Abandoned: Children Learning English by Jayne Moon

I started this book on February 06, 2019.  
The reason I was reading this book was because I was doing Delta Module 3, and my specialism was Young Learners.  
Now, one of the things they tell you about Delta Module 3 is that you're not supposed to read books cover to cover.  There's no time and there's too much ground to cover.  (You need to cite 5-6 different sources for each section.)  You're only supposed to skim the book to find the exact information you need.
But, since I've always done things the hard way, I had the idea that while I did the usual skimming and scanning, I would also read through books on the side.  (In theory, I try to always be reading one book related to professional development.  So I thought I just move my professional development reading over to the Delta Module 3.)
I did get one Delta Module 3 Young Learners book read cover to cover--Teaching Young Language Learners by Annamaria Pinter.  Immediately after finishing that book, I started on Children Learning English by Jayne Moon.  But I never finished Children Learning English.

It was a busy year and I got distracted by other things.  I began to realize I knew nothing about assessing young learners (also part of the Delta Module 3), so on March 13, I shifted gears to Assessing Young Language Learners by Penny McKay.  At that time, I hadn't finished Children Learning English, but I thought maybe I could read both of them at the same time--finish up Jayne Moon while still reading Penny McKay.  It was overly optimistic.  I was working two jobs, and writing the Delta Module 3, and dealing with a baby in the apartment.  And then in June I got transferred over to the Teacher Training Department, and on the advice of my new colleague, started re-reading Learning Teaching by Jim Scrivener.  
Like I said, it was a busy year.

But that being said, I did also waste some time that year.  I spent a lot of time on Facebook, Youtube and Twitter.  If I had been a little bit more disciplined, I totally could have finished this book.
I mention that because I almost finished this book.  I got about 70 pages into, and then stopped reading it, and then a couple months later picked it up again, and decided to start from the beginning again, and got pretty close to finishing it.  I don't remember exactly what page I stopped on, but it was around 130.  And the book is only 181 pages long.  I was in sight of the end when I stopped reading.

I mention that with regret, because I like being able to finish a book, review it on this blog, and count it as one of my "books read".  And I fully realize no one cares about that but me, but I care about it.  I tend to measure a fair amount of my success in life by how many books I tick off each year.  (I haven't been doing well lately.)

But at this point, it's too late to just pick up where I left off and finish the book. Too much time has gone by, and it's so faded in my memory that I can no longer talk about it intelligently.  I'd have to start all over again from the beginning if I wanted to give it a proper review.

And on top of that, I've changed jobs this year, so I'm no longer working primarily with Young Learners anymore.  So, for the moment at least, this book is not even linked to my professional development.  So there's absolutely no reason to read it now.

Like I said, because this book has faded in my memory, I can't really talk about this book intelligently now.  I can just make some general comments.
There are a lot of little comics and illustration on this book that make it look visually appealing and attractive when you flip through it, but I found the text of the book (the actual main content) to be on the dry side.  Several times I found my attention wandering when I was supposed to be reading it, and had to re-read the same page several times.  (Another reason I didn't make better progress than I did.)  

I was a bit surprised how none of this book appeared to be based on research.  There are a lot of good ideas in here, to be sure, but it appears to be just ideas that the author picked up over her years of teaching.  There was nothing linked to research or data, which meant it was not particularly useful for me on my Delta Module 3.  Which surprise me because this book does pop up on Delta Module 3 reading lists for the Young Learners specialism.  (Before writing this post, I went over to my Delta Module 3 paper to see how often I had cited this book, and when doing the Ctrl+F function, I was surprised to realize I never cited it once.)

But the book is still useful for getting practical ideas from if you are teaching young learners.

Video review HERE and embedded below: