linear, English is a musical language. Correctly, carefully crafted lyrics can naturally and organically teach precise syllable stress, the rise and fall of the phrase, and grammatical word clauses – along with the added bonus of introducing word-families through rhyming lyrics. By employing repeating clauses, children can assimilate new vocabulary easily. In an online article from The Why Files, psychologist Peter Jucszyk of Johns Hopkins University states, “before a baby can [distinguish individual words], he or she must learn to segment words into clauses.” Jucszyk says that groups of words used together to make up a complete thought within a sentence seem to play a crucial role from the start. He asserts that” babies distinguish clauses by learning the melody of a language — the rhythm of sounds and pauses, the varying pitch in the voice, the different patterns of loudness and softness. Melody, called ‘prosody’ in the linguistic trade, also helps infants distinguish one language from another.” Therefore, my contention is that carefully crafted music and lyrics provide both the clauses and the prosody necessary to more rapidly learn a new language. My experience has shown that by adding movement to the songs, the children can kinesthetically aid in their memorization process and sequence the new vocabulary. In Newsweek’s cover story, “Your Child’s Brain: How Kids Are Wired for Music, Math and Emotions” (February 19, 1996), Dr. Dee Joy Coulter, a nationally recognized neuroscience educator, states that songs, movement, and musical games of childhood are “brilliant neurological exercises” that introduce children to speech patterns, sensory motor skills, and vital movement strategies. The article goes on to say that if more administrators were tuned into brain research, “…music would be a daily requirement.” Not finding this type of ESL material readily available, my alternative was to write my own.
We are all World Citizens…
I developed an additional group of songs and stories to teach young learners fine manners, a positive attitude, and desirable habits, which will enable them to become exemplary students as well as exemplary World Citizens. I wrote this group of light-hearted yet serious lessons to give my students a head-start in the habits that will help them succeed, not only at English but in life. An example of one of my World Citizen lesson is the gospel-style song called “Thank You for the Food” which teaches gratitude – not only for food but for all the people involved in its production, i.e. the farmer, the delivery truck driver, the cook, etc. Try it….it makes the food taste so much better, even if I cooked it!
Why Rhythmics is important for young learners…
In the aforementioned Newsweek article, Music Educator, Lorna Heyge, Ph.D. is quoted as saying, “In order for children to benefit from a music program, four essential elements must be present. Children should have opportunities to participate in singing, dancing (creative movement), listening, and playing instruments.” English-in-a-Box has an added bonus rhythmics lesson that accompanies each set which can be used with actual or homemade instruments. These songs are not only fun but they train the children in the natural rhythm of English and provide ear-training in distinguishing sounds. Time after time, my experience has shown that children and adults who excel in music also excel in English. In a fascinating article entitled “Music Improves Language and Memory” (ABC Science Online 2007), psychologists at the Chinese University of Hong Kong discovered that “children who undergo musical training have a better recall of words than those who have none. And the longer their period of musical training, the more words they recall”.
In my experience, music and humor lead to happy, relaxed children who learn better, learn faster and retain more of the information given to them. Science Daily (June 16, 2008) states “humor is fundamental to our success as a species” and “it has continuing importance in cognitive development.” English-in-a-Box provides all these lessons in a humorous, whimsical manner appealing to a child’s sense of play.
Methodology
My methodology is to keep the children “HAPPY” while learning new vocabulary and ideas.
H – HEAR it pronounced correctly.
A – ACTIVATE it with flashcards, reading the book, doing an activity, or playing a game.
P – PRONOUNCE it correctly using the already-given rhythm in the music.
P- PERFORM it. Learn the song as a class. Recording it and playing it back to sing along with is a thrill for them!
Y – With repetition it becomes YOURS. Research has shown that “if learners encounter unknown words ten times in context, sizeable learning gains may occur”. (Applied Linguistics, 2007)
Come and join a HAPPY class today!