I just finished AGR 1 and am now teaching AGR 2. My lessons are 2 hours long Mon- Fri. The kids are suppose to learn 6 words/every 2 days, do their workbook, ABC book, and sing a song.
Is anyone else teaching this program?
How old are the kids?
As a rule of thumb, songs should be taught only to kindys (small classes only). Unless it is holiday specific, ie. Christmas.
I disagree about songs. I think they can be suitable up to about Grade 3.
They’re very good to help some students remember and also thay help kids learn English with a bit of rhythym and intonation ratehr than reading like robots.
Funny, you didn’t mention about learning a sentence pattern in there.
If you were teaching 10 hours a week using ‘Let’s Go’ or another typical book like that, normally I think you’d learn about 8 new words, 1 or 2 sentence patterns and variations, a song, a bit of phonics and write about 6 pages of workbook. But that’s for a week, not two days.
2 days seems too rushed to me. If it’s a small group of very capable kids, then it’s possible, but I wouldn’t expect their retentionto be great. in my parttime cram school job, I’m lucky enough not to have a schedule, They finish one lesson and move on to the next when I feel that they are ready.
Come to think of it, your schedule is doable (just). My kids get 4 hours a week, they have about 6 keywords and one sentence pattern in the lesson, and I usually teach about a lesson a week (sometimes a littl faster). But theywrite theor workbooks at home, and I only sometimes teach them songs.
Brian
[quote=“Durins Bane”]How old are the kids?
As a rule of thumb, songs should be taught only to kindys (small classes only). Unless it is holiday specific, ie. Christmas.[/quote]
Where did that rule of thumb come from? I’ve never heard of it and completely disagree with it. Songs used in a supplementary capacity can be extremely useful teaching tools. They can help improve pronunciation, intonation and general smoothness of speech. Poems and rhymes can be used in much the same way–regardless of the size of the class or the age of the students.
Sir Donald and Wipt,
I will start a new thread as this is getting off topic.
Actually, the program has 4 books. One is a song book, a writing book, a vocab book, and a workbook. There are 4 kids in the class from 5-7 years old.
So, is anyone using this program?