Simple English Classroom Phrases for Young Learners - Part 2

Hello and welcome to the second episode of our Simple English Classroom Phrases for Young Learners series! 👋

In our first post, we explored greetings and simple requests that children can start using from their very first English lessons.

Today, we're going to focus on everyday classroom routines: those simple phrases that we use every day to start the lesson, guide activities and end the class.

One of the best ways to help children learn English is to make it part of your daily classroom routine. When pupils hear the same expressions again and again in meaningful situations, they begin to understand them naturally and before long, they will simply respond in English. That's when English becomes a language they use, not just a subject they study. 

As they say: practice makes perfect!

REMEMBER! At the beginning, always support your language with flashcards, real objects (realia), gestures and facial expressions. Visual support makes the meaning clear and helps children connect English to real-life situations without relying on translation.

You can also display classroom posters around the room as visual reminders. Even if your Year 1 pupils are not confident readers yet, don't be afraid to include the written words alongside the pictures. Seeing the words every day while hearing and using them helps children become familiar with print and starts building word recognition naturally.

Now, let's look at some simple classroom phrases you can use throughout the day with your Year 1 and Year 2 pupils.

🌞 Beginning of the Lesson

Starting each lesson with the same routine helps children feel confident and ready to learn. Try using these expressions every day:

• Good morning!
• Sit down, please.
• Are you ready?
• Let's start!
• What's the date today?
• What's the weather like today?
• How are you today?

Listen to them here

💡 Teaching Tip: Don't worry if your pupils don't understand every word at first. Use gestures, point to the calendar or the weather chart, and repeat the same expressions every lesson. Repetition builds confidence!

🎨 During the Lesson

Keep English flowing naturally while children work, play and interact. Useful classroom phrases include:

•  Are you ready?
• Let's play!
• Let's sing!
• Let's listen!
• Let's practise!
• Your turn!
• My turn!
• One more time!
• Are you finished?
• Is everyone ready?

Listen to them here

These expressions soon become familiar, especially when they are always used in the same context. For example, instead of saying "Now it's your turn" in your first language, simply say: "Your turn!" Children quickly understand because the meaning is supported by the activity.

🌈 End of the Lesson

Ending every lesson with a familiar routine gives children a sense of achievement and closure. Try these phrases:

• Let's tidy up!
• Time to go!
• Good job!
• Well done!
• See you next time!
• Goodbye, everyone!

Listen to them here

Don't forget to celebrate your pupils' efforts. A simple "Well done!" or "Good job!" can make a big difference and encourages children to keep trying to use English.

🎵 Turn Your Routines into Games and Songs!

As you know, young learners learn best when English is active, meaningful and fun. Instead of simply repeating classroom phrases, turn them into games and songs that children will look forward to every lesson.

🎶 Use songs to reinforce routines

Songs are a fantastic way to introduce classroom language while exposing children to natural pronunciation, rhythm and intonation.

For example:

• 🧹 Tidy Up Song – Play this song whenever it's time to clean up. Soon, children will associate the music with the routine and begin joining in automatically while revising classroom vocabulary.
• 🧼 Wash Your Hands Song – A perfect choice before snack time or lunch. It reinforces daily routines while introducing useful action verbs and encouraging good hygiene habits.
• 🙋 Songs about asking for permission are another fun way to practise expressions such as:
  • Can I go to the toilet, please?
  • Can I have a pencil, please?
  • Can you help me, please?

By hearing these expressions in songs, children become familiar with authentic pronunciation and are much more likely to use them spontaneously. Children love music...but don't forget to sing along!

🎲 Play Simon Says

Once children know the classroom actions, it's time to get them moving! Use flashcards showing the target actions and play a game of Simon Says. Some useful action cards include:

• 
  Play
• Listen
• Sing
• Read
• Write
• Cut
• Colour
• Glue
• Draw
• Stand up
• Sit down
• Hand out the worksheets
• Open your book
• Close your book

Hold up a flashcard and say: "Simon says... write!" Children perform the action only if they hear "Simon says" first. It's a simple game that develops listening skills, reinforces classroom vocabulary and gets everyone involved.

