Andrew Aigner-MuehlerChapter 7..What to teach your students. Lessons 2 to 6.
December 26th 2008 15:14
Okay! in the last chapter, I told you, that your first week, was for you to get to know your students and for your students to get to know you.
But, during that first week, you will need to start to prepare you lessons or classes for the next week. I suggest, start thinking about it on the Monday prior, but start to put something down on paper on the Wednesday. If you can, start thinking two weeks before. I also suggest to keep a note book or exercise book, of what you are doing each week. It will sooner than later become a reference for you. To look back at what you have taught them. You will need to prepare exams mid year and at the end of the year for your students, so again it is a reference to what you have taught them, what to test them on. If you are at the school with another foreign teacher, more than likely, that you will swap over half way through the year, most likely after Spring Festival. Another reason, for keeping a record in a exercise book is, if you are staying in China for more than one year, you can use the same program or lessons for the next year, of which you can make the lessons better or make adjustments too.
In this chapter, I will give you some suggestions. These suggestions are topics that I did with my students in a middle school. I was teaching grade one students who were freshman in middle school and aged around 15 years, whose English was very good. I was also teaching grade two students who were aged around 16 years, but their English was not so good.
After the first week, with grade two, I did a exercise called 'what type of student are you' where I asked the students a list of questions where they needed to write down a true or false answer, and at the end, I interpreted each answer, and told the students, what each answer meant. This topic, I actually downloaded from the internet, by putting 'lessons for english class' in the google search bar. Even so, the writer of this lesson said this was a good lesson for the first lesson for me to get to know the students. I found it quite it quite hard for the students to understand me, after one week, they were also quite bored. So, I would not do this again, so soon into the semester. Maybe it may better for later on in the semester.
The following week for grade two and grade one students. I did a topic called 'getting to know your class mates'. I got each student to get a piece of paper out. I split the students into pairs. I then gave each student 1 minute to write 10 to 15 words on their class mate, no less than 10 words or no more than 15 words. Then one by one, I got each student to stand up and read out what they wrote. This topic got the students involved and participating. They also liked to say something about their class mate. Maybe, I will do this as the first main lesson next time. This was a leson, I thought off by myself. To me, it was a success.
The next lesson for grade two. I did a lesson on music. As I introduced myself to the students in the first week, they all said they liked music. Well, not sure about that anymore. I talked to them about the origins of music. Where music came from. I also mentioned the types of music along with some famous artist attached to those types of music ie Elvis Presley and rock'n'roll, Bob Marley to Reggae, Ray Charles with Blues etc etc. After this, I then went around the class and tried to get the students to tell me some of their favourite songs or artist, and if they wanted to sing they could. As the Chinese like to sing. Some of the students participated and told me, but some said sorry I do know or I do not like music, which you know is a excuse to not participate. The start of the lesson, they listened to. It was again a topic that I planned by myself, which was a part successful, but talking about music to middle school students is a must, I think as they do like music and they do not get taught in middle school, so it is something different.
With grade one during this week. I did a topic called '30 must learn sentence for Beijing people'. This handout was given to me by a manager of a karaoke bar in my first couple week in Chengde, and I asked him, if I could take, as I was a teacher and thought it may be useful. Well, it was. The handout had responses on it. I say, responses from a local person answering to a tourist who was asking for directions. What I got the class to do, is for one student to read and the deskmate to give me a action or a question to that response, for example "welcome to Beijing" was the response, a action may have been "hello or ni hao", another one was "do you want it hot or cold" was the response, a action or question could have been "could I please have a glass of milk?". I had 30 of these responses. This handout, that I gave to the students also had the translation into Chinese characters which could be useful for their families as well. This lesson also took up the whole 45 minutes. The following week with grade one, I got them to prepare a 2 to 5 minute role play based on this handout. Well, this lesson was a absolute success. Still is, today my best two lessons. The students enjoyed alot. If you like, to have a look, send me a email at andrewam26@hotmail.com and I will send one out to you. The same week I did the role plays with grade one, with grade two. I spoke about travel. As you know, travelling is one of Australias favourite cultures. Anything to do with other countries or travelling, the students will listen and participate in. I just discussed with the students when we go. Where we go. How we go. How much we are likely to spend. What we do on holiday. where we mainly go. I talked about my favourite destination and where I have been. After this. I then got the students to write about their favourite holiday, if they hadn't gone on a holiday, to write about a dream holiday. The students will participate in this. I collected at the end of the class, and I checked for grammar and spelling to help them out. Reading some of these, I tell you will touch you. Alot of students have never gone on a holiday. They will talk about a dream holiday. If they have gone on one, it will surprise you, on where they went and what they did. It touches you alot. I had a few tears with some. I think, this lesson is also a must. this was also a lesson planned by me fully.
The next week. With grade two and grade one, I played games. With grade two I played a couple. The first one, I played was the spelling game where I started with a food ie' bread' and then I nominated a student to say a food starting with 'd', they may have said 'duck', and then they nominated a student to say a food starting with 'k' and so on. The students will see this as fun. They will pick on the weaker students. It is a good game. Challenge them, they wont think of more than 20 words in a row. The students will find it easy to 8 words and then struggle at around 12 to 15 words. The other game I played was where, i had groups. I had 8 tables across the room, so I had 8 groups, from going from the front to the back. I got one person up from each group. Gave them a piece of chalk. I then said "okay, once I say go, you have 2 minutes to write as many words on the board starting with the letter '?'" The team with the most correct words, wins. Becareful with this game. Participation is great, but is very very noisy. It is hard to quiet them down. But give it a try. This week, I did start to play indoor ping pong joining 15 tables together 3x5, but I canned it after the first lesson, as it was very noisy, and I started to feel paranoid of being told off for having a noisy class.
