For that reason I call the same type of thing Personification. Now, I know that’s still quite a mouthful, but I don’t know how to break it down anymore. Read More...
We’ve all seen Disney movies. So we all know how animals, monsters, and candlesticks can talk. And you’re students know how these things can talk as well. We call this anthropomorphism, but good luck getting a student to remember that, or even say it correctly!
For that reason I call the same type of thing Personification. Now, I know that’s still quite a mouthful, but I don’t know how to break it down anymore. Read More...
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Superhero movies are quite popular in China, and for good reason. In recent years we’ve seen several Spiderman movies, a couple Hulk movies, two Iron Man movies, Captain America, The Avengers, and countless Harry Potter movies (if you count those, which my students did today when I elicited superhero movies from them).
So you’d think that doing some kind of activity modeled around superheroes would be cool, right? Well, it is, in a way. The boys like it. I don’t think I’ve seen a group of boys that don’t like talking about superheroes to some extent. The girls, the girls are a different story. Most roll their eyes when I bring up the idea of doing a superhero kind of activity. So What’s the Wonderful Activity? Well, I call it Secret Wars and model it after the 1980s comic series of the same name. Read More... VIP students are thought to be very important when it comes to teaching English in China. VIPs often pay a lot more than other students, and I find that many times the quality is pretty much the same, if not worse. After all, many teachers find it difficult to teach just one student when they’re so used to teaching larger classes of 15 students or more.
That can make teaching VIPs something that people dread as opposed to look forward to. I have to admit that I’m not crazy about VIPs myself, but it’s part of my job to teach them, and I kind of feel bad about how much their parents are paying (even though many of those parents are making a LOT more money than me!). English Worksheets To Break the Ice Whenever I have a new VIP, and many times when I have a returning or weekly one as well, I’ll use an easy intro worksheet or handout. This is a good way to get them to start writing something out, and it makes those awkward first moments go away. It will also give you an idea of what they can write. First Class Handout But how about what they can say? Well, have them read the handout. I always do my First Class HO with new students, and I have many variations on it for students I’ve seen for some time. I got the idea from what I consider to be less worthwhile handouts, but ones that still have a few uses. You can find an example of one of those here: http://www.eslpdf.com/esl-pdfs/nouns-countable-non1.pdf Crazy Questions ESL Handout Another great idea is to make gap-fill or multiple choice handouts. You can see a few examples of these here: http://www.usingenglish.com/handouts/128.html Still, I think these are also a little boring, and you know what, my students have felt the same way over the years whenever I pull these papers out of my folder. Like many ESL sites out there, the two above have some good ideas, but that’s about it. You need to take those ideas, or those handouts if you will, and change them. Make them your own. Make them better. Make them so your students will like them and perhaps even get a laugh out of them. Here’s an example of a handout I made from the previous example. I call this Crazy Questions HO and many students laugh, or at least smile, when they hear some of the silly questions. Breaking the ice with a new VIP, or one that has been coming so long that they are bored stiff, is critical to getting them to open up and contribute to your class. The last thing you want is for your VIP to clam up on you. What are you going to do for an hour? Watch movies? Well, maybe that wouldn’t be so bad. Surprise, surprise! Students!
