Four ways to keep kindergarten ESL students focused all day

Heath Pulliam
A teacher sat in a classroom with a child, sharing crayons with eachother and smiling
Reading time: 5 minutes

Heath Pulliam is an independent education writer with a focus on the language learning space. He’s taught English in South Korea and various subjects in the United States to a variety of ages. He’s also a language learning enthusiast and studies Spanish in his free time.

Those who have taught children anywhere between the ages of 4 and 8 know that one of the biggest challenges of getting through to them is keeping your presentation style interesting. As someone who taught ESL in South Korea to kindergarteners, there are a few factors that make keeping students engaged a challenge. In countries where students learn English, students often have a heavy courseload and high expectations. As a first-year teacher, I learned a lot about what worked and what didn’t through trial and error. These are four methods that I consistently used to keep my students interested and engaged all day.

Students are quick to lose focus at such a young age. You’re not speaking their mother tongue and some parts of an ESL curriculum are less than exciting. With young students, you can’t lecture your way through the material all day. Kindergarteners have a small window of focus and it must be capitalized on. The following methods are ones that worked for me and can be modified to cover any topic you’ll run into in an ESL curriculum.

Activities to engage pre-primary ESL students all day
Play
Privacy and cookies

By watching, you agree ɫèAV can share your viewership data for marketing and analytics for one year, revocable by deleting your cookies.

1.The wheel of names

Don't let the simplicity of this tool fool you. The Wheel of Names, which is exactly what it sounds like, is a very simple tool that you can put the names of your students on to randomly (or not) select a student. The Wheel of Names crushes hand-raising and it’s a constant struggle to get everyone raising their hands. (We can’t let the quiet ones just slip through the cracks!)

The beauty of the Wheel of Names is the guaranteed excitement on every spin. They’re kindergarteners. The nature of randomizing who’s going to answer the question, come up to the board, or go first in a game is so exciting to them. Use it however you want. The suspense has kids excited to see who will be chosen and has them cheering on whichever classmate gets chosen.

I used this tool mostly during review sessions to choose students to answer questions. It can also be used for creating small groups, making sure everyone gets a chance to speak during activities and seeing who’s going to get to do the next fun thing in the classroom. You’re teaching kindy, have fun with it.

2.Team-based review game

We never came up with a good name for this game, but we used it a lot. Every Friday, during our chapter review, this was undoubtedly the best compromise between fun and effectiveness for reviewing material. It also fosters speaking, one of the most important parts of learning a language.

Here’s how it works. The class is separated into two teams. (For a little extra fun, use the wheel of names or a cup of popsicle sticks with students’ names on them to select the teams.) The teacher has a set of review questions or vocabulary words. On each turn, one person from each team has a chance to answer the question. You can do hand-raising or a randomization method to pick who answers.

If the student representative from the team gets it right, they earn a point. If they get it wrong, the opposing team gets a chance to answer for a point. Alternating between each team, the first to a certain number of points wins. A simple game, but at this age many students are just getting used to team-based activities.

This game is so effective because it makes use of children’s natural competitive spirit. When one student is up, the rest of their team cheers them on. Learning material is important, but a big part of teaching young students is teaching them social skills, too. This game gets everyone excited and gets the material to stick. It also teaches them the importance of teamwork and how to win and lose gracefully. (Not everyone can win every time).

3.Creating super sentences

At the end of the year, the students in my class ended up being the best writers in their respective age groups. I think this activity, making ‘Super Sentences” a few times a week was a big contributor to that. Inspired by a textbook we had, here’s how this activity works.

We’d create sentences with this formula:

Who or what – The owl

Did what – hunted for mice

Where – in the forest

When – at night

The owl hunted for mice in the forest at night.

Before students got to work on their own, We’d fill out a little table on the board as a class that looked something like this – but changed every time.

Who or what?

(noun)

Did what? (verb)

Where?

(prepositional phrase)

When?

(prepositional phrase)

The dog

The raccoon

Joey

Mr. Heath

Chloe

The thief

Ran

Slept

Attacked _______

Found _________

Learned to ________

sneaked

On top of __________

Under __________

Through the ________

Next to the ________

Inside of the _______

Behind the ________

At sunset

At 4:00 PM

In the middle of the day

In March

In the evening

After this, students can get to work making their own sentences and drawing what is happening below. After a few times, many students began to make up their own nouns, verbs and prepositions that were not listed on the board. And when everyone gets comfortable writing sentences, you can add a ‘Why?’ section at the end.

This activity is one of my favorites because it helps bring out children’s natural creativity. In an ESL curriculum, there’s a lot of material that’s less than exciting, so any way to give the kids a little freedom can be a game-changer. It’s also great for vocabulary, grammar and writing practice.

