all the young dudes
I teach four year olds.
I teach lots of kids. Lots of kids. Some of my classes have forty-five kids in them. Chinese kindergartens are like that. In fact, I'm told the classes were split into smaller bits to protect the sensitive westerners who might be teaching them.
Getting through the five and six year old classes is all rather easy. You identify which kids are interested in learning English and do your best to keep them engaged. If they stay engaged and they want to learn, they will. Given those two things, this job is fun and not that difficult.
For the other kids, just keeping them entertained is the best you can do. Teaching foreign languages to children involves lots of games that can instill comprehension but do not require it to function. The kids not interested in English get to play along (usually mindlessly repeating me), or they can simply space out.In every class with forty odd kids, there is plenty of both.
The four olds are a different matter. The four year olds can barely speak Chinese. They have a hard time with such hallowed attention users and time passers as "jump" and "color." The talents of four year olds fall squarely into the categories of "falling down" and "crying."
In one class, the teacher was terrified that I might allow the children to play with books and crayons for fear of the damage they might do. This is not the good class of four year olds. It's rough to be in the worse of two four year old classes. In this class, if I have them sit down, they fall out of their chairs. If I have them stand up, they fall down. Every activity is accompanied by the sobs of at least one child.
The other class of four year olds is not so bad. Yeah, I can't see them learning a lot of English. Yeah, they squirm a lot. They also don't cry much and are fascinated by just about everything I do or have them do for forty minutes. They also managed to color in a book without injury. I'm still a little scared to try that with the other class.
The worse class has a hard time repeating things. It's a horrible thing to think to yourself, "Jesus, kid. Can't you even mindlessly repeat me like the other kids do?"
They also aren't real into saying hello. That's hilarious. It feels like every kid in China has come up to me and said "hello!hello!" in an obnoxious manner. The adults do it too. They think it's bloody hilarious. So I feel weird about it, but I actually want this group of kids to become hello!hellos. I feel like that's a reasonable goal.
I teach lots of kids. Lots of kids. Some of my classes have forty-five kids in them. Chinese kindergartens are like that. In fact, I'm told the classes were split into smaller bits to protect the sensitive westerners who might be teaching them.
Getting through the five and six year old classes is all rather easy. You identify which kids are interested in learning English and do your best to keep them engaged. If they stay engaged and they want to learn, they will. Given those two things, this job is fun and not that difficult.
For the other kids, just keeping them entertained is the best you can do. Teaching foreign languages to children involves lots of games that can instill comprehension but do not require it to function. The kids not interested in English get to play along (usually mindlessly repeating me), or they can simply space out.In every class with forty odd kids, there is plenty of both.
The four olds are a different matter. The four year olds can barely speak Chinese. They have a hard time with such hallowed attention users and time passers as "jump" and "color." The talents of four year olds fall squarely into the categories of "falling down" and "crying."
In one class, the teacher was terrified that I might allow the children to play with books and crayons for fear of the damage they might do. This is not the good class of four year olds. It's rough to be in the worse of two four year old classes. In this class, if I have them sit down, they fall out of their chairs. If I have them stand up, they fall down. Every activity is accompanied by the sobs of at least one child.
The other class of four year olds is not so bad. Yeah, I can't see them learning a lot of English. Yeah, they squirm a lot. They also don't cry much and are fascinated by just about everything I do or have them do for forty minutes. They also managed to color in a book without injury. I'm still a little scared to try that with the other class.
The worse class has a hard time repeating things. It's a horrible thing to think to yourself, "Jesus, kid. Can't you even mindlessly repeat me like the other kids do?"
They also aren't real into saying hello. That's hilarious. It feels like every kid in China has come up to me and said "hello!hello!" in an obnoxious manner. The adults do it too. They think it's bloody hilarious. So I feel weird about it, but I actually want this group of kids to become hello!hellos. I feel like that's a reasonable goal.
posted by otis @ 8:37 PM
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