Teacher Discussion Forums

I am in Ciang Mai, Thailand and if anyone out there has any suggestions, specifically games and such that worked for you i would love to hear about it. I am working with children ages 6-13. Let me know, Thanks.
Ryan

Hi,

Teaching 6-13yr olds sounds fun! Kids (and adults) love competitions, try some active fun games. This also encourages Ss to communicate in English and for team work, because they have to discuss and agree on each answer to each task.

In teams. Set them tasks to do in English related to a topic/theme.
E.G. Theme-Human Body:
Each team should have a blank outline of a human body pinned onto wall. (This can be made by each team before the actual competition day, in Art class, can get team to name the blank body, or T draws on blackboard the body outline for each team.)
Tasks:
1. think of 5 body nouns beginning with 'H'
2. what are the 5 senses?
3. complete the human body gap fill; simple wordsearch etc etc.
when all tasks are completed, get the team to label the body with the nouns they have chosen and relate the senses to the body.
1st team who finishes tasks and labels the body correctly wins.

This competition can be for a whole day, u can adapt/change it anyway you like. Just an idea. You have to monitor the Ss closely for good team effort though.

Have fun!

I've taught in Thailand for 4 years and love it. Are you in a public (state) school or private school? Presumably you have access to pens and card and paper but few photographs and no paint?

If your classes are fairly large put them in teams, elect team leaders, scribes and other responsible persons. Make sure your activities are tightly organised. Thai children are forgiving but that won't stop them messing about! I usually have mini-projects which last perhaps two weeks. So for example I had a class of 9 year olds making shoes out of card which they designed themselves and modelled in assembly (complete with phat dance tchoons and commentry from individual students and chorus, 'Ploi is wearing a sandals decorated with stars and moons...' etc.). Students began working individually, practicing drawing their own school shoes (very dull) and looking at some fachion pics. They then chose student associates and worked together on designs. In between there were all sorts of sub-activities based around four skills focus (listening, speaking, reading, writing). We all found it enormous fun.

All ideas I find with Thai children should be humourous and light no matter how ambitious they are. So if you're doing something as strightforward as total physical response (TPR) see if they can put one hand on their tummies going round and round and one hand on their heads going up and down. See if they can do that standing on one leg, with their eyes closed. If all the desks are in rows, give children a piece of paper each and get them to listen and draw giant mosquitoes with purple bodies and ten wings, feed that in into a wall display project and so forth.

For quickie colouring fillers with potential for development go to www.learningpage.com

Sallam