Job Discussion Forums

[Carolebest]

I am a 50 yo with no experience in teaching. I have a kindergarten class and have no idea what to do with them or what to teach. The school has blocked all kindergarten sites. On the net before i left it generally said most schools had their own curriculum and books. We have nothing and no library worth mentioning. Any ideas for lesson plans and activities would be very appreciated or sites that might not be google. I am very desperate!

[pancakes]

Have a look at the thread down the page a bit, about ideas for kindergarten classes.

Look at www.genkienglish.net . If you can't access that site, go to http://anonymouse.org , and type it in again there. Anonymouse is a proxy thingamajig, which creates an advertising pop-up each time it's used, but that's easy to get rid of.

Look here on Dave's, too: http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/teacher/viewtopic.php?t=2591

General kindy advice: be happy, keep them occupied - though not always with English, let them be kids, sing songs and use physical things like blocks, word cards, actual objects, etc.

There's plenty of advice around on the net - have a look if you can. If Google is blocked, remember it's not the only search engine around; you might have better luck with others?

[Roger]

Are you sure www.bogglesworld.com is blocked? Have you tried to view some sites that host Montessori schools and chatrooms?

Can you get your employer to buy VCDs? I would suggest ENGLISH WONDERLAND available from many inland bookstores or from its publisher, www.fltrp.com.cn.

When I was teaching kindergartners I designed a long-term teaching plan that saw physical activities (including races, PE and so on) once a week; in addition I taught them how to draw, and from drawing they learnt how to name objects and their composite parts. Later I introduced them to the world of letters by way of drawing and colouring them.
Every once in a while I reveiwed new concepts covered with my learners.

THe themes we covered were suited to a young child's incipient conceptionalisation of the world: you begin with the child himself or herself, body parts, clothes; feelings; you also work on the conceptionalisation of "I" compared to 'you", "he" versus "she". THis takes far more time than is generally realised by locals here - do it without the use of the kids' first tongue!!!

Introduce numbers, but, please, don't use your fingers to signal any number! LEt them learn to associate the correct sound to a nascent idea in their minds - have pupils line up by twos, threes and fours, for example.

You need to be energetic because these young learners are full of beans!

[Brian Caulfield]

I suggest something very radical . Bring in the grandparents and teach them the alphabet . You see before 1970 people did not know pinyin . It is a chance to educate them and have a nice interaction. One of the problems in the west that is not seen here is that old people in China like kids . In Canada we were told to not mention grandpa or grandma because most kids never see these people .
Have you tried the reverse alphabet race . Have the kids write on the blackboard the alphabet backwards . Working with the kids is how you learn to teach adults . And they never complain . And they come to class everyday happy to see you . You're a lucky man