Little teachers

Work Teaching English in Taiwan
1

Recently, a lot of my Taiwanese co-teachers have begun this practice of getting other students to be a “little teacher”. So if another student is talking in class or doing anything else wrong the “little teacher” must tell them off.

Of course, what happens now is that if one person is talking 5 or 6 students yell at him for talking and make more of a disruption than we had in the first place. Another problem was when one kid was pushing another in the TV room, then the “little teacher” intervened and smacked the offender across the face! His parents were unsurprisingly chuffed about this.

It’s driving me crazy now because the kids (who are all 3-6 year olds) are all at odds against each other and dying to tell the teacher when anyone does everything wrong. Surely this can’t be good for them.

Does anyone else have this problem in their school? Does anyone actually use this method themselves?

2

I like using little teachers to review/reread materials they all know. It helps them read at the same speed and gives a certain boost to confidence.

We also have Little Policepeople in some classes, because some students are particularly rambunctious or daydreamers. So far so good.

Don’t allow them to become little nazis though.

peace

3

It all depends on how you set up the little teacher role.

I always emphasized that the little teacher’s job was to lead by example. “Ok, Devon, you’re the little teacher, right? Show everyone how to sit well.” Then if there is yelling or hitting, “Can the little teacher yell at other students? (elicit ‘no’) Are you a good boy/girl? Can you hit other students? (again, no) Is yelling good? Is hitting good? I know you’re a good boy, so I want you to be little teacher and show everyone how to be good…”

That’s horribly manipulative, but hey, they’re under 10 so it’s all cool :slight_smile:

I put in a system that very actively discouraged tattling and encouraged kids to help each other out. Any sort of yelling at someone else, even to tell them to behave, was discouraged by the discipline system.

I brought up what I used at kindy in This thread

4

You have kids under ten that yell and hit? After the age of five I don’t have that problem. Under fivers who yell, hit, scream, spit on the TT or pee in thier pants are immediately hung on the door knob, drenched with boiling oil, and told to shut up until their parents come for them.

As for little teachers, I do have one. She is 23, cute as a button and is about 4’10’’. BTW, she’s the one who boils the oil.

TWAGOS

5

You have kids over ten that do?

The under ten remark is not for hitting and yelling, that’s for manipulating. :smiling_imp:

6

You have kids over ten that do?

The under ten remark is not for hitting and yelling, that’s for manipulating. :smiling_imp:[/quote]

Only upon threat of death. I prefer to manipulate them when they aren’t watching. And, no, none of my students over ten would dare behave so.
If that confuses you, I beg pardon because right now I’m involved in translating a Confucian treatise from Korean to Chinese and it does concern the comportment of children seven and younger.

7

Little teacher has never worked for me. After a while they seem to get on a power trip and want to control everything. I only have at the most 16 students in any one class. I can handle that many 4-7 y/o.

pwh - I love the manipulative aspect. I think that would probably have worked better. I ended up banning little teacher.

8

[quote=“Mugatu”]Recently, a lot of my Taiwanese co-teachers have begun this practice of getting other students to be a “little teacher”. So if another student is talking in class or doing anything else wrong the “little teacher” must tell them off.

Of course, what happens now is that if one person is talking 5 or 6 students yell at him for talking and make more of a disruption than we had in the first place. Another problem was when one kid was pushing another in the TV room, then the “little teacher” intervened and smacked the offender across the face! His parents were unsurprisingly chuffed about this.

It’s driving me crazy now because the kids (who are all 3-6 year olds) are all at odds against each other and dying to tell the teacher when anyone does everything wrong. Surely this can’t be good for them.

Does anyone else have this problem in their school? Does anyone actually use this method themselves?[/quote]

Oh god, your school sounds like a nightmare. Little Teachers? Putting pressure on 5 year olds to correct their peers? T.A.s need a good slap themselves sometimes. I bet all your T.A.s are also currently university students!

The job of the ‘teacher’ really shouldn’t be delegated to a bunch of kindy kids. The teacher should set all class rules with clearly defined consequences for transgression of those rules. Them vs Us is common behaviour for that age range. I have just spent 8 weeks ironing that mentality out of the ‘penguin class’ who are 6 and 7 years old. Even now I have to stop and say "Leanne (angry little madam) I am the teacher, its my job to talk to Benny Lin (total lunatic) your job is to learn and have fun.

What strategies can you use when a child is talking?

a) call their name in the middle of the sentence. “So this is a, benny, tall green tree”
b) move the chatty child next to you, they cant chat to YOU.
c) play follow me, “do this, do this, do this” the last action is always arms folded or fingers on mouths. Takes 10 seconds. Then continue to teach.
d) Explain WHY talking is bad. “How can Sarah learn if you are talking to her?”
e) Communicate with the parents.

My advice at the start, set CLEAR rules, then write a heading on the board ‘teachers points’ and every time they do something wrong in class you give yourself a point. KEY: Don’t say WHO did the wrong thing, at that age they will imagine its themself not someone else. “Uh-oh, another point for teacher!” If you get, say, 20 points in a lesson they lose something. Tell them they can’t play their favourite game, whatever, you decide whats best. They will soon stop Them vs Us, and it becomes Us Vs Teacher. Thats the start. Then after a while the ‘fun’ of beating the teacher actually means that they stop all these unwanted behaviours.

