Teaching Advice for Stupid Rookies

[proust]

Hamish is not only a deep drinker, stout eater, prodigious lover, and creator of heroic grandeurs, but also a man of discernment.

We will go down in this sinking ship together. [Enter theme from Titanic, up and out.]

[Hamish]

Marcel !

Il est merveilleux pour lire votre essai sur l'enseignement ! Je l'ai apprécié immensément et sens réellement très la même manière au sujet de notre art. J'espère que vous considérerez vous laisser tomber par Baoding pour du thé et durcirez quand vous pouvez épargner le temps. Vous serez la plupart de bienvenue. Sallie et moi serons allés pour l'été, mais nous retournerons, et serons libres, en automne. Ce n'est pas une plaisanterie.

James

[roaming kiwi]

Hamish you bastard! Translate it for us others who speak Queen's English.

[burlives]

proust said:

Disclaimer: Nothing really works, but this seems closest to working for me. Further disclaimer: There is nothing here that a bright lad/lass couldn't pick up in a week on the job.

[12 Commandmants and an Axiom]

It all sounds like good advice if you wish to keep everyone on their toes, so I'm trying to find something wrong with it but I don't know why.

I don't have the energy for rigourous classroom management in a speaking class. Writing class is different. I think it's because I take writing to be a recognisable discipline whereas speaking isn't. One can and should have some discipline in thinking, and in pronunciation and possibly in spoken grammar, and, as a result, in some of one's speech, but maybe conversation is so much more give-and-take that specifically individual disciplines are counterproductive.

So... something.

[Hamish]

Kiwi!

Rube!

Monoglot!

Plebian!

Silence serves you better in the presence of your betters, naive!

And, I mean all that in the most loving way possible, given the immense gap in our cultural background.

[con's fly is open]

Hamish, quand j'ai travaillez au biblioteque, on mange beaucoups de champignons. J'ouvrer la fenetre avec un stilo et frappe le meuble. Ca c'etait une anee merveilleuse.

[George61]

Hamish, when I travel with my bible, I make sure I eat plenty of nushrooms. I open my window with a stiletto and decant my mobile. It gives my anus a marvellous feeling.

What the m'kay are you talking about?

[proust]

Hamish, uh . . . Ma tante Marie est sous la table avec le crayon rouge. Or something. Afraid my qing1 wa1 hua4 is considerably rusty--as might be expected in an aquatic environment. I'll PM you when I have your note puzzled out.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Burl Ives, I could have been a bit more explicit. My how-to-do-it remarks were geared to classes in oral English--the only classes that my masters, in their infinite wisdom, let me teach.

[burlives]

After a lot of direct teaching and exercising in the speaking classes this term, this week we've been having some conversations. It's the students first real crack at me and they start with, "What shall we talk about? Maybe we can talk about the weather."

This has led me to expostulate on the function of polite conversational reference to the weather. English speakers will initiate conversation by saying out loud something common in common. Sometimes it's the weather, sometimes it's a weekend sports result, sometimes it's some feature of the immediate environment, anything with some common context. But Chinese are taught only the weather.

Discussion of this led to questioning of the students on what they would like to be taught in a speaking class. They know that they can be taught forms. But we had just had this discussion of weather questions and form versus function.

Finally, several students were led to confess that they don't really want to ask foreigners "Do you like Chinese?", "How long in China?" and "Can you use chopsticks?" These confessors admit that even they know the questions are mostly meaningless! They claim they nonetheless have no other words.

Even so, they still get angry about straight conversation classes. As a teacher I should make them say something and let them have a grade.

[Da Dan]

I have been bringing photos into classes,
I give each student one or two & then they have to stand up & tell me something about it.

I get to teach the right way to ask for something while I do it.
At first, when I brought out my pile of pics, all I would hear is;
Give ME ... `GivE ME….

I then explained how rude it is to ask for something in that way & told them a few different ways to ask,
Writing it on the board as I went,

The whole time, I’d be looking through the pics & they would be crawling out of their seats to see them,
When they thought they had it right & asked
`Show me…
I would, I’d hold the pic up & show it to them, `for a second ;D


I now go around the class with the pile in my hands, each kid has to ask for one & pick one out of the stack.

Now, most know the right ways to ask for something, `even when to say please

Each student also gets there moment of fame as they have to tell about their pic.

I can ask questions of the ones that can actually speak English, questions they don’t expect so they have to think…
Is it raining in the pic?.. is he happy?… `How do you know? Is it day or night?… How do you know?

Great Fun, for me & the class… they get to see how English is used in normal conversations & even get to practice it.

& the ones who can’t speak, I let them get by with very basic descriptions of their pic.

I found post cards work best, I brought about 70 with me from Hawaii, great pics & Sturdy paper…

***
I put a new twist to it the last time,
I was teaching them how Important it is to listen.

First thing I did was review what a “couple” & a “few” is ; 2 & 3 or more…
I had All of my best photos with me & let them see…

Then, I went around the class Telling Each kid they can `have a couple[/b]… or… `take a few.

After I gave out the pics,
I went to the front, & asked them how many pictures they had.

97% told me they had 1.

I asked if they would like to have more than 1…
All said `Yes !

I then explained how Not Listening in life will Often leave them with less than they Can achieve.