I was quite surprised to see 4 students when I showed up for class tonight at 7. Now, many students in Shenzhen don’t have hometowns to go back to for the winter holiday; this is their hometown. So they stay here and eat with family, watch a lot of TV, and try to tackle their massive amount of winter holiday homework. So I probably shouldn’t have been too surprised to see so many would be a more appropriate thing to say. Well, I had 4 students and no real lesson plan. I had the book that my training center provides, of course, and some handouts that went with it, but no one wants to do the book. We went through it for about 40 minutes, and then I had to switch gears or the students would’ve died of boredom. List It I decided to do on e of my favorite handouts, an ESL worksheet called “List It.” This worksheet actually comes from another site, but I can’t remember which one, and I’ve always had a hard time searching for it. I do know that you have to pay to get it, but one of our wiser teachers years ago somehow got a lot of worksheets from that particular site for free. They must have paid, and I can only hope that they expensed it. Anyway, the worksheet is your typical categories worksheet, where you give the students a letter and they have to think of 10 things that start with that letter. There are 6 “Lists” on the worksheet, so I usually roll a dice and off we go. Let’s say we get List 1. There will be 10 categories that the students have to write on, and they’ll be things like:
I always throw a few letters on the board, ask for others, and then we vote. So let’s say that everyone wants to do the Letter T. That means for that List 1, you could have answers like:
You can see it’s pretty easy. Some teachers I know use a game called “Scattegories” which is very similar. You can get a free download of Scattegories here. Pay or Steal? I’d like to search around a bit more and try to find “List It.” If I don’t, I think I’ll just go ahead and put a copy up on this site. No one ever looks at it anyway, so what harm could be done? Most ESL teachers in China know that they have to go around and get lots of pictures for vocabulary PowerPoint Presentations, and they’re not too worried about paying for them. What would one more free worksheet hurt, right? Well, to make a long story short, the last 20 minutes before our break went really smooth with the “List It” worksheet. I highly recommend it or similar worksheets when your students are about to drop dead from boredom. Want More Cool Worksheets? Check out these sites that offer free worksheets. Simple Handouts http://www.usingenglish.com/handouts/ Lesson Plan Worksheets http://www.esl-galaxy.com/lessons.htm No one wants to go back into the classroom after the long Chinese New Year Holiday. But unfortunately we do, so let’s try to make the best of it, shall we?
I really feel sorry for all the new teachers that will be getting into the country now. Many agencies specialize nowadays in getting fresh bodies over here and into the training centers. Teach Abroad offers abound all over the place when you type “Teach English” into Google. And when most of those poor saps sign up for bad contracts, get thrown into a packed classroom with minimal, if any, training, and then don’t know what in the Sam Hill to do, well, it just breaks my heart. The good news is that none of the students want to be there. Well, is that really good news? Have you ever had a class full of students that don’t want to be there? I have, and it ain’t pretty, let me tell you. I’m very thankful now that I don’t have to work in a public school and that I can work in a training center. Sure, they might make me work longer hours on the weekends, but at least I only have about 10-15 kids in a class. That’s not too bad at all. First Week ESL Strategies So, to get back to what you can do in the classroom the first week back, let’s take a look at some things.
That should give you a few pointers your first week back after Chinese New Year, or any holiday, for that matter. Want More? If you’re looking for some other great ESL ideas for your first week back, or sadly, your first week here, take a look at these: About.com Guide to Teaching English http://esl.about.com/od/esleflteachertraining/a/t_enonpro2.htm ESL Partyland Article on Teaching Strategies http://www.eslpartyland.com/teaching-esl-student The Chinese New Year Holiday is about to end once again, and that means that lots of students and teachers will soon be heading back to school.
I don't want to think about it, do you? Perhaps you're one of the lucky ones who gets to work in a public school. Then you've got five weeks off, right? I remember the two years I worked for a public school. Ah, such fond memories! I had classes of 50 students, which, if I was lucky, would see half of them doing their math homework. Perhaps 20 might listen, and then of course 10 students will misbehave. I also remember the great school lunches. Now, don't get me wrong, the first school I worked at in Shenzhen, Beishida Fu Zhao, if you will, was pretty good. One time the headmaster had told me, through an interpretor of course, that he had first started working at that school, fresh from Beijing, when he walked into the lunch room for the first time. The teachers all greeted him warmly, and he probably didn't pay too much attention to the food that was being served to him, but he said that when he tasted it, he nearly gagged. Yes, it was that bad! So he had new chefs brought in to cook especially for the teachers. Screw the students, right? The next year, at Shekou School, the lunches weren't so good, and there was no breakfast. Another thing I fondly remember about working in a public school was the pay. I made a whopping 5,000 RMB my first year! Just think, about $800 each month! Oh, the things I could buy, like lots and lots of big Qingdao bottles to soothe my aching mind, and ego. Well, perhaps I'm not that upset about having to go back to work this Friday. I may have to work a bit more, and not have as many holidays to boot, but at least I get paid good working at a training center. So, Xin Nian Kuai Le, or Happy New Year! If you want to learn more about Chinese New Year, check out these links: Chinese Zodiac Story http://www.topmarks.co.uk/ChineseNewYear/ZodiacStory.aspx Chinese New Year History www.chinese.new-year.co.uk/history.htm |
Greg Strandberg
From 2008 to 2013 I was an ESL teacher in Shenzhen, China. I've worked in public schools, training centers, and one-on-one as a tutor. Categories
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