I have to buy rewards for my students. Most of them are from pretty affluent families, so I don’t think the rewards are really going to motivate them. I went to this big toy wharehouse in Chung-ho and found good cheap gifts for my 1st grade students. I also have 4th and 5th graders and couldn’t find much for them. I bought some funny looking stationary-correction tape with cute designs etc…
Does anybody have any suggestions for my 4th and 5th graders?
Studies show that rewards actually stunt learning (or productivity) if offered as incentives, but they do have a positive effect if given as a surprise after the students (as a class) show they have worked hard. So, when I was teaching, we never gave out silly toys but took them on field trips instead, which usually just consisted of taking them to McDonald’s (one where the manager offered to let the students order in English).
Thanks for your reply Stray Dog. I agree with you, but I’ve gotten word that the admin at my school wants me to do this. Most of the other teachers have some kind of a store. I’m just trying to think of ways to keep it simple so I don’t kill myself. It can be quite stressful keeping up with the students points and everything.
I feel there are some advantages to rewards though. Let’s say I play a game with my students and team A wins. What does team A get? It makes sense to give them some kind of reward.
In general though, I prefer to make playing the game the reward.
Rewards purchased by school managers are usually crap. They usually send a female assistant to buy the rewards which inevitably leads to a cabinet full of hello kitty pencils and cute pink pencil cases and stickers and stuff. Girls rarely need bribes to behave well and meet academic standards anyway, so you need stuff to appeal to boys as well as girls.
My students are from affluent families too, but kids is all the same. They want consumables NOW!
Taiwanese kids love those small packets of noodles. They are cheap and full of MSG. Perfect. You can get a bag of around 8 small packs for 25NT at the 711 or bigger bags cheaper at supermarkets.
Don’t let them eat them in class, as they will end up all over the floor.
I once worked at a school where the prize were all girly hello kitty stuff and they wouldn’t change, so I picked up a big container of little plastic dinosaurs at a discount store for around 50NT.
Fortunately, where I work now, the boss added remote control cars to the mix.
However, kids want it NOW! A piece of candy or MSG noodles today is worth more that saving up tokens for a remote control car next month.
When you consider just how many students (and teachers) of English are terrible at vocal communication because of fear of failure, it’s wise to reward effort and progress rather than for getting something right, which of course is the root of the problem. Give the rewards at an impromptu ‘reward ceremony’ rather than as an incentive, otherwise kids know they’re being bribed to learn (or get it right) and therefore believe learning (or getting it right) must be something undesirable.
Charlie Phillips,
I can’t give out any food. Food would have been easy and enjoyable, though I wouldn’t have felt right about giving kids any extra sugar or MSG.
Stray Dog,
We are supposed to make some kind of mirror economy. My students get about 75-125 Teacher Dollars a week depending on their performance. To keep it simple, and to avoid wasting time, I let have decided to let them look in the store and choose their rewards every other Friday.
Be honest. Do you think my idea is awful? Any ideas to make it better?
Oh, and what rewards should I be buying for 4th and 5th graders. Food is out of the question. I’ve been looking for cheap and cute or interesting stationary goods. I have too many students to really spend a lot on any one gift.
Sounds like you’re up against the system there!
I’ve implemented a reward system this semester to reward certain behaviours (such as arriving on time for class). The kids get points on a giant chart each lesson, but there’s a slight twist. At the end of the semester, for every five points (or part thereof) they have, they get one ticket for a lottery. To make it even more interesting, they can choose whether they want to allocate their tickets to a class lottery with a minor prize or a school lottery with a major prize. Thus, they can try to play it strategically, but there’s still a huge element of luck involved.