Here you can find the rules of this game  and another way to use it, if you are teaching phonics.

💛 Little by Little...

Remember, you don't need to introduce every phrase at once.

Choose a few expressions, use them consistently and let them become part of your classroom language.

Little routines create big language learning! ✨

Modeling: teaching positive attitudes towards learning

Long time no see! At last a Sunday off and some time for blogging!

Illustrator: rinapiccolo.com

You see, after 8 years teaching extracurricular English classes, last year I decided that it was time to get an actual teaching degree from an actual university, so I signed up for one! As a result, over the past few months I've had zero time to write anything… until today :)

The classes have definitely been interesting and quite useful, but my favorite subject, above all, was educational psychology, where I realized that over the last 8 years I've been applying the most modern educational theories without even knowing it. Somehow, through my personal experience as a student in addition to observing and analyzing my students to enhance their learning experience, I've been putting into practice theories I had been unfamiliar with until October.

It has been reassuring and encouraging at the same time to discover that others have scientifically proven things I have experienced almost daily. Actually, while I was in class I couldn't help sharing my classroom stories… though I'm not sure how much the teacher appreciated it!

Anyway, today I'd like to talk about one particular topic from those educational psychology classes: observational learning.

Do you remember that campaign with the slogan "Children see, children do"?
Well, between the phrase children see and the phrase children do, we could definitely add a third phrase: children learn.

Observational learning, or modeling, is part of the Social Learning Theory developed by Albert Bandura, Professor Emeritus at Stanford University. Bandura demonstrated that children learn and imitate behaviors they have observed in other people through his Bobo doll experiment, which shows how a child reproduces the same  aggressive behavior he has observed.

There are 4 important steps involved in the modeling process:

- Attention, which is connected to your interest in what you're seeing and the lack of possible distractions.
- Retention, which is the capacity to store information, usually facilitated by seeing and listening to how to do something.
- Reproduction is the phase that starts once you've retained the information and understood the process. It's the time when the child performs the observed behavior. Their performance will improve and lead to skill advancement through further practice.
- Motivation is essential for successful observational learning and it can be generated by using positive or negative reinforcement. This also includes punishment, but it's not a desiderable way of going about it.

It sounds a bit like my method, doesn't it?  ;) Not only that, but it also sounds like how a Montessori teacher does it when they explains to their students how to use the prepared material.

As adults, it's clear that we can choose to use this process to encourage more positive behaviour from the young people around us, and this is also why I always insist that parents and teachers must be an active part of the process. In fact, I even wrote a book about it!

If you want your kids to read, let them see that you like reading; open a book, talk to them about what you're reading, and take them to a library.

If you want your children to learn English, take part in the process with them. If they're shy don't force them to speak if you're not making the same effort, because then they will just ask you why they have to when you don't.

Do you want your students to care for environment? Start by caring for it yourself, showing them how to do it.

When I started my first internship at a school in January, I bought one of those notebooks with the big squares that first graders use to write in so that I could practice my primary school calligraphy.

Every day, I made sure to use it in front of them, showing them my improvement, and asking them how they wrote this or that letter. Judging by their amazed expressions every time I took the notebook out of my bag, I'm pretty sure that, many of them paid much more attention to how they were writing and tried to improve the legibility of their writing just because they felt that their own effort to produce legible calligraphy was being understood and appreciated,

In conclusion, the learning process is a team effort and if you have a tricky issue in your own classroom, this process can be modified to help you deal with it.

If you'd like to take a deeper look  at the subject, here's a link to a more exhaustive explanation and another video about the Bobo doll experiment.

Meanwhile, have fun!

P.S. I got a really good grade on the Educational Psychology exam ;)

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