What’s wrong with that? Sure, I guess if you just drill the spelling for a while, play some stupid sticky ball game for 10 minutes with it, and then give them a quiz, it’s not a particularly good lesson.
But I’ve done a whole unit on basic astronomy to a bunch of 8-year olds. Taught them how the planets go around the sun, the moon goes around the Earth, why Mercury and Venus are hotter and Mars and the rest are colder, how long it takes for the Earth to rotate on its axis (i.e. why there is day and night), how long it takes for the Earth to go around the sun, where the seasons come from, taught them how huge the distances were (i.e. the distance from the moon to the Earth is however many thousands times bigger than the distance from Yilan to Taibei), etc.
At the end of it all, I had my students recreate the solar system with all the planets going around the sun. It was one of my more productive lessons.[/quote]
For sure. I’ve taught the solar system to many classes.
Use TPR. i.e. Make flashcards with both a picture and the name of the planets and the sun. 10 in all. If you have some open space you can recreate the solar system. Get one kid to stand in the middle as the sun. Others will be the 9 planets and walk around the sun. Get them to count how many steps they take and use that later to explain that they all take longer and have to travel furthur around the sun.
I’ve got them to pretend what it would be like if there house was on say Mercury. If they open the door to walk outside then they would burst into flames cause it’s so hot. Pluto they would freeze. They love it. On Jupiter they would weigh a hell of a lot more so we pretend to be really heavy. On the moon the opposite.
My kids painted the planet that they wrote a short report about (basic info like distance to the sun, length of one day and one year, number of moons, etc.) and then they made up a science fiction story about space - meeting an alien, field trips to other planets, an astronaut trying to pacify an alien who wants to fight him by being its friend. It’s relevant when they might talk with other kids through the internet, through penpals, or go overseas to study or visit family and want to talk about their interests with another English speaker. But English should be interest-based. I mean, who wants to learn the vocabulary to talk about the history of the telephone if you’re not interested in it?
MY kids actually boarded a Russian rocket and which hooked up with the space station, donned supernewNASAspacerocketsuits and flew in a frozen state of animation until they reached the planet of Mars, unfroze and landed with their own little Hummer/rover, made rock cairns and dust angels on the surface, peed their names in the dirt, drew a moustachio on the face and mooned the Earth
MY kids actually boarded a Russian rocket and which hooked up with the space station, donned supernewNASAspacerocketsuits and flew in a frozen state of animation until they reached the planet of Mars, unfroze and landed with their own little Hummer/rover, made rock cairns and dust angels on the surface, peed their names in the dirt, drew a moustachio on the face and mooned the Earth
Beat THAT essay girl.
:raspberry: :raspberry:[/quote]
Yawn. Checks out fingernails nonchalantly.
My kids learned so much about planets, they used the calculations they got from their research and discovered a whole star system which had been perplexing top astronomers for decades.
They named their star system “Numa Numa” after that damn song, but they are only kids and it is their star system. They’re working out which pokemons to name its subsequent planets after.
They also worked out that age-old mystery of why the moon follows you when you’re driving down the street.
We’re planning a field trip to Switzerland to receive our Nobel prizes in astrophysics. Third grade will seem rather anticlimatic after a year with me.
MY kids actually boarded a Russian rocket and which hooked up with the space station, donned supernewNASAspacerocketsuits and flew in a frozen state of animation until they reached the planet of Mars, unfroze and landed with their own little Hummer/rover, made rock cairns and dust angels on the surface, peed their names in the dirt, drew a moustachio on the face and mooned the Earth
Beat THAT essay girl.
:raspberry: :raspberry:[/quote]
Yawn. Checks out fingernails nonchalantly.
My kids learned so much about planets, they used the calculations they got from their research and discovered a whole star system which had been perplexing top astronomers for decades.
They named their star system “Numa Numa” after that damn song, but they are only kids and it is their star system. They’re working out which pokemons to name its subsequent planets after.
They also worked out that age-old mystery of why the moon follows you when you’re driving down the street.
We’re planning a field trip to Switzerland to receive our Nobel prizes in astrophysics. Third grade will seem rather anticlimatic after a year with me.
[/quote]
My kids refuse to accept pseudo intellectual lefty awards. :raspberry:
There are at least three discrete issues (not counting the issues Imani and JD obviously have ) being discussed here that affect how good the lesson will be for the kids.