I came up with the luck idea because 1) it means you don’t have to buy tons of prizes or gifts (so it’s kind of sneaky like that), or you can just get a few really nice prizes or gifts; but 2) it keeps students interested because even if they don’t have the largest number of points, they could still win; 3) there’s nothing the Han like more than a game of chance; 4) I just find the whole thing a lot more interesting for that reason (and I figure I will either create well-behaved students, game theorists, gambling addicts or all of the above). I was thinking of adding yet another layer of chance to the whole thing by having an extra round where all of the accumulated points are randomly converted to a different kind of point (e.g. for each of the original points, kids roll dice to see how many secondary points they get) and then convert those into lottery tickets as per above (only increase the threshold to say 20 points per ticket), but I thought it might complicate things a bit. I might do that next semester for my own amusement. Also, the prizes offered at my school are usually nice pen sets or things like that for both boys and girls.
On the rare occasions when I play games with points, one of the things I do is have five chopsticks (I originally did it with only four chopsticks, but then I figured out one day that it would really fuck with the kids not to have pairs of chopsticks, and indeed, it does really fuck with them not knowing where the sixth chopstick is), each with a different colour on one end. The kids randomly draw a chopstick to see how many points they or their teams win (red = 1, orange = 2, yellow =3, green =4, blue =5). I then add another twist where they can play for either double or nothing, or sometimes double or minus (as in they can get a question correct but actually lose points – that really fucks around with them…hehe), by playing paper, scissors, stone with me. They go absolutely fucking apeshit during this whole procedure and I find it absolutely hilarious how I or the other students can goad a kid into playing double or minus, and then the very same kids who goaded the kid into a game that is semi-random get either even more ecstatic or really pissed off with the kid playing the game based upon that outcome (and sometimes I cheat with my timing to try to make the popular kids lose or the unpopular kids win almost every time). The whole thing cracks me up. I would suggest trying it a few times if you’re short on laughs one day. I guess we have to amuse ourselves one way or another as English teachers here.
Kids nowadays don’t know they’re born! When I was at school we never used to get gifts or rewards from teachers. Pens, candy, stickers and stuff just for agreeing to study. The lucky buggers.
tom: I don’t do it for studying. I do it for behaviour. Given that I’m not allowed to bring out the cane, I have to bribe the little bastards, but I do get to turn the tables on them and really fuck with them as per my chopstick game.
I dread to think what your chopstick game involves .
There’s not much that can be done about bribing kids, though, because most of the parents at the very least condone it and in many cases actively encourage it. The whole thing is beyond me. If any teacher started pouring chocolate down my kid’s throat in class I’d be in there like a shot.
Now that’s an idea! Chopsticks under the fingernails, only there’s no nice option. The kids get to randomly pick how sharp their chopsticks will be and/or which implement I will use to hammer the chopsticks with! Mwahaha!
Yeah, I wouldn’t be too appreciative of kids getting loaded up on sugar in class either, but then you make the mistake of assuming the parents give a shit about the educational element. That said, I did go to a few trashy schools in Australia where the kids were rewarded with McDonald’s at the end of the term or semester.
The problem with the lottery (as great an idea as it is) is that someone who works hard throughout could get nothing, so while you’re encouraging those who haven’t tried harder, you’re demoralising those who did.
I don’t know if this will specifically work for Taiwanese or not, but I remember in 5th grade my teacher made a “money” system. Basically for being good or getting answers correct I could get “class cash” then every friday she had an auction with a bunch of toys in a box. It’ll let you off set the cost because all you need to do is buy the amount of toys you can afford and you can give as much as cash as you want. (kids that age don’t understand inflation and won’t start protesting your “Quantitative Easing”) Every monday she would buy a few new toys and show them off to the class, which would get us motivation to be good all week if we saw something we liked. (also, don’t auction off everything every week, just what you have “time to get to” and just time that so you only auction off four or five things) I think just the fact that I remember all these details show how effective it was (I’m in my 20s now) Plus, since you are doing the whole auction in English you can justify it as an “English game” helping them think on their feet with numbers, (gotta spit out the bid before the auction ends) I would have a lot of cheap items and a few “big ticket” items that you wait a few weeks to sell too encourage hype to be built up and cause higher bidding.
