50 episodes listed below
Teachers swapping songs, games and tricks for young learners.
Matt from Dream English hosts conversations with classroom teachers and with people who make games, books and songs for young learners, and the talk stays close to what happens in a real lesson. Guests include Teacher Miriam and Tati from Brazil, Richard from Genki English, and Tim, who designed the card game Ready, Set, Eigo!
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The Dream English Teaching Tips Podcast is a series of conversations between Matt, from Dream English, and other people who teach English to children. His guests include working teachers, a teacher trainer, and people who make games, notebooks and song-based resources. The talk is friendly. The questions are practical, and the answers usually come as a routine or an object a teacher could bring to the next class. Teacher Miriam, a very experienced teacher from Brazil, appears in two conversations. In one she asks Matt how to bring children back into English after a week without hearing any. The two settle on familiar songs and a lesson plan that keeps moving. The other is about songs and props, and she explains why she acts out every instruction, cupping a hand to her ear for 'listen', so the children get the meaning without a word of Portuguese. She also notes that many Brazilian schools now call themselves bilingual, and that their beginning teachers need practical ideas. Her rule of thumb is simple: if the teacher is having fun, the children probably will too. Tati, another teacher from Brazil, has taught everyone from young children to adults and now trains other teachers. She describes a project for Brazilian mothers who speak English and want to start their very young children on the language before school does. The people who make materials come with things to show. Tim built the card game Ready, Set, Eigo! after finding that games for low-level children mostly reviewed single words instead of asking them to communicate. Much of its vocabulary comes from textbooks used in Japan's elementary and junior high schools, and he wanted children who cannot read yet to be able to play it. Eric Kane from ELF Learning walks through four writing notebooks whose lines get smaller from one book to the next, each with a stroke order guide inside. Richard, the creator of Genki English, offers the framework that travels best: a warm-up, then input, then most of the lesson spent on output through a classroom game. He argues that the chance of losing a game gives children a rush like real-world communication, and that singing and moving together is close to the heart of being human. Where to begin depends on the problem. A teacher looking for a lesson structure should start with the conversation with Richard, and one trying to stop translating will get more from Miriam. Matt also points listeners to his own short book, 'Ten Steps to Teach English to Young Learners'.
Made for: Suits a listener who teaches English to preschool or primary-age children, especially where English is not spoken outside class, and wants specific activities, routines and materials to try.
What sets it apart: It stays focused on young children, and most guests bring one concrete tool to discuss, such as a song routine, a gesture habit, a card game, writing notebooks or a lesson template. Several guests teach where English is a foreign language, especially Brazil, so problems like avoiding translation come up often.
Matt from Dream English shares tips for teaching young children English.
That first English class after a week away deserves more than your 'stop, sit down' loop.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A practical episode on using familiar songs, movement, and visual support to ease students back into English class.
Returning students to English after time away can be hard to manage, and this episode keeps that classroom challenge grounded in movement. Host Matt and Teacher Miriam, an experienced teacher from Brazil, focus on familiar songs, body language, dancing, and visual support from a…
Eric Kane explains how Elf Learning's graduated notebooks help young English learners move toward independent reading.
Matt's conversation with Eric Kane brings together Elf Learning's YouTube work, Eric's books, and a shared project now taking shape between them. The most concrete thread is a set of four notebooks designed to help children move from wide lines toward smaller print.
A practical classroom card game is tested through the lens of teachers and students who want to keep playing.
Ready, Set, Ego comes across as a practical classroom card game for children's English classes, aimed at lower-level learners who need language practice to feel like communication rather than single-word review.
Richard's three-stage lesson shape turns classroom energy into English practice.
Lesson planning becomes a way to give classroom energy somewhere useful to go. Richard from Genki English lays out a simple rhythm: a short warmup review, a focused input stretch, then a longer output stage built around a classroom game.
A teacher in Brazil shares how songs, gestures, and props can make English feel visible for very young learners.
Miriam keeps the focus on a practical classroom question: how can a teacher enjoy a topic in a way that helps young learners feel that energy too?
Héctor and Beto dissect Mexican grammar, slang, and news in native-speed Spanish conversations.
Matt and Teacher Miriam discuss strategies to help students transition into English class in a foreign language environment.
Eric Kane of Elf Learning describes how a 2007 Keynote experiment and a cheap USB microphone led to classroom videos that parents and students used outside class.
Tim, who has lived in Japan since 2014, discusses Ready, Set, Ego with Matt from Dream English Teaching Tips Podcast and explains how the game grew from a 2018 classroom prototype.
Matt and Richard from Genki English talk about lesson planning, discipline, and using songs in English classes.
Matt from Dream English shares teaching tips for young English learners, featuring a conversation with teacher Miriam from Brazil about using songs and games.
Matt interviews Tati, a 41-year English teacher from outside São Paulo who now mentors teachers and co-hosts the Passionate Teachers ELT podcast.
Miriam divides Halloween into weekly themes—ghosts, monsters, then pirates—so Brazilian young learners meet vocabulary through crafts and videos.
Mark from MES English describes flashcards, printable materials, and online vocabulary games for English classes.