Getting the kids hooked young!
My goal is to not frighten the lives out of my students
I'm stepping back from the serious, academic approach and working on making my classes something that kids look forward to - even if they aren't learning as much.
The first days of the new school year
A new term usually means meeting new students
As you move into a new year with new classes, you may be considering what sort of impression you want to make on the students when you have your first lesson. What exactly should a teacher do in the first few lessons considering that these first impressions are so important?
Food and the classroom
Language teachers need nutrition expertise too!
Our students eat. That's a good thing, except that after sweet snacks things can get complicated. This is most noticeable (for me, anyway) with kindergarten children who can't inhibit their impulses. The cause?
More adventures in rural Thailand
My first semester at a Thai government school
I've now worked at a rural government school for a whole semester. I thought I might share with you my account so far, with some practical advice that may help ease your transition to teaching in Thailand.
The realities of teaching
Every picture tells a story
To help with adjusting to life as a classroom teacher, here are 10 great memes to expose some classroom realities.
On teaching classroom language
Getting students to use simple English all the time
Whenever confronted with students who speak Thai in class, I considered it an opportune moment to teach them the right structures.
Who gets the call when their arms are raised?
Which student gets the teacher's questions and why?
Here are the different groups of students within a typical class. They are quite distinctive and there's not really much of a gray area between them.
Classroom management experiences
Experiences from both Thailand and China.
The Thai teachers at my school, especially the veterans, are uncomfortable with the excitement and commotion during the lessons by the foreign teachers. They view it as an inability to control our students.
I don't want to learn!
The biggest teaching hurdle: motivation
Motivation in the classroom, both from the teachers and the students, is essential for learning but it is a tricky balance to strike since the two are so interconnected; if the teacher loses motivation, so do the students and if the students lose motivation, so does the teacher.
Great Expectations
When parents of students are simply too demanding
The demands and expectations that some parents burden their children with are alas often too great. At the moment I’m teaching a kid who hasn’t even turned six, yet his life revolves solely around learning.
