Few minutes before the end of the lesson, my students asked me to face backward. At first, all of them were busy drawing something at the white board, leaving me alone facing the wall. They forbade me to look at the white board when they had not finished their drawing yet. One of them were even dancing in front of me to cheer me up while waiting for it. I thought they were drawing and writing something bad about me since they kept laughing during the process of making the surprise. Lots of thing appeared in my mind at that time. I imagined that they would wrote that I was ugly, and something else like that. It seemed like an hour when finally they permitted me to turn over and see the drawing. I was shocked. I could not speak even for a word. My tears seemed going to fall down. Can you guess what they write? They did write that I was a queen, a beautiful one, but the sentences that made me melt down was “I love Auntie Ellen (The course let the students to call their teacher with Auntie instead of Ma'am or Miss). They drew five characters represented themselves with their names below each character and wrote down on the top of those pictures this sentence: “Nicole, Rissa, Vina, Jihan, and Ratih love Auntie Ellen.” There were also a lot of flowers drawn on the white board.

I only could say thank you and told them that I loved them too. I was very thankful for the surprise. I had never imagined they could do that such of thing. The children's mind is really unpredictable but they do have a pure and honest heart. All you need to do is just give them a freedom to elaborate their skill and give them your trust. Keep taking care of them to remind them if they have been out of the line, but give them as much freedom as you can. Children have their own world which will never be able to be understood and ruined by the adult.

At first, my job was only to substitute the other part time teacher who were absent or on leave, but after a month, finally I got my own class. I was a little bit nervous entering my own class at that time. I was afraid that the children would not be able to accept me, to adjust with the new situation. The first half an hour on my first meeting was quiet terrible. Just few minutes before the class started, the children (There are 5 students in my class; all of them are girls around 10 – 11 years old) brought their former teacher to the class and asked her to teach them right in front of my face. Can you imagine that???

It didn't stop there. The first half an hour, the class looks like a graveyard. They acted like a robot; only opening their mouth to answer my questions (which I had repeated for several times) with short answers. I was confused how to control my class, how to get their trust, how to make the situation become more comfortable for the teaching – learning process, how to develop my students curiosity. Those questions were running on my head while I was explaining about a topic at that time.

The suddenly, the situation was changed. It started only with this kind of question: “Do you know what a gift is?” All of them were quiet. Then I said, “Well, let make it this way then. I'll give you some clues related with it and when you have found out what it is, just mention it. OK?”, “Listen carefully! Here comes the first clue: You will be very happy to receive it. Can you guess it? Second clue: You usually receive it on your birthday.” Then can you imagine what happen? They suddenly shouted: “Ow, a present!” After that, there was no quiet class anymore. Our relationship grew better. I learned that holding such fun activities like Hangman or other activities will be able to arise your young learners' interest and will help them to learn more and more knowledge.

1. The “Bandwagon” Problem

The teacher discover a new exciting method and accepts this way of teaching with great enthusiasm as the best way to teach. (Gebhard, 1996)

According to Mark Clarke (Clarke, 1982, p.439^*), bandwagons are “the 'latest word,' the trendy, the fashionable, the most up-to-date in methods, materials, techniques.” Once, the teachers discover a new exciting material, method, or technique that people said it is to be the best way to teach, they tends to directly follow it without considering another possibilities. They should depend on the students and class situation first before deciding to follow the bandwagon. They can also do some observations, analyze it, and then generate their own teaching decisions. What people consider as the best method to teach may not mean the same for us. We have to consider whether it is suitable to be applied in our students. If it is needed, we can make some changes or improve the bandwagon to suit the class conditions.

While bandwagons provide us with confidence, company, and techniques, as Earl Stevick stated at the 1982^* TESOL Conference, they do not let us free to make our own informed teaching decisions.

2. The “Overly Anxious” Problem

Some students have such high levels of anxiety that they cannot take advantage of opportunities to learn English. (Gebhard, 1996)

Anxiety is a vague fear which is associated with feelings of uneasiness, self – doubt, apprehension, or worry (Brown, 1987, p. 107^*). Some factors that could raise the level of anxiety in language students (McCoy, 1979; Alpert and Haber, 1960^*) are the inability to pronounce strange sounds and words, the inability to understand and answers questions, the reputation of the language class as a place for failure, the peer criticism, the testing (especially oral testing), the previous unsuccessful language – learning attempts, the encountering different cultural values and behaviors, the incompetence of getting the meaning of words and sentences, and the incompetence of understanding course goals or requirements

We might often find students who have a high degree of anxiety. When being asked such questions, or to do some tasks, they usually can do nothing. They might only sit, look at the teacher or stare at their books, and even look around hoping for their friends' help, but keep silent and do nothing.