One thing I noticed from this week, the students like games, they just want to play games.
But, during that first week, you will need to start to prepare you lessons or classes for the next week. I suggest, start thinking about it on the Monday prior, but start to put something down on paper on the Wednesday. If you can, start thinking two weeks before. I also suggest to keep a note book or exercise book, of what you are doing each week. It will sooner than later become a reference for you. To look back at what you have taught them. You will need to prepare exams mid year and at the end of the year for your students, so again it is a reference to what you have taught them, what to test them on. If you are at the school with another foreign teacher, more than likely, that you will swap over half way through the year, most likely after Spring Festival. Another reason, for keeping a record in a exercise book is, if you are staying in China for more than one year, you can use the same program or lessons for the next year, of which you can make the lessons better or make adjustments too.
After the first week, with grade two, I did a exercise called 'what type of student are you' where I asked the students a list of questions where they needed to write down a true or false answer, and at the end, I interpreted each answer, and told the students, what each answer meant. This topic, I actually downloaded from the internet, by putting 'lessons for english class' in the google search bar. Even so, the writer of this lesson said this was a good lesson for the first lesson for me to get to know the students. I found it quite it quite hard for the students to understand me, after one week, they were also quite bored. So, I would not do this again, so soon into the semester. Maybe it may better for later on in the semester.
The next lesson for grade two. I did a lesson on music. As I introduced myself to the students in the first week, they all said they liked music. Well, not sure about that anymore. I talked to them about the origins of music. Where music came from. I also mentioned the types of music along with some famous artist attached to those types of music ie Elvis Presley and rock'n'roll, Bob Marley to Reggae, Ray Charles with Blues etc etc. After this, I then went around the class and tried to get the students to tell me some of their favourite songs or artist, and if they wanted to sing they could. As the Chinese like to sing. Some of the students participated and told me, but some said sorry I do know or I do not like music, which you know is a excuse to not participate. The start of the lesson, they listened to. It was again a topic that I planned by myself, which was a part successful, but talking about music to middle school students is a must, I think as they do like music and they do not get taught in middle school, so it is something different.
With grade one during this week. I did a topic called '30 must learn sentence for Beijing people'. This handout was given to me by a manager of a karaoke bar in my first couple week in Chengde, and I asked him, if I could take, as I was a teacher and thought it may be useful. Well, it was. The handout had responses on it. I say, responses from a local person answering to a tourist who was asking for directions. What I got the class to do, is for one student to read and the deskmate to give me a action or a question to that response, for example "welcome to Beijing" was the response, a action may have been "hello or ni hao", another one was "do you want it hot or cold" was the response, a action or question could have been "could I please have a glass of milk?". I had 30 of these responses. This handout, that I gave to the students also had the translation into Chinese characters which could be useful for their families as well. This lesson also took up the whole 45 minutes. The following week with grade one, I got them to prepare a 2 to 5 minute role play based on this handout. Well, this lesson was a absolute success. Still is, today my best two lessons. The students enjoyed alot. If you like, to have a look, send me a email at andrewam26@hotmail.com and I will send one out to you. The same week I did the role plays with grade one, with grade two. I spoke about travel. As you know, travelling is one of Australias favourite cultures. Anything to do with other countries or travelling, the students will listen and participate in. I just discussed with the students when we go. Where we go. How we go. How much we are likely to spend. What we do on holiday. where we mainly go. I talked about my favourite destination and where I have been. After this. I then got the students to write about their favourite holiday, if they hadn't gone on a holiday, to write about a dream holiday. The students will participate in this. I collected at the end of the class, and I checked for grammar and spelling to help them out. Reading some of these, I tell you will touch you. Alot of students have never gone on a holiday. They will talk about a dream holiday. If they have gone on one, it will surprise you, on where they went and what they did. It touches you alot. I had a few tears with some. I think, this lesson is also a must. this was also a lesson planned by me fully.
The next week. With grade two and grade one, I played games. With grade two I played a couple. The first one, I played was the spelling game where I started with a food ie' bread' and then I nominated a student to say a food starting with 'd', they may have said 'duck', and then they nominated a student to say a food starting with 'k' and so on. The students will see this as fun. They will pick on the weaker students. It is a good game. Challenge them, they wont think of more than 20 words in a row. The students will find it easy to 8 words and then struggle at around 12 to 15 words. The other game I played was where, i had groups. I had 8 tables across the room, so I had 8 groups, from going from the front to the back. I got one person up from each group. Gave them a piece of chalk. I then said "okay, once I say go, you have 2 minutes to write as many words on the board starting with the letter '?'" The team with the most correct words, wins. Becareful with this game. Participation is great, but is very very noisy. It is hard to quiet them down. But give it a try. This week, I did start to play indoor ping pong joining 15 tables together 3x5, but I canned it after the first lesson, as it was very noisy, and I started to feel paranoid of being told off for having a noisy class.
One thing I noticed from this week, the students like games, they just want to play games.
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