To finish off the activity, have each student read their sentence and have the class vote on their favorite for a prize!

4. Vocabulary bingo

Something to know about teaching ESL in non-English-speaking countries is that often, no time is allowed to be spent not learning. This is definitely the case in South Korea. Even after lunch and towards the end of the day, students are rarely allowed to do anything if it isn’t enriching. Because of this, playing games that are fun and learning-effective is a must.

Now, I’m certainly not the first one to play Bingo. This version however, is slightly modified to be as enriching as possible. We played this version often at the end of the day, because focus runs low around that time.

Essentially, this is just vocabulary bingo with a little bit of charades mixed in. For this activity, make a basic bingo board with some of your current vocabulary words or target language. There are plenty of sites that make this easy.

What makes this version different is that on each turn, rather than telling everyone the word, describe it to the class and try to get them to guess what the word is. So, if the word was ‘teamwork’, you might say something like “This is what it’s called when everyone works together to help their team win.” You can even have a student helper that helps facilitate the game by giving the descriptions.

After the word is guessed, reiterate it to the class and proceed with Bingo as usual.

Conclusion

Part of being an effective teacher, especially with the younger ages, is harnessing kids’ natural excitement, energy and innate curiosity to their own benefit. Instead of suppressing it, it’s essential to adapt your teaching style to work for your students.

Teaching ESL to young children has its own set of challenges. They can hardly sit still for an hour of lecture, let alone a whole day. Make use of, or draw inspiration from these methods and see how they can work for you.

Teaching young learners? Read our posts '8 first lesson problems for young learners' and 'Effective classroom management routines for very young learners'.

Explore our pre-primary and primary courseware

More blogs from ɫèAV

  • A teacher with students stood around him while he is on a tablet

    How AI and the GSE are powering personalized learning at scale

    By
    Reading time: 4 minutes

    In academic ops, we’re always finding the balance between precision and practicality. On one side: the goal of delivering lessons that are level-appropriate, relevant and tied to real learner needs. On the other hand, we juggle hundreds of courses, support teachers, handle last-minute changes and somehow keep the whole system moving without losing momentum or our minds.

    That’s exactly where AI and the Global Scale of English (GSE) have changed the game for us at Bridge. Over the past year, we’ve been using AI tools to streamline lesson creation, speed up course design and personalize instruction in a way that’s scalable and pedagogically sound.

    Spoiler alert: it’s working.

    The challenge: Customization at scale

    Our corporate English learners aren’t just “students”. They’re busy professionals: engineers, sales leads, analysts. They need immediate impact. They have specific goals, high expectations and very little patience for anything that feels generic.

    Behind the scenes, my team is constantly:

    • Adapting content to real company contexts
    • Mapping GSE descriptors to measurable outcomes
    • Designing lessons that are easy for teachers to deliver
    • Keeping quality high across dozens of industries and levels

    The solution: Building personalized courses at scale

    To address this challenge, we developed an internal curriculum engine that blends the GSE, AI and practical, job-focused communication goals into a system that can generate full courses in minutes.

    It is built around 21 workplace categories, including Conflict Resolution, Business Travel and Public Speaking. Each category has five lessons mapped to CEFR levels and GSE descriptors, sequenced to support real skill development.

    Then the fun part: content creation. Using GPT-based AI agents trained on GSE Professional objectives, we feed in a few parameters like:

    • Category: Negotiation
    • Lesson: Staying Professional Under Pressure
    • Skills: Speaking (GSE 43, 44), Reading (GSE 43, 45)

    In return, we get:

    • A teacher plan with clear prompts, instructions and model responses
    • Student slides or worksheets with interactive, GSE-aligned tasks
    • Learning outcomes tied directly to the descriptors

    Everything is structured, leveled and ready to go.

    One Example: “Staying Organized at Work”

    This A2 lesson falls under our Time Management module and hits descriptors like:

    • Reading 30: Can ask for repetition and clarification using basic fixed expressions
    • Speaking 33: Can describe basic activities or events happening at the time of speaking

    Students work with schedules, checklists and workplace vocabulary. They build confidence by using simple but useful language in simulated tasks. Teachers are fully supported with ready-made discussion questions and roleplay prompts.

    Whether we’re prepping for a quick demo or building a full 20-hour course, the outcome is the same. We deliver scalable, teacher-friendly, learner-relevant lessons that actually get used.

    Beyond the framework: AI-generated courses for individual learner profiles

    While our internal curriculum engine helps us scale structured, GSE-aligned lessons across common workplace themes, we also use AI for one-on-one personalization. This second system builds fully custom courses based on an individual’s goals, role, and communication challenges.

