Oxford Experience on Mouse and me
by Marianna Mastoraki, born in Athens many many years ago but has mostly lived in Ierapetra, Crete. She studied at the University of Athens for hundreds of years: a little bit of Journalism, English Language and Literature, Political Science and Public Administration, and finally got her MA in International and European Governance and Politics. And then she went back home to what she loves: Cats. Oh, and teaching. And being a mom; always, all the time, even when she’s not physically close to her daughter she’s still mothering her students. She owns a private ESL School, Smart English Center, in her hometown. She has been teaching English to children as young as 4 for the last 15 years, and her new endeavour will be to launch an “English Nanny” learning programme, for ages 2 to 4.
My very first child when I was still a student at university, back in 1996, was a cute 2-and-a-half-year-old; I was her “English” nanny. I would take her on long walks where we would only speak English. By “speaking” I mean I was speaking for her to listen to an accent better than her mother’s, which was my …quest, and she would babble in half English half Greek as I was trying to decipher her utterances. (to give you an example, “Tee mels” was “Τι smells”, instead of “What smells”).
She learned astonishingly fast, you could literally see the vocabulary, structures and pronunciation being accumulated in her speech day after day. That wonderful work experience was what gave me the idea to teach really young children one day. And this is when I started collecting material for this purpose. Song books, CDs, board books, toys, ideas and all kinds of things really hard to find before Amazon.co.uk!!
As time went by more and more people in high places had the same idea, and today this is the rule, with the few exceptions left howling at the moon of ignorance and conservativism.
Ever since I started teaching as a professional (ie tax-payer), with my degrees and everything, and besides using all the material I have bought/made/stored through the decades, I have tried a whole lot of books. I must say I believe in coursebooks, because they are something of a much needed road map for us. They give us a path and a guideline, and they (should) facilitate our work. They archive, they are a measuring tool, an assessment opportunity. I love the idea. So, I have taught with lots of coursebooks, activity books, a combination of the two.
Good books, mediocre ones, bad books. Books with lots of stickers. I mean lots. Anyway, that was then. Until Elizabeth (yes, that Elizabeth), having seen through my virtues and vices, suggested that I try “Mouse and me”. Which brings us here, because I have never thought that a book for toddlers would be so cleverly put together. As I see it, Mouse and Me has three major advantages to offer: It is Teacher friendly, Parent friendly and Child friendly, and I will attempt to briefly go through these “friendlinesses” in the following paragraphs.
Why TEACHER friendly?
To begin with, I have to say that one of the big problems I had faced in my previous attempts at using coursebooks with 4- and 5-year-olds, is that you cannot give them the coursebooks to take home because more often than not the books won’t be brought back for the next lesson. Or sometimes they think it is a great idea to stick all the stickers in one go, or to fingerpaint on all pages, or the dog chewed on it, or the baby threw up on it and so the story goes. And, trust me, having a 5yearold WITH NO BOOK in the classroom while all the others are doing things with theirs? Not a good idea.
If, on the other hand, to avoid all these, you choose to keep the books yourself and only give them to the students during class, then the parents will have no idea what you have been doing with their princes and princesses twice a week, and that would be a pity because it’s really good work being done during those hours!!
Well, as if somebody was listening (or maybe they were facing the same problems as me but were smarter), they came up with Mouse and me, with the detachable pages and the short instructions at the back! You do your “performance”, you pull the page, slide it in the portfolio sleeve binder you have provided for each student, and off they go!! The parents know what you did in class without having to remember the baby books each time, (hence the PARENT friendly trait), the children can refresh their memory browsing their portfolio, and you are sure that nobody will be without a book in your next meeting. Really, an important asset.
Secondly, even though the book introduces much needed routines for the children, it also is versatile. It allows for flexibility and improvisation on the part of the teacher, not strict instructions given but only suggestions; even among the songs there is great variety, easier and more difficult ones for you to choose from. The resources and the teacher’s book contain a million ideas so as to make use of all the material: the puppet, the videos, the flashcards, the pop-outs, all the arts and crafts and props that accompany the course.
The book is also very well planned as to the time you need for each lesson. It will take you about 25 minutes to do everything, revise previous material, do the crafts or watch the video, continue with the new vocabulary and structures, and then practice away…
Why CHILD friendly?
Well, due to the careful planning and the versatility of the material, we enjoy ourselves during the coursebook part of the lesson, and what’s more we always have time to do different things before singing our “goodbye song”. We can play boardgames and we sometimes watch a video on YouTube to elaborate on the material just taught. My kids all have their favourite M&Me songs, so we play DJ and they ask for their song to be sung/played. They know the routines better than me and they correct me if I do something wrong. We can be in the book or out of it but still practising. It does not get boring, not for them and not for me. I remember having to browse through uncountable pages to find the material, but with M&Me I only have to click on the Oxford Bookshelf icon, and there it is.
Finally, I would like to point out a particular task included in each unit, which is the self portrait the children make, placing themselves within a picture from the unit. In the house, with their family, at school, among their toys, with their pets etc… These drawings, which as you can remember are archived in our portfolio, when the school year ends are really a timelapse of your child’s educational and social development within the last 8 months. You can see them change, grow and mature, acquiring skills and aptitudes right before your eyes, and you get to keep a record of it. Invaluable.
Routines, flexibility, practicality, beautiful storylines, wonderful songs, tons of resources to delve into. An invaluable support network, with all kinds of help amply offered, on call. That’s Mouse and Me.
Thanks a lot OUP!!
