Job Discussion Forums

[Nyrthak]

I teach Kindergarten. I use "Superkids" and "Kangaroo". Both are very good. The school buys them from Pearson. Superkids comes with all the flash cards and if you are creative with game playing (I play games using Superkids material with 4-6 year olds), is a very good resource. Kangaroo is different. It is more based around songs and a colourful book. It comes with VCD's that are an excellent resource...especially to keep children interested in the last five to ten minutes of class. I use Kangaroo with the younger ones..say 3-4 years.

[Roger]

[elliot]

Hey no_exit,
I've just started a summer English program for the more well off students in my city and I decided on using Fun Fun English for grades 1, 2 and 3. It is published by the Foreign Language and Teaching Research Press in Beijing and therefore is cheap as chips, about 18kuai a book. You get 8 units which if used creatively will last about 40, 30min lessons.
It also comes with a song and chant book that is great with KTV style words to music and chinese folk doing really cheesey dancing, kids love it though.
Each unit introduces about 20 new vocab items and the following pages have simple dialogues using the words and using simple grammar patterns. It also has listening excercises and some basic writing too. It is of Korean origins so the names are slightly difficult to start off with but the kids pick them up ok.

[no_exit]

[quote="Roger"]

[Roger]

Dear no-exit,

it's really good to read a post written by an ex-Montessorian! You know, I have seen the Montessori sign in at least one mainland kindergarten - and it was just there to hoodwink the unsuspecting parents into beliieving their kids would get a very good preschool education. Unfortunately, the owner of that kindergarten was a Singaporean school and not in the least concerned with honesty.

Honesty would have required him to involve the parents in the teaching; parents would have to take off time to attend teacher-parents meetings, right? But you see, such things never happen in China: the parents are the "customers" who expect the kindergarten to perform miracles called a "service".

I see your dilemma, no-exit; I can only say you must adapt and make the best of your situation! I think that other poster's suggestion of buying mainland-produced materials is not too bad.

I can also suggest a book (with VCD) ENGLISH WONDERLAND, which I consider one of the best materials available in the mainland market.

There is hope, though: the publishers I mentioned before are all eager to market their materials in China. Trouble is that there are no bookshops that stock them; the prices are prohibitive for most Chinese though I believe the price of a book should not be the stumbling block.

LONGMAN publishes some of their products in China (usually poor quality); good materials come from Australia (Pearson-Longman) and they have a price; but if a school is willing to sacrifice materialism for education you can place an order and get things with a discount. Let me know if I can help. I am dealing with a mainland-based distributor.

[no_exit]

Hey, if you want, I have the e-mail of a Pearson-Longman distributor here in China. He is handling all of my textbook orders, and the costs are not prohibitive, although obviously nowhere near as cheap as a local publisher would be. I've found that the parents are not usually too bothered by the price as long as they are convinced that what they are getting is the best out there. There is one school in town (the name escapes me, but not EF obviously) that sells a book set (with audio CDs) for 1000RMB! The students are supposed to use this set for a whole three years, which seems like quite a commitment for just one set. The books I am ordering will cost me between 100-200RMB for the book/workbook/CD set. I will probably have to sell them to the parents at a slightly higher cost simply to offset the cost of shipping.

On the Montessori topic (which I'll get around to starting another thread about recently) ... there is going to be a Montessori conference held in Beijing (by AMI, the oldest Montessori governing body around) in the coming months, with extensions in cities throughout the country. If you want more info I can find out details. Apparently Montessori is growing in China, but you're right that it is mostly misunderstood by parents who simply think foreign = good. Although I did have a parent of an 8 year old who had been reading anything he could get his hands on regarding early childhood education quote to me the Montessori philosophy almost verbatim the other day! And I've seen Chinese translations of The Absorbent Mind and the Secret of Childhood (to anyone else reading this, read these two books front to back if you want to know what I really think about education before putting any more words in my mouth, heh).

Like I mentioned, I'd ultimately love to set up a complete Montessori school here, but at the moment the costs are somewhat prohibitive, not to mention the beaurocratic nightmare that would be involved in actually getting a full K-12 program liscenced on the mainland (not to mention getting AMI certification). As a product of this method, I've got nothing but great things to say about it -- Montessori instilled in me a lifelong love of learning that sadly gets snuffed out by age 8 in most Chinese children I've seen, as they become hyper focused on grades, test scores, and memorization rather than discovery.

[mandu]

our kindergarten uses a book called Doctor Bird,its for k1 k2 k3 it has good topics and the songs are related to what is being taught.i have been teaching kindergarten in china for over 5 years and this book is the best one i have used so far.

the only one problem with the book are the pictures they are not that good.

i can find out for yoy what company puts the book out my email is [email protected]

[thepreferrednomenclature]

Montessori is already a huge deal here in Beijing and most private Kindergartens now offer classes that either feature part day or full day Montessori style Kindergarten curriculum.

I was in Qingdao last weekend at the opening of a beautiful new RedYellowBlue Kindergarten there, and they have one Montessori trained teacher in each classroom.

As for texts books for that age, I fall in line with Roger and Vikdk in saying textbooks are generally not appropriate, especially for K1 or K2, and certainly won't be very effective without a great teacher being extremely creative with their use (though I'm sure no_exit is a very creative teacher and will be fine)

Please don't use GoGo.

[KL]

I haven't been motivated to post in ages, but never let a chance to praise Montessori go by! My daughter is in a AMI accredited Montessori school here in BJ. She is barely four and reading and writing in Chinese and English. The radicals for characters are introduced in the same way...with sandpaper letters. They also use trays of rice to "write" the letters/characters using fingers. Parents are always welcome to observe and have scheduled observations twice a year. I am thrilled with what I see and with the fact that I have to sneak in and turn off her light as she falls asleep reading and looking at books every night! She loves trying to figure out words and loves learning. True Montessori education is awesome!

[no_exit]

I'm so glad to hear that Montessori is catching on in Beijing. I'd heard things (mostly from the folks back home, who are heavy into the Montessori community. My mother's older sister is an AMI trainer and they were both involved in kicking off the Montessori movement in the States back in the 60s and 70s) about it getting more popular in China. Wherever I'm living, when I have kids it will be Montessori all the way, even if I have to import my family over here and start the school myself!

preferred, what don't you like about GoGo? The kindy kids I saw seemed to love it. I'll go ahead and admit that I was skeptical about choosing a kindy text at first too, and my original idea was to have an American friend of mine, who is a great artist, put together a workbook of sorts for coloring, tracing words, and other simple activities they could do at home. However, the parents like sets. They like shiny pages and bright colors and trademarks from foreign publishers and CDs they can listen to in the car. I can't really effectively argue with them when other programs in the area (like the dreaded EF!) offer just that, at least not until our school is established, has build a reputation, and can afford to go against expectations. Of course just having a book doesn't mean being reliant upon it in the classroom, and of course I realize what a stupid idea that would be anyhow, when we're talking about five year olds here who can hardly sit still for five minutes, let alone actually follow a book-oriented lesson for an hour! It is just another resource, among many, that I want to have available, especially given the parental demand.