    One of our clients, a global mining company, needed a course for a production engineer in field ops. His English level was around B1 (GSE 43 to 50). He didn’t need grammar. He needed to get better at safety briefings, reports and meetings. Fast.

    He filled out a detailed needs analysis, and I fed the data into our first AI agent. It created a personalized GSE-aligned syllabus based on his job, challenges and goals. That syllabus was passed to a second agent, preloaded with the full GSE Professional framework, which then generated 20 complete lessons.

    The course looked like this:

    • Module 1: Reporting project updates
    • Module 2: Supply chain and logistics vocabulary
    • Module 3: Interpreting internal communications
    • Module 4: Coordination and problem-solving scenarios
    • Module 5: Safety presentation with feedback rubric

    From start to finish, the course took under an hour to build. It was tailored to his actual workday. His teacher later reported that his communication had become noticeably clearer and more confident.

    This was not a one-off. We have now repeated this flow for dozens of learners in different industries, each time mapping everything back to GSE ranges and skill targets.

    Why it works: AI + GSE = The right kind of structure

    AI helps us move fast. But the GSE gives us the structure to stay aligned.

    Without it, we’re just generating content. With it, we’re creating instruction that is:

    • Measurable and appropriate for the learner’s level
    • Easy for teachers to deliver
    • Consistent and scalable across programs

    The GSE gives us a shared language for goals, outcomes and progress. That is what keeps it pedagogically sound.

    Final thought

    A year ago, I wouldn’t have believed we could design a 20-lesson course in under an hour that actually delivers results. But now it’s just part of the workflow.

    AI doesn’t replace teaching. It enhances it. And when paired with the GSE, it gives us a way to meet learner needs with speed, clarity, and purpose. It’s not just an upgrade. It’s what’s next.

  • Children sat at desks in a classroom with their hands all raised smiling

    Back to school: Inclusive strategies to welcome and support students from day one

    By
    Reading time: 3 minutes

    As the new school year begins, teachers have an opportunity to set the tone for inclusion, belonging and respect. With the right strategies and activities, you can ensure every student feels seen, heard and valued from the very first day. Embracing diversity isn’t just morally essential: it’s a proven pathway to deeper learning, greater engagement and a more equitable society (Gay, 2018).

    Research consistently shows that inclusive classrooms foster higher academic achievement, improved social skills and increased self-esteem for all students (Banks, 2015). When students feel safe and respected, they are more likely to take risks, collaborate and reach their full potential.

  • A girl sat at a laptop with headphones on in a library

    5 myths about online language learning

    By Steffanie Zazulak
    Reading time: 3 minutes

    Technology has radically changed the way people are able to access information and learn. As a result, there are a great number of tools to facilitate online language learning – an area that’s been the subject of many myths. Here we highlight (and debunk) some of the bigger ones…

    Myth #1: You will learn more quickly

    Although online learning tools are designed to provide ways to teach and support the learner, they won’t provide you with a shortcut to proficiency or bypass any of the key stages of learning.Although you may well be absorbing lots of vocabulary and grammar rules while studying in isolation, this isn’t a replacement for an environment in which you can immerse yourself in the language with English speakers. Such settings help you improve your speaking and listening skills and increase precision, because the key is to find opportunities to practise both – widening your use of the language rather than simply building up your knowledge of it.

    Myth #2: It replaces learning in the classroom

    With big data and AI increasingly providing a more accurate idea of their level, as well as a quantifiable idea of how much they need to learn to advance to the next level of proficiency, classroom learning is vital for supplementing classroom learning. And with the Global Scale of English providing an accurate measurement of progress, students can personalise their learning and decide how they’re going to divide their time between classroom learning and private study.

    Myth #3: It can’t be incorporated into classroom learning

    There are a huge number of ways that students and teachers can use the Internet in the classroom. Meanwhile, ɫèAV’s online courses and apps have a positive, measurable impact on your learning outcomes.

    Myth #4:You can't learn in the workplace

    Online language learning is ideally suited to the workplace and we must create the need to use the language and opportunities to practise it. A job offers one of the most effective learning environments: where communication is key and you’re frequently exposed to specialized vocabulary. Online language learning tools can flexibly support your busy schedule.

    Myth #5: Online language learning is impersonal and isolating

    A common misconception is that online language learning is a solitary journey, lacking the personal connection and support found in traditional classrooms. In reality, today’s digital platforms are designed to foster community and real interaction. With features like live virtual classrooms, discussion forums and instant feedback, learners can connect with peers and educators around the world, building skills together.