`a great lessen

[burlives]

You know what? Up until my 20's, I used "a couple" as a synonym of "a few". How that came about in my life, I don't know. But it persists. Even now I feel it makes sense to say, "Have a couple of these" and expect that the actual number of things handed over is not fixed, even though I know better. My tentative hypothesis is that "a couple" should mean a matched pair and when it is allowed to be more general, as in having no more explicit meaning than "two (things)", then why not blur it's meaning into "a few"?

Who says, "'Ave a couple? Maaaate?" and means just two?

(Although I know this is in fact an example of matched pairs -- one beer for you and one for me.)

[con's fly is open]

I've always understood "a couple" to mean a matched pair and "a couple of" to mean 'probably two, maybe three, hey, who's counting anyway?'

[MK]

I only had a couple of beers babe, honest!

dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=17698&dict=CALD

[con's fly is open]

Thanks for the link! Merriam-Webster is nowing charging to use their site.

[ilunga]

I like that idea Dan. I just need to take some interesting photos.
This thread's been useful. Not only for one or two decent ideas but it's got my brain working and I've managed to think of a game.
Has anyone tried a variation on the Policeman/Thief/Citizen drinking game?
Give every student a playing card. They close their eyes. The thief (jack) most hold up his card. Citizens and the Policeman (king) must keep their eyes closed. Four witnesses (twos) open their eyes to see who the thief is.
The Policeman must choose a student. "I think you are the thief" Or "I think you saw the thief" He'll either get an answer of "I'm not the thief" or I didn't see the thief" unless he chooses a witness who can give a clue "the thief is a girl" for example.
Shame my classes are over now and I'm just showing Shrek whilst carrying out some basic speaking assessments.
One for next year though

Con, I can sympathise with the grade 5/6 problem.
Do you play games with them? I've got quite a few that have worked well.
Grade 6 can be bad. As the year has gone on I've noticed them slowly evolving into Junior Ones. It's not pleasant. Grade 2, 3 and 4 are my favourites. I think Grade 4 is just about the perfect age to teach. Maybe I'm just lucky that they're mostly little angels in my school.

[con's fly is open]

Games galore. Just the word "bingo" makes my stomach turn. It's all in the application, baby. I have to get them conversing in English. This class still doesn't have me impressing myself. But I'm not going gently into that mediocre night: tomorrow and Tuesday I'll work on classes. It'll still feel like a vacation: life without that piece of soilent green we fired. Well, they assigned the new girl to my classes to cut her teeth, so she'll have some fresh ideas.
It being the end of the week, I'm out of brain cells, but I'll consider that game of yours tomorrow.
Now if y'all will excuse me:

[Ruth]

I spent hours making a go fish game to facilitate speaking. I copied pictures from an assortment of books to work on the words I am currently teaching to my private students. Impossible to do this with my classes of 64-66, but works well with 5-7 kids. You need two of each picture. I 'laminated' the cards with wide tape. Next time I do this I will tape the pictures onto a real deck of cards for stability and ease of shuffling - live and learn.

So now my students say, 'May I please have a downstairs' or 'Do you have a summer?' The others must answer appropriately and then the recipient must say 'thank you' (with a TH sound!). I have various clothing words, the 4 seasons, over, under, around, in, on, between, beside, various food words, inside, outside, upstairs, downstairs. It's great. If someone gets hung up on pronunciation, we all practice.

Thanks for the post card idea, Dan. I'll have to pick some up this summer. Has anyone found poster board in this country?

Con - do you play bingo with pictures? I made up two more bingo games because my kids learned all the words from the game I brought with me. I'm willing to share my photocopies if you want to pm me your snail mail address. My kids love the bingo games and, by golly, they are learning the words by playing it.

[Nate M]

Well, as a stupid rookie, I thought I'd make an appearance here. Thanks for all the advice, ladies and gents. I can tell already that quite a bit of this is going to come in handy this next year.

-Nathan.

[Seth]

a game that worked wonders with my grade 5 and 6 (and younger) was just a big grid. make a grid on the chalkboard, numbers 1 - 10 on the x axis and letters a - j on the y axis. keep the squares on the board blank but have a little card with numbers in the blanks that only you can see. if a student in a team answers the question right, makes a sentence, twitches his eye or whatever, ask them to pick a square. if they pick, say, f-7, look at your little card and write in the number value on the board. this is how many points the team scores. i usually have 10 points up to 50 and throw in a few 100s to keep it interesting. i usually played this game every 2 weeks or so to review past lessons. they've always had a lot of fun with this game, even the big sleeping dopes in the back would at least watch.

grades 5 and 6 is that magical age when they're in between children and the baijiu swilling buttheads we all know and love. i still have nightmares about teaching those grades, along with junior 1.

something that worked wonderfully with grades 1 - 3 were little books. take about 5 sheets of regular paper, folded in half, and stapled together to make a little book. every week create a new page in the english book. an example would be a page called 'my favorite animals is a _______.' they'd decide which animal is their favorite and write the sentence in their book, then draw and color a picture of the animal. then i have a few come to the front of the class and recite from their books and show everyone their picture. it made everyone happy; the students like to draw and color and make things, the teachers like how well behaved the children were while making the books, children proudly read from their books when asked, making parents and headmasters happy. and it's easy on you while the children write the sentences and draw their pictures. they aren't running around and biting each other.

the only weird thing i had with this was a chinese kid who was raised in australia. the other children would loudly proclaim 'my favwit anumal is cat!', while this kid would say things like 'i rather like ferrets but they tend to be messy, so i prefer dolphins.'