(photo: a kindergartener showing how he can add)Today I am “happy as a king” as my kids would say, because I found out officially that I will be teaching Class 8 English next term. This means I will get to continue with my current English students as they move up from Class 7 to Class 8. Although I have not yet looked over the curriculum, I know it is a pretty similar style to what I have been teaching this term, and I think being with the same students will really be an advantage to them and to me. I have just finally been getting to know them, and I have developed a number of exercises and activities based around their trouble areas.
I won’t be teaching maths (and I won’t miss it!) since I will be busy with helping set up the library and teaching basic computer skills to the teachers! The computer class wasn’t planned before we came here, but upon arriving we learned that there is a significant desire for adults in the community to learn computers. The teachers are a great group to start with, since they have good English language skills (i.e., can understand our teaching) and they have legitimate reasons to need to use computers (we are hopefully getting some for the new building and will put the library tracking system on them). Of course, if the teachers are computer literate they are the perfect people to in turn teach the rest of the community. We have really seen God’s hand in the development of this project and leading me (Lesley) to take it on as a significant activity while we are here.
Since I now know which class I will be teaching next term, I have some questions for all my teacher friends out there. As much as I have learned in the last few months, I feel like I have many questions and need advice! So, please respond if you have any ideas or suggestions:
-How do you handle large classes with a huge range of abilities? Classroom control isn’t as much the issue as the fact that students aren’t used to breaking out in groups. Any ideas how to successfully introduce group work? I know that the current wisdom says to use heterogeneous groups that help each other – how do you set those up? And does anyone actually use homogeneous ability groups so that you can give them separate assignments and assistance?
-Do you have any ideas for warm-up activities to start the class? I seem to get significantly better participation if I start with something fun and non-threatening that I can transition into a lesson. For instance, I ask them what they did over the weekend (they need to practice oral skills more), then I write what they did on the board and transition into a lesson on past-tense verbs. Any other ideas?
-In a similar vein, do you have any ideas for songs, poems, and games that help encourage English learning? Not things ABOUT English, but things IN English that are easy to learn. I’ve tried a few songs; so far the most popular was “make new friends but keep the old, one is silver and the other is gold.” I created a lesson on conjunctions (“but,” “and”) and we held a debate on new friends vs. old friends. Anything that encourages oral skills and writing is good.
-Do you know any good resources on teaching writing (especially for English as a second language)? The curriculum here teaches grammar and gives the student writing prompts, but doesn’t actually do anything to TEACH writing. So, do you know of any books, websites, etc. that I could explore for some advice? The kids are expected mostly to do creative writing/story telling at this stage, not really analysis or anything.
-I like the idea of doing some things on a daily and weekly basis, such as word of the day or a daily journal entry, and perhaps a word puzzle/riddle of the week, that type of thing. Have any of you done things like this? Have any suggestions/advice?
Ok, those are my specific questions, but if you have any other suggestions or advice I’m all ears! Thanks so much!
(photo: Chris with this year's graduating class)
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