You can also, if you want, though my teacher didn’t do this, have a store set up with some basic toys and candy that kids can buy at any time during the week for a set price. Though that may keep the inner class inflation down, which you wouldn’t want, though I doubt it will have much of an effect once the competition of an auction is going on.
The kids’ parents may be rich, but it is unlikely that they give them their own bank account or any monetary responsibility beyond a small allowance (but, I haven’t made it to Taiwan yet, so perhaps I am wrong in that assumption). So while the kids probably could get the same toys by bugging their parents, they might find it fun to have their own bank roll to manage.
EDIT: Looks like you are already doing the store thing. Consider the auction, it’ll be cheaper in the long run for you I think, because the students will drive up the price of the prize by bidding against each other for it, rather than if you have a store where 12 kids could just buy 12 items for the same price and cost you a bundle.
[quote=“KathVic”]I have to buy rewards for my students. Most of them are from pretty affluent families, so I don’t think the rewards are really going to motivate them. I went to this big toy wharehouse in Zhonghe and found good cheap gifts for my 1st grade students. I also have 4th and 5th graders and couldn’t find much for them. I bought some funny looking stationary-correction tape with cute designs etc…
Does anybody have any suggestions for my 4th and 5th graders?[/quote]
If you HAVE to do it, just buy a ton of cheap stickers and give them out for nothing at the end of class. The system is arbitrary. Give everyone a little cheap ass sticker. They run out covered in evidence and you get more smiles from the boss (who is probably fucking you and the government over on your taxes). Dont sweat the small stuff. Stickers for everyone!!!
GIT,
Thanks for your great idea. I’ll try something like that with one of my classes. What other behaviors do you reward for. My students are in 4th and 5th grade. I was thinking of rewarding for coming to class on time, bringing your books, bringing your homework, not speaking Chinese, participating in class, and being polite to your teacher.
BTW. I went to the 19 dollar store at the nightmarket near my house and found some cool rewards for my students.
I reward my students for good behavior and paying attention. I give out Baby Cards which can be redeemed for Hello Kitty stickers and cute pencil boxes. If they are really bad, they have to return all of the Baby Cards and go sit in the corner. They get positive reinforcement with a big hug if they try really hard at something. They’re not allowed to throw tantrums or punch each other. If they do this, I make them sit in the Angry Chair.
But that’s my university students. I suppose you’d have to do things differently with buxiban and kindy.
jimi: Nice one. I was waiting for the punchline.
Kath: I reward the kids for being on time, and then general class participation (and paying attention) at the end of the lesson. They don’t need to bring anything to my classes. The participation is something every kid can/should do because it’s all non-verbal, which takes the form of either TPR or broader task-based activities, both usually (but not always) in groups. Kids who screw around end up doing chores for me such as cleaning marker ink off tables with solvents.
Stray Dog: Real life doesn’t always reward the best/nicest/hardest working, and my world is much the same. Sometimes, a little cunt just ends up winning and that’s too bad. As long as a kid has been good in one lesson at some point, he or she will end up with at least one lottery ticket, and therefore, a chance (even if it is really small).
Real life does not give you lottery tickets for your efforts. That’s a pretty poor excuse for defending a flawed practice.
Of course life gives you lottery tickets for your efforts and of course it rewards people inconsistently. Are you really going to argue against this observable truth? Why do some people smoke, drink, etc. all of their lives and live to a ripe old age, while others take care of themselves and get cancer and die in their thirties? Why do people drive safely and still get killed in a car accident when a bunch of yahoos in this country drive scooters at high speeds with no helmets on and never have accidents? Christ, this is so absurd. I could list hundreds of such examples.
It’s not a physics experiment in a laboratory. School makes so many kids completely ill-prepared for real life in this respect. Like so many others, you have been fooled by randomness. I suspect that at some level this really irks you because it somehow cuts right against the grain of how you think the world should be, not how it actually is.