9

I created a little teacher monster…well, not really a monster, but very bossy. At first it was cute because she was one of the two kids in my class who had been to school before so she would tell the other kids to sit down and was my little translator, explaining what another child had told me in Chinese and also translating what I said to the kids in English into Chinese for them. Lately, however, she is controling the other children and telling them who can’t play with them for that day and sometimes getting other kids to join her in yelling at a child who has invaded her play space. What was cute and very helpful during the first months has become a behaviorial headache. Tattling is starting to become a big issue, which is developmentally appropriate, but annoying nonetheless.

Lesson learned: Remind all of your children that you are the teacher and they are the students. Their concerns are with only themselves, not the other children in the class.

I use the tattling rule:
Are you hurt?
No.
Is anyone else hurt?
No.
Can someone become hurt?
No.
Then you can work it out with that child yourself. Talk to me about it only if it is still happening.

10

My advice at the start, set CLEAR rules, then write a heading on the board ‘teachers points’ and every time they do something wrong in class you give yourself a point. KEY: Don’t say WHO did the wrong thing, at that age they will imagine its themself not someone else. “Uh-oh, another point for teacher!” If you get, say, 20 points in a lesson they lose something. Tell them they can’t play their favourite game, whatever, you decide whats best. They will soon stop Them vs Us, and it becomes Us Vs Teacher. Thats the start. Then after a while the ‘fun’ of beating the teacher actually means that they stop all these unwanted behaviours.[/quote]

The point you are trying to make is one that I have seen implemented by other FT where I work. Let’s get this straigt from the beginning. We are for the most part teaching impressionable kids under 12 years. Please realize that you are dealing with Taiwanese kids who are not used to being placed on a level of compettion woith the teacher. Although I am sure this is not your intention, the fact is that your job is to teach them, not to entice them into verbal calesthenics with you. My job is not to take the fun out of any excercise by competing with me, rather to make it fun for all by letting tehm compete with themselves. Belive me, there are much better ways to bring them around to your goal.

11

My reply started with, “The point your are…” Am I drunkl or hatsh?

12

I’ve never liked “little teacher” when kids are allowed to boss each other around.

Here’s what I like to do with little teacher:

  1. Little Teacher varies from day to day, week to week (whatever works best).
  2. It can be turn based, but I prefer to also have an element of good behavior determine who Little teacher is.

Example: Have a list of kids on the wall or the board (perhaps used in conjunction with a points/star system). When they are little teacher they get a mark by their name. Then when it is time to choose little teacher again you pick the kid who has been best behaved or shown significant improvement who has not already gotten the mark by their name. If none of the kids left have been good you erase all the marks and start again. If they don’t behave well they don’t get to be little teacher

  1. Little teacher gets certain priveleges, like being first in line
  2. Little teacher helps take care of any repetive ritual.

Examples: starting the lineup chant, going through a set of flashcards or the date. Always ask the weather and how kids feel? Always go through a set of flashcards? Have little teacher ask the questions instead of you. In my class I actually was doing an individual assessment of the little teacher and they didn’t even realize they were being tested. They loved the spotlight and were at full confidence. :sunglasses:

  1. I always ask the little teacher to show others how to behave. They are not, however, allowed to tell others how to behave. “Are you the teacher?” No. “Are you little teacher?” Yes. “Can you tell other kids what to do?” No. “Can you show other kids how to do things well?” Yes. “Ok, everyone, watch how Little Teacher is sitting!”
13

Rube, perhaps I didnt explain myself fully, or you didnt understand what I mean. This system is to be used to wean kids off of the ‘he said, she said’ bs. Once that is done then you drop the ‘teacher vs student’ stuff like a hot brick. He clearly stated that these kids are under 6 years old. I am sure that you know from a psychological point of view children at this age have a much stronger sense of ‘self’ than of ‘others’ so they are more easy to manipulate.

Rube, i dont like the language you have used, and it seems like a ‘slight’ against my post. Am I wrong? And, if “there are much better ways of bringing them round to your goal” perhaps you would care to share them with us. Im sure my 7 years of teaching kindy pales in comparison with your c.v. I could do with a new outlook, so, what are your techniques?

14

It is fun to have a kid come up to the front of the class and review the others, but it is a nightmare to give one of the students in your class the power to punish, chastise or ‘tell’ on the others. For one thing, it is deeply unfair. More importantly, that is exactly how the Japanese and Chinese managed to eradicate the Taiwanese language from schools: they would get the kids to police one another and decide who it was who would go home with a sign around their neck that night. Basic police state mentality

15

With my older students, I have given them classroom positions that get rotated and they had to do initial interviews with me and write a resume to state why they should get the job and their prior experiences that would make them a better choice…these were with 5th graders. Some of my job positions were test/workbook checkers, go-fer, librarian, banker (to keep track of reward system), and discussion leaders. For younger children, not as young as mine, but 4.5 years +, I would use line leaders who help select children who are sitting quietly, gardener/zookeeper to take care of classroom plants and pets, lunch/snack helper to help get things ready for lunch or snack, sweeper/mopper to help keep centers clean and to remind others when clean up time happens, and librarian to help reshelf library books…

By rotating these jobs, no one gets to keep one position forever, they get to help be responsible for the classroom and relieve you of some of the day-to-day work to keep the classroom running smoothly. They are little teachers in a way, but in a positive one.