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cspitzig · Joined: 01 Nov 2007 Posts: 56

I've been teaching English in Taiwan for a few years. I want to improve my skills. I've read a few books about teaching, but a lot of it doesn't seem very relevant given (some of the classes') English level. All the books I get when I do searches seem to be about specific lessons. I'd like something broader than that.

Classroom management is one issue I'd like to read about. Another is how to deal with the most basic learners. At my last job, I never had students that low, and I'm the ONLY English or foreign teacher at my current school-I don't get much feedback. Also, how to make a good lesson plan-I recently took a CELTA class, but much of it is irrelevant for children. At, my last job, the lesson plans were done for me.

tttompatz · Posted: Tue Aug 09, 2011 10:33 am Post subject:

How young are your kids?
ECE (3-6 years old) or Primary level (7-12 years old).

http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storyCode=6081830&s_cid=RESads_TTVvideos might be a good place to start from if you have no relative experience with young learners.

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cspitzig · Joined: 01 Nov 2007 Posts: 56

They are Primary level. I've taught students this age, but they've always had a little higher level English. Some of these students have never had an English class.

Also, another problem is the number of students. There are 22 students in the class(though many don't come because of summer vacation). This makes a lot of the games I know not work as well.

tttompatz · Posted: Tue Aug 09, 2011 11:13 am Post subject:

cspitzig · Joined: 01 Nov 2007 Posts: 56

It sounds like maybe the books we're using for the lower levels are not very appropriate for the age level, then. One book is a reading book, the other is a phonics book(which also focuses on handwriting). While the reading book sometimes has TPR appropriate vocabulary, the phonics book has none. The vocabulary in the phonics book is all nouns.

I've been adding one or two songs at the beginning of class(trying to make them relevant to the vocab). I'm not sure it's useful to give out copies of the songs to the phonics class-since they probably can't read them, maybe the paper is just something to play with. Actually, the songs were something my girlfriend suggested as a way to get their attention and say "it's English time!"(mentally) at the beginning of class.