How to retain small students in summer?
Summer is considered to be the most favourite time for almost everybody, especially kids. They enjoy their summer holidays playing, having fun and being free from the lessons. However, most of them lose two or three months of English skills practice.
Kids forget what they have learnt during the year and engage themselves in different games and activities during their summer holidays. Hence, next academic year teachers have to spend a lot of time to re-teach material from the previous year. Apart from this, many students lose their motivation of learning a language in summer.
In this article, teachers will get some tips on how to retain their small students.
A talk with parents
We all know that working with kids demands friendly dialogues with their parents. Parents are responsible for their children’s education, discipline and whatever they do. That is why the very first thing you should do is to speak to your student’s parents at the end of the lesson before summer holidays. Make them understand that their children will probably forget in summer a lot of things they have learnt. Discuss with parents the possibility to conduct lessons with kids in summer as well. You may suggest reducing the number of lessons, to have one lesson a week, or even once every two weeks. Explain to your kids’ parents that only continual work will lead to fruitfulness. Therefore, they should try to persuade their children to learn English in summer.
Meeting after reading
Summer is a perfect period of time not only for fun but for reading as well. Sometimes kids do not learn some topic because of tensity, different subjects at school and the lack of time. During summer they have enough free time to concentrate on English and read books for fun. You can set them a home reading activity, giving them a deadline. When your kids finish the book (it can be a short story), you may have a lesson with them and talk about the book, do some follow-up discussions and just enjoy the chat. It is better to call this kind of lesson just a meeting to reduce the strictness and the stress of learning in summer. You may have this type of meeting with your kids once a week or twice a month depending on the length of the book.
Summer diary
To improve your kids’ writing skills, ask them to keep a diary and express their best emotions and expressions on paper. To make it more creative and brighter they can also use various stickers, colourful pens or markers. You may also get your student write a creative paragraph each week, such as a “Family vacation” or “The best memories of summer”.
Cartoons in English
Another way to keep your students motivated is to have them watch cartoons in English. Let children enjoy watching cartoons and then ask them to tell you about their favourite character, the best moments and anything they liked about that cartoon. Check the link to find out the most popular cartoons among kids.
Group contest
Life is a competition, and it refers not only to adults but to kids as well. Actually children enjoy competing with each other and doing their best to win. To organise a contest set them some tasks for summer holidays — grammar activities or books for reading, and then discuss the results on the first day you meet. Whoever gives more right answers, is a winner.
Online games in English
One more interesting way not to forget English in summer is to get your kids play online games in English. Check the following links to see the list of various and interesting games in English.
Follow these tips and you will not lose your students in summer. On the contrary, you will keep them motivated and engaged in English over the vacation time.
Маргарита Аветисян 