Facing these kind of students, we do not need to critize and judge them. All we need to do is helping them expressing their ideas and give an understanding response (Curran, 1978^*) to their ideas by realy listening to them and give appraisal for their answer. We can also paraphrase the students of what they had said. “Such paraphrasing not only can provide a way for the student to reflect on his or her own language in a noncritical way but can alos improve understanding. When we consistently and sincerely work at trying to understand the students' meaning without expressing verbal or nonverbal judgement of the language used by the students, a postive, trusting relationship between the student and teacher can develop, one that also reduces anxiety about being in a language classroom.” (Gebhard, 1996)

3. The “Engagement” Problem

The teacher is not fully committed to teaching English as interaction and will not fully engage in interacting with the students or arranging activities for them to use English as a means of communication in the classroom. (Gebhard, 1996)

As Wilga Rivers puts it, “Never having experienced an interactive classroom, [teachers] are afraid it will be chaotic and hesitate to try.” (Rivers, 1987^*). Relating this problem with students' attitude, we might often find that students come to our classroom with little experience in participating in the interaction using English. They might have an afraid feeling of interacting with the teacher and their classmates. Therefore, we, as their teacher, have to create a pleasant class atmosphere. A 'friendly' atmosphere that will make feel acceptable and that they are given chance to express themselves freely.

In order to make a pleasant and supportive classroom atmosphere, we have to establish a norm of tolerance, encourage risk – taking and have mistakes accepted as a natural part of learning, bring in and encorage humour (to have more relaxed attitude about how seriously we take oursleves), and encourage learners to personalise the classroom environment according to their taste, for example decorating the classroom. (Dornyei, 2001)

Writing models

You can provide reading material, such as a simple story, that will model the type of writing your young learners will produce.

The model can serve as a prewrite for children to write about their favorite animal and shows how to publish, writing with combination of text and illustration.

Writing centers

You can set up a writing center in your classroom. A writing center with brightly colored pens and papers will often inspire children to write. It can also inspire them at every step of the writing process, as well as to help them develop the fine motor skills necessary to produce neat and legible writing. The writing center should be placed in a clean and cheery place that invites children to compose different pieces of writing. If possible, a computer that includes a word processor can also be included in the center (Linse, 2001).

Word walls

Word Walls are lists of words that the children have ever known or found in their reading and that can be used in their writing. These lists should be posted on the walls of your classroom. Don't forget to decorate those lists so they will attract children's attention. Later on, the children can refer to a Word Wall during the various stage of the writing process. Different Word Walls can have different focuses. You can arrange the words there alphabetically so that the children will be able to find the words they look for easier.

The process of teaching writing

The process begins by thinking about what is going to be written. You should choose a topic that is suitable with their interest. Then you should collect ideas both formally and informally. For example, Going to the Zoo is the chosen topic. You can give the students one or more passages about the animals that they can find in the zoo. They can collect ideas to be written next in their writing. If you want to make it informally, you can just give questions asking about their basic knowledge of those animals. You can write down the result of the discussion on the board so that they will be able to develop it using their own sentences. The final step is to publish, to put the ideas into a form which can be formally shared with others: a composition. The final stages emphasizes the product – the result of all of the previous steps and follows to the rules of standard spelling and grammar.

You need to focus not only on the final product but also on all aspects of the process. For the process of revising, you don't need to be the only person to give students feedback. Besides learning to revise on their own, their classmates can help the students revise. However, at this stage, most teachers do review their students' work. One thing that you need to pay attention is that your comment should focus on the content, not the grammatical and spelling errors. Children need to know what ideas or organization they should keep, as well as what they should change (Linse, 2001). Don't forget to give them praises.

For the process of publishing, you can make a classroom board where you can publish their writing. It will make them proud and encourage them to write more and more. You can ask them to decorate the board with pictures they draw or taken from magazines.

