Find out the keys to teaching English successfully to these age groups.
Take a look at the image of these children. Can you guess their ages? Do you know what is happening in their brain development right now? Do you know how this will affect your teaching? Do you know what will be happening to their brains in three years' time?
You know the language, you even know the standard approaches for teaching English, but a good understanding of the cognitive, social and emotional development of these age groups will completely transform your teaching.
Go into the classroom with confidence. Learn about how children develop and think, as well as what changes when they reach adolescence. Find out how this affects their learning and your teaching decisions.
All Courses, TEFL (CELTA, Trinity CertTESOL) Course Preparation, Teaching English to Young Learners and Early Adolescents
Find out about the Cambridge DELTA. Decide if it is the course for you. See our links and suggestions for getting ready.
Free
All Courses, Teaching English to Young Learners and Early Adolescents
What is are young learners like? In this short course, we explore our beliefs and expectations regarding children, and compare that to key research into child development in relation to their learning. (3+ hours)
£15
All Courses, Teaching English to Young Learners and Early Adolescents
Discover how YLs develop listening skills. Understand why listening is the platform of language learning. Analyse activities for developing listening and the challenges. This module forms part of the Teaching English to Young Learners Series.
£25
All Courses, Teaching English to Young Learners and Early Adolescents
Discover how YLs transition from listening to speaking with the help of meaningful input. Analyse resources and activities for the classroom that are effective. This module forms part of the Teaching English to Young Learners Series.
£25
All Courses, Teaching English to Young Learners and Early Adolescents
Discover how YLs learn to read and the types of approaches used. Discover strategies, resources and activities for the classroom that are effective and age appropriate. This module forms part of the Teaching English to Young Learners Series.
£25
All Courses, Teaching English to Young Learners and Early Adolescents
Understand the process of how reading moves into writing. Recognise the stages and approaches required and explore different writing activities and age appropriateness. This module forms part of the Teaching English to Young Learners Series.
£25
Anna’s specialism is enabling primary and secondary school teachers with local constraints, such as limited resources, to become the best teacher they can by enhancing all students’ learning opportunities through engagement.
Her work as a Director of Studies and a teacher within the primary school system in New Zealand has given her an insight into curriculum development as well as setting up mentoring and CPD programmes for teachers. She’s passionate about working with young and very young learners (ages 3 to 13) and is involved in online tutoring of primary and secondary school teachers for the British Council and writing materials and social media resources for local state school teachers.
Qualifications
Accreditations
Emma Pratt (photographed here in 2026 with her father’s cows :) ) is a PhD candidate at Massey University, New Zealand, and an experienced teacher educator with over 20 years’ experience working in international education contexts across the UK, Spain, and New Zealand. Her current teaching focuses on preparing learners for UK English examinations, while her earlier work includes teaching and assessing academic writing for IELTS and Cambridge English. She is particularly interested in helping educators understand how writing is assessed and how teaching can be aligned with established frameworks. Alongside this, her broader pedagogical interests explore relational and reflective approaches to learning, including how classroom environments, attention, and wellbeing shape the learning experience. She brings a collaborative, practical approach to workshops, grounded in shared experience and open dialogue.
Emma has been designing online learning courses since 2013 and was, with Jamie King, a finalist in the ELTons 2014 for Innovation in Teaching
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