Hello World!
In July of 1995 I hopped on a plane and arrived in Taiwan. My plan was to teach English, pay off my students loans, and travel the world. After sight seeing Taipei for a week, I moved to Yangmei and quickly got multiple teaching jobs. I was happy to get a teaching job so quickly, but also nervous to start teaching English.
I remember standing in front of my first class to teach English. The students had their books open and were reading the lesson dialogue. As they read, I thought to myself. They are pretty good at speaking English. I can’t wait to speak with them.
After the students stopped reading, my co-teacher introduced me, “Say hello to Teacher Rebecca”. With big smiles, the class cheerfully said hello. After greeting the class, I started asking the students questions. “How are you doing?” The students answered this question easily. Encouraged, I asked more questions. “What are you studying? Are you having fun? How long have you been studying English?” After the first question, few answered. As I progressed through each question, the questions responses got less and less. I asked a question and silence would answer me as the students heads turn to look directly at my co-teacher. It was like watching a tennis match. Look at me for the question, look at my co-teacher for translation. This happened each time went to a new class—an invaluable learning moment.
This experience taught me these main insights.
- Many of the students could answer if I used the exact questions they had already been taught.
- If I changed vocabulary or used variations of a pattern, the level of understanding and responses dropped dramatically. The students didn’t have much flexibility in listening, speaking and understanding English.
- When I spoke normally, or with different inflections, many students couldn’t understand so I needed to speak slowly and clearly.
As I became an experienced teacher I learned how to speak so I could build confidence in my students. I learned how to develop and use different teaching techniques to improve my teaching and expand my students’ comprehension and flexibility with English.
The tools I used were stories, songs, games, and dramas and role-plays to help students learn in a natural fun way. Plus I enjoyed teaching more!
With this blog, I will explore with you:
- effective ways to manage the class room
- techniques to keep students’ attention
- how to make learning interesting and engaging
- how to help students develop a deeper flexibility and understanding of English
- how to make teaching satisfying and rewarding
By telling stories, singing songs, and playing games, the student is engaged, studying is playing and activation is a natural process.
For this first post, lets start with classroom management. Whether a class has 10 to 40 students, establishing ways to transition from one activity to another activity, without losing your voice, is important. One way I manage my classroom is through songs and chants. Sit Down and Look at Me is a song that focuses the class on you, helps the students settle down and helps transition the students’ attention from one activity to another.
Click the player to hear the song.
Besides the students listening and singing to the song, I like my students to move, dance and do gestures. Here is the video with optional gestures to do with the song.