• Predictable stories and pattern books

• Questioning techniques

• Graphic Organizers

• Engage learners

The words that they produce can give many advantages.

Their words can be used to provide joy. A child learns that a simple utterance such as “Mommy, I love you” can delight a parent. (Linse, 2006)

Words can be used as a weapon against one another causing hurt feelings and bruised egos. For example, native English – speaking children are often taught this rhyme:

Sticks and stones

will break my bones,

but words will never hurt me.

Words can be used also as a form of entertainment. During their play, children make conversations; they practice to talk to one another. It usually happens when they are playing the role – play. For example, a young child pretends to be a teacher. She tends to practice and adapt scripts that they have heard from her real teachers or on TV. While pretending as a teacher, she gives commands such as telling the students to be quiet or do their tasks.

Seeing the importance of speaking, we as the teachers should be aware of ways to help them build their speaking skills. Don't ever put a high expectation which is not fitting their age. The expectations for children learning ESL or EFL should not be greater or more demanding than the expectations for children learning to speak in English as their native language. For example, for Asian students, they might find difficulties in pronouncing the /th/ sound. For that reason, a process will be needed. Don't ever hope that your students will be able to pronounce it well in a short time. Instead of pushing them to reach your goal instantly, help them and encourage them to improve their skill step by step until they are able to reach the goal by themselves. By doing this, they will be proud of themselves and realize that they can turn something which is at first very difficult for them into something easy. They will have boldness to face other difficult things they may face in the future.

You can start teaching them to speak by introducing simple chants, rhymes, or songs. Choose songs that have much repetition. You can also modify the lyrics of the songs or the entire songs themselves with pantomime and TPR – style activities. Doing these kind activities, children will not recognize that they are learning to speak a language; the vocabulary, pronunciation, and even the grammar, through the repetitive lyrics of the songs. Below, you can see a simple songs with repetitive lyrics...

This is the Way We Wash Our Clothes

This is the way we wash our clothes, wash our clothes, wash our clothes.

This is the way we wash our clothes so early Monday morning.

This is the way we iron our clothes, iron our clothes, iron our clothes.

This is the way we iron our clothes so early Tuesday morning.

You can modify this song to make it suitable for your goal.

For example, you want to teach them the vocabulary of days in a week, you can modify them into like this:

This is the way we wash our clothes, wash our clothes, wash our clothes.

This is the way we wash our clothes so early Monday morning.

This is the way we iron our clothes, iron our clothes, iron our clothes.

This is the way we iron our clothes so early Tuesday morning.

This is the way we wash our clothes, wash our clothes, wash our clothes.

This is the way we wash our clothes so early Wednesday morning.

This is the way we iron our clothes, iron our clothes, iron our clothes.

This is the way we iron our clothes so early Thursday morning.

This is the way we wash our clothes, wash our clothes, wash our clothes.

This is the way we wash our clothes so early Friday morning.

This is the way we iron our clothes, iron our clothes, iron our clothes.

This is the way we iron our clothes so early Saturday morning.

This is the way we wash our clothes, wash our clothes, wash our clothes.

This is the way we wash our clothes so early Sunday morning.

If you want to focus on introducing new verbs for the children, you can modify it into this one, for example:

This is the way we wash our clothes, wash our clothes, wash our clothes.

This is the way we wash our clothes so early Monday morning.

This is the way we iron our clothes, iron our clothes, iron our clothes.

This is the way we iron our clothes so early Tuesday morning.

This is the way we pick our clothes, pick our clothes, pick our clothes.

This is the way we pick our clothes so early Monday morning.

This is the way we fold our clothes, fold our clothes, fold our clothes.

This is the way we fold our clothes so early Tuesday morning.

You can also ask them to act the verbs mentioned in the lyrics, such as washing, ironing, picking, and folding using the TPR technique.

Or use The Hokey – Pokey song:

You put your right foot in.

You put your right foot out.

You put your right foot in.

You shake it all about.

You do the Hokey – Pokey and you turn yourself around.

That's what it's all about.

(you can change the word “right” into “left” or “foot” into “arm”, “hand”, “head”, etc. Act the songs out with your students. Involving them through the activities will grow their interest in learning the language)