#1 is relevance to the kids’ lives. Words like ‘water trough’, ‘gristmill’, ‘haystack’, ‘pitchfork’, and ‘overalls’ are not that applicable to their lives and are likely to soon be forgotten. Unless there’s a field trip to an actual Western-style farm, there will definitely be better words to teach.
#2 is interest level. Whatever kids are interested in will be retained better. Issue #1 generally increases issue #2.
#3 is teaching pure language lessons vs. teaching language through content. While knowing the names of the 9 named planets in our solar system is not really all that relevant to their lives, learning astronomy instantly makes for meaningful communication. Not only are the kids picking up new vocabulary and new concepts, they’re also using the target language for something really useful.
Which sentence will engage the mind the most?
A. The mouse does not have a cookie.
B. The girl does not have a book.
C. The tenth planet does not have a name.
My money is on C because A and B are just arbitrary constructions while C is actually communicating real information. And this is a principle that works.
A rats fart hole knows more about teaching kids than I do so usually I don’t teach them. Somehow I got corralled into teaching a thirteen year old recently though and the first thing I did was tell the parents that under no conditions would I remain inside to teach English. Every class had to be a feild trip of sorts and they had to decide where that trip would be to. We actually adhere to this. Every time so far he wants to play pool or go the video arcade and along the way I drill him on the language circle.
“Wutsis?”
“A scooter.”
“Wutsat?”
“A donut.”
“Are you a donut?”
“Nope, but you are hahaha”
“Wadawegonnadotaday?”
“Play pool.”
“OK, wadrtheroolz”
“Eight ball”
“Rules, guizi, rules. You know rules?”
“You get one shot I get five.”
“OK”
“Yadonwannaplay nine ball?”
“Nope”
“Whydonyawannaplaynineball?”
“Cuz you suck at it hahaha”
“Wutsis?”
“The cue”
"Who’s break?
“Yours, you won last game.”
“I won last game? I thought you won last game?”
“Nope”
On and on it goes like this with me just drilling him on stuff we see and do. I’ll pop in a grammar explanation or two but in Chinese and real quick. “I AM GONNA… am gonna… shi weilaide” I’m gonna win again I betcha" and I make a deliberate point of NOT talking with a pause between each syllable and a stress on each one in the robot fashion that is so prevalent, except of course when it is first presented or when I’m correcting something. We also bring along a little tape recorder and tape record whatever seems amusing to him. Months ago we did “Hey, howryadoin” and it was a source of great amusement to him that I then asked everybody we saw “Hey, howyadoin?” with a big wave and a smile. Of course nobody responded but at least he has a tape on it with me saying “Heyhowyadoin” and him in the background laughing his head off. There is all kinds of nonsense on the tape and while it may seem incoherent and random to anybody else it is exactly personalized to him. He can’t get his head around referring to the past using “have” so recently I put on a lot of stuff like “How many games HAVE we played so far?” He says “Two” “How many did I win?” He says “two” so I say “How many HAVE you WON?” and he says “Two” and I say “You have won two?” an he says “Yup” and I say “You’ve won two, you sure you have won two” and he says “YES I’VE WON TWO” and he doesn’t know it but he just learned something.
Actually, I think native speakers of all dialects of English speak in connected speech and with seriously reduced grammar words, ie, words that are not nouns, verbs, adjectives or adverbs, so what I am doing will benefit people who want to deal with native speakers English from anywhere, at least in terms of listening comprehension. If my students then go on to mimic the speech habits of those native speakers I’d call that a bonus, although, you have a point, the robo speech might actually be more effective when second language speakers of English coverse with each other.
Actually, I think native speakers of all dialects of English speak in connected speech and with seriously reduced grammar words, ie, words that are not nouns, verbs, adjectives or adverbs, so what I am doing will benefit people who want to deal with native speakers English from anywhere, at least in terms of listening comprehension. If my students then go on to mimic the speech habits of those native speakers I’d call that a bonus, although, you have a point, the robo speech might actually be more effective when second language speakers of English coverse with each other.[/quote]
Point taken.
Do you spend any time explaining stuff like “Wutsis?” “Wutsat?” “Wadawegonnadotaday?” “OK, wadrtheroolz” “Yadonwannaplay nine ball?” “Whydonyawannaplaynineball?”, or is it some kind of osmosis thingy?
