Job Discussion Forums

[Mr. English]

One activity I found young kids love is races. For example, using flashcards, teach them three or four or five or six new words (the older the kids, the more words they can handle). Then, move all the desks and chairs to the side and divide the class into two groups, one on each side of the room. In the middle put the flashcards on the floor. The kids need to be in line, and you need to make the rule clear, only one from each team runs to the middle of the room at a time. Call out the word on one of the flashcards. One kid from each team runs to the middle of the room, and the first one to touch the correct card gets a point for their team. They will not fall asleep during this exercise.

Try teaching them to tell time. A big clock helps, but you can draw them on the board too. Begin by teaching just quarter hours, and also put the minute numbers on the outside of the circle. As a final test, have two teams, two clocks drawn on the board, announce a time and see if they can draw it. They will never get the hour hand quite right, but the minute hand they will.

If your rooms are big enough, hide flashcards while they close their eyes (some will always watch you). Then pick one student who runs and looks for a card. After they find the card they have five seconds to say the word of what is on the card. If they get it right, one point for their team.

For the small ones, gad I forget the words, been a while since I taught this age group, but it goes something like 1 finger 1 finger turn turn turn, turn into a mouse squeek squeek squeek. And you have put up one finger from each hand, turned your hands in a circle, and then imitate a mouse on the floor. two is a rabbit, hop hop hop. three is a cat's whiskers. four? a dog? five is a tiger, ROAR. The little kids love it.

And spacial relations: above, under, behind, beside, on, in, in front of. You need a small box and a smaller object.

[The Great Wall of Whiner]

[Non Sequitur]

This is one of those classic situations where the Chinese feel that FT=Miracle Worker. They seen unable to work out that �beginner learners� must be taught English �in Chinese�. That is Chinese as the �language of instruction�. It is only after the student can conduct a basic conversation in English, that a FT can add value.

The CTs in this situation will take no responsibility for their failure to teach a basic level of understanding of English and the word in their common room will be �those Foreign Teachers are useless aren�t they?� Did I read that OP is the first FT on staff at that school? No surprises there. But, that attitude is also pervasive in schools with long histories of employing FTs. Years of dysfunctional education, yet someone from the West is expected to fix it overnight.

A good strategy is to �give� the students the language and then have them repeat it back to you.

A game that I call �Pre Charades�, might help. List say 10 simple activities on the board. These should be everyday things that lend themselves to being acted out.

�I feel happy� ��I feel sad�, �I am walking my dog�, �I have broken my leg�, �I am playing football� etc

Say and act out each one and then have the students guess a few that you act out.

Select a confident student to come to the front select an activity without saying which one and act it out.

The class raises hands if they want to guess the activity.

Repeat.

This is banal and repetitive but it needs to be at this level. Once all the class has a level of confidence in �Pre Charades� you can progress to real charades where the student must rely on the acting to reveal the activity.

I know OP is employed as an Oral English teacher but 'learning by doing' can�t be left out of the equation.
I do not envy the OP one bit. You have been tossed in the deep end and to your credit you're trying to deliver something to your students.

[GeminiTiger]

OP, you should sneak into some other teacher's classes and learn what methods you can from the Chinese. It will show them that your trying to learn, make them quite nervious at the same time and might just give you a few tips. It's all win-win.

[Chen_Bolin]

A big problem right now is that I have a Teaching Assistant but some of the other teachers sat in on our classes during the first week with a class I had never met before. unfortunately I had up to this point only taught the 2,4 and 5 grade and this was a 1, to say the least I overestimated the level of the students and the class was a flop.

The teachers who were sitting in reported back to the principal. Apparently they thought the class flopped because of my TA and the principal told her that she would watch other teachers be my TA for a week then after the break (Mid-Autumn Festival) She could try again but if the class was bad (any of the approx 20 classes a week I have) she would lose her job.

Now she wants to play it cool and make sure the kids will learn what we want them to learn. which is fine, the problem is that she has become resistant to me trying new things especially if she feels they are too hard for the kids. On top of that we still have very little direction in what we should teach.

[Opiate]

[Chen_Bolin]

The TA is as new as I am. Her only previous teaching experience was high school biology and yes I am aware that it may be my neck on the line. I am going to try and sit in on some classes but I rarely have time for it.