Stars and candy
When rewarding our students for their efforts works ..... and when it doesn't.
Children aren’t pigeons. Learning isn’t simply habit formation reinforced by a teacher with an unending supply of stickers and stars. The fact is, we can’t induce children to do our bidding for long by offering a reward or issuing a threat.
Movies in the classroom
Showing movie clips to students can be a fantastic teaching tool
Instead of showing the whole movie, we can focus on a clip from the movie – for the purposes of the classroom, you can get a lot of mileage from just a few minutes lifted from a movie.
Solving the 'boring campus' issue
Ten low or no cost ideas to make your campus sticky
Most college administrators and professors here in Thailand are familiar with the student complaint: campus is boring! Some universities are trying to solve this problem using the idea of “stickiness” In fact 'the sticky campus' is now a designer phrase.
Do Thai students want to learn from textbooks?
And how do teachers feel about using them?
Whether you are teaching in a high school, university or private language school most students will be expecting to see some form of textbook to be assigned to them. It is like a comfort blanket to them.
The importance of a positive learning environment
It helps to think back to my own past school experiences.
Call me an idealist, but each time I see a teacher whose negativity and/or negative reinforcement tactics are obvious, the Pink Floyd music video plays in my mind. “Hey! Teacher! Leave those kids alone…”
Overjustification
Is there a place for rewards in the classroom?
Having classroom management problems? Try using candy as a reward for good behavior or good grades. Kids love candy, so it works great as a reward. Or does it?
Why can't Thais speak English?
Some of these students have had over 2,000 hours of English.
Considering that English has been the international language of tourism and commerce for I don't know how many decades now, and there are I don't know how many thousands of English teachers all over the country, why is the general level of English so poor?
Tips for the newbie teacher
Keep these points in mind and you'll cope far better
Don't get stressed by the job. Remember that you are merely the latest in a long line of farang teachers who have come and gone. There isn't enough time to make any real progress with students' English so just try and make it fun for them.
Useful classroom management techniques
These ideas have all worked for me!
If you have something the students want then you have a big asset in keeping your class under control. I have developed a few games and props that the kids love and I will use them when they start to tire or lose focus on a more testing part of the curriculum.
Tin Tin in the classroom
The success and failure of eliciting
Questions form a crucial part of a successful lesson: they increase student participation and involvement, give the teacher valuable information about what the students already know, help to focus students' attention, and improve the teacher-student relationship.