Another question: How is your stoodungonnareeakwinsumwumaksimwotthefuckeazetalkinabout?
Do you spend any time explaining stuff like “Wutsis?” “Wutsat?” “Wadawegonnadotaday?” “OK, wadrtheroolz” “Yadonwannaplay nine ball?” “Whydonyawannaplaynineball?”, or is it some kind of osmosis thingy? [/quote]
It is more of an osmosis kind of thingy. Here is how it works: I say sumpthin like “Yanoyaloozifyaskrachontheeightballrait?” and he says sumpin like “But last time you scratched on the eight ball you just brought up two balls” and then I know he understands what I said. If I had said “yanoyaloozeifyaskrachontheeightball” and he said “Existentialism has been characterized as a philosophy of depair but actually it is a philosphy of joy, choice and personal empowerment” then I would know that he probably didn’t actually understand what I said and perhaps some translation, body language, demonstration, art work etc would be required. I may even write it down later on the score board at the pool hall. Essentially though it’s a communicative thing really. Perhaps even more so than an osmosis thing but the osmosis thing is good too. Can I keep it?
I have been teaching, for some couple of years now, a man who owns a factory in China. He frequently entertains foreign visitors there and gives them a tour of the facility etc. The problem is that his English is not entirely sufficient to such a task and it was with this basic dilemna in mind that we struck upon the notion of my accompanying him to China with the purpose of improving his English using whatever methods seemed appropriate. I suggested we film the whole thing, and that is precisely what we did. That film became the basis for a script, which we discussed and wrote together, and the idea now is to go back to China sometime in Septemeber and film the whole thing again, only well enough that a sort of promotional video be made of the whole affair, making it uneccessary that any actual tours be conducted at all in the future.
I’m guessing he is learning a lot out of all this though of course I can’t be claim scientific certainty in this regard as I haven’t exactly tested him.
Yes, I only mention it because it fits into the “teach something relevant theme” and because I think that using sound and video recording in “class” and using them liberally are great ways to get the class “doing” something that involves a lot of interaction and that is caught on tape and can be reviewed and expanded on or used as a launching pad into other subjects later.
I have been teaching, for some couple of years now, a man who owns a factory in China. He frequently entertains foreign visitors there and gives them a tour of the facility etc. The problem is that his English is not entirely sufficient to such a task and it was with this basic dilemna in mind that we struck upon the notion of my accompanying him to China with the purpose of improving his English using whatever methods seemed appropriate. I suggested we film the whole thing, and that is precisely what we did. That film became the basis for a script, which we discussed and wrote together, and the idea now is to go back to China sometime in Septemeber and film the whole thing again, only well enough that a sort of promotional video be made of the whole affair, making it uneccessary that any actual tours be conducted at all in the future.
I’m guessing he is learning a lot out of all this though of course I can’t be claim scientific certainty in this regard as I haven’t exactly tested him.[/quote]
THAT is a BRILLIANT idea! Hmmm. Now you have me thinking if that type of thing might not help my grade school students. Hmmm. Hmmm.
Yes I know, thank you, thank you very much, elvis has just left the building, no, but seriously…
This is something I’ve been working on for some time under the perhaps unfortunate title of “The he left right? brain language and film studio” and while it certainly couldn’t be considered a brilliant financial success so far the prospects for fun and mayhem are certainly there. My biggest frustration right now is that I am attempting to do it in a really cramped space with students who are really dog tired. Mostly I’m lucky if I can even get them into making an audio recording under these conditions. With space, a younger, more lets say “with it” teacher and more energetic students interested in developing basic competence with regard to recording technology and with some other practical goal (like, for example, learning how to have a conversation about movies) though it is kind of one of those “of course” deals. Of course if you are involved in writing a rough or detailed script, rehearsing that script, acting it out on film, editing, watching and discussing it you’ll learn the material pretty effeciently. Naturally too I’d say.
It isn’t easy to do though I should say, not in practical terms and not in terms of convincing anyone that it is a good way to learn. It’s just too far from what they think learning is and it must be admitted a lot of time can be spent cuing up, changing tapes/ batteries, finding that damn extension cord, unsticking the legs on the tri-pod “again” etc.
) being discussed here that affect how good the lesson will be for the kids.
THAT is a BRILLIANT idea! Hmmm. Now you have me thinking if that type of thing might not help my grade school students. Hmmm. Hmmm.