Sunspots in the classroom

Work Teaching English in Taiwan
1

Someone mentioned teaching their kids about something other than English recently. :noway:

Personally, I’m all for it and wondered what other people had to say. My worry is that you always run up against the limitations of the teachers, or people preparing the material you use. They may be great at English, but how much do they know about other stuff?

Example: A student challenged his ‘wrong’ mark in a multiple choice quiz which involved finding the odd one out from several foodstuffs. The book considered mushrooms to be vegetables, the kid knew better. I gave him the point, of course, because I’d just that science book by Bill Bryson, but he still got the ‘wrong’ answer and how many other people have been made aware of that distinction?

Example: An article about the origins of names of foodstuffs featured the story of how the Earl of Sandwich had the revolutionary idea of putting a piece of meat between two pieces of bread. Except that they didn’t use his title, they used his name. The sandwich is named after John Montagu. Er, so why is it called a sandwich? If you’re going to give the origin of a name you have to show some link to the original word.

Example: A quiz (junior high) in which students had to give the English names of countries on a map. Most could give the English translations of the Chinese names when we went through it afterwards, but didn’t actually know where the countries were so they failed the test. All knew the USA, but half didn’t know Canada. You’re too busy teaching English to teach geography, that’s someone else’s job but doesn’t get done.

Example: Teacher offers a bonus point if students can identify the ONE country which has more than one official language. Yeah dude, you’re Canadian aren’t you? Here, have a photo of bilingual road signs in Wales. I’m sure there are others.

I guess the point is that language only has meaning if it’s used in some context. Without being aware what concepts like ‘sunspot’ or ‘England’ it becomes a totally artificial ‘thing to be conquered’. It’s like studying theoretical math but not being able to do basic arithmetic. A lot of language teaching here is done in a vacuum, and a lot of the teachers are not really equipped to fill in the gaps - even if we had the time and were suitably rewarded.

My other pet peeve is people trying to shoehorn idioms into short articles to ‘illustrate’ their use. My most recent favourite: Toilet seats first sprang up in India.

2

[quote=“Loretta”]Someone mentioned teaching their kids about something other than English recently. :noway:

Personally, I’m all for it and wondered what other people had to say. My worry is that you always run up against the limitations of the teachers, or people preparing the material you use. They may be great at English, but how much do they know about other stuff?

Example: A student challenged his ‘wrong’ mark in a multiple choice quiz which involved finding the odd one out from several foodstuffs. The book considered mushrooms to be vegetables, the kid knew better. I gave him the point, of course, because I’d just that science book by Bill Bryson, but he still got the ‘wrong’ answer and how many other people have been made aware of that distinction?

Example: An article about the origins of names of foodstuffs featured the story of how the Earl of Sandwich had the revolutionary idea of putting a piece of meat between two pieces of bread. Except that they didn’t use his title, they used his name. The sandwich is named after John Montagu. Er, so why is it called a sandwich? If you’re going to give the origin of a name you have to show some link to the original word.

Example: A quiz (junior high) in which students had to give the English names of countries on a map. Most could give the English translations of the Chinese names when we went through it afterwards, but didn’t actually know where the countries were so they failed the test. All knew the USA, but half didn’t know Canada. You’re too busy teaching English to teach geography, that’s someone else’s job but doesn’t get done.

Example: Teacher offers a bonus point if students can identify the ONE country which has more than one official language. Yeah dude, you’re Canadian aren’t you? Here, have a photo of bilingual road signs in Wales. I’m sure there are others.

I guess the point is that language only has meaning if it’s used in some context. Without being aware what concepts like ‘sunspot’ or ‘England’ it becomes a totally artificial ‘thing to be conquered’. It’s like studying theoretical math but not being able to do basic arithmetic. A lot of language teaching here is done in a vacuum, and a lot of the teachers are not really equipped to fill in the gaps - even if we had the time and were suitably rewarded.

My other pet peeve is people trying to shoehorn idioms into short articles to ‘illustrate’ their use. My most recent favourite: Toilet seats first sprang up in India.[/quote]
Teaching English through content. :bravo:
Great post.

3

Expanding the mind is a wonderful thing, eh. Thinking out of the box, so to speak.

4

It’s called English-immersion and it’s hardly anything new.

I’ve taught summer camps to Taiwanese kids where the subjects have included rain forest ecology, natural disasters, and fairy tales around the world. This year I anticipate teaching Egyptology and simple physics during the summer. I’ve also taught English-immersion preschool classes which encompass non-language concepts such as numeracy/math, science, social skills, music and movement, and self-help skills.

What’s more amazing is that it’s such a new idea to so many people here. It’s definitely not something to teach to low-level students, although as a preschool teacher, I can tell you it is possible to teach developmental concepts and skills to non-English-speaking children as they learn the language. It seems to work better for those students who have a basic level of performance in English to add specialized vocabulary and concepts to what they know already. But it’s not some brand-new method. It’s been around for many years.

5

[quote=“Loretta”]Someone mentioned teaching their kids about something other than English recently. :noway:

Personally, I’m all for it and wondered what other people had to say. My worry is that you always run up against the limitations of the teachers, or people preparing the material you use. They may be great at English, but how much do they know about other stuff?[/quote]

Loretta’s dead on the money with this one. I also have to teach Drama, Math, Science, Social Studies, Music, and Art at my preschool. I feel spectacular when I teach English, but I dread Math and Science days. Sometimes I don’t really understand what it is that I’m supposed to be teaching–simple vs. complex machines?–and that makes it REALLY hard for me to figure out how to simplify it and make it interesting for four-year olds. Plus, even when I do think I know something, the book may just be wrong–like showing a picture of a ladybug with four legs on one side, meaning insects have 8 legs instead of six! :s

6

I do it by chagning the usual “What’s your favorite color?” kind of questions to something cooler like “What’s your favorite cartoon?” Then you get to teach them the Englsih names of the cartoons they come up with (my class was Sponge Bob, Mr. Bean, Doreamon, Do Rei Mi and Pokemon.) Simple, but very effective, because all of the sudden they have some English that means something to them (I teach 6 year olds :slight_smile:.)

7

[quote=“Persephone”][quote=“Loretta”]Someone mentioned teaching their kids about something other than English recently. :noway:

Personally, I’m all for it and wondered what other people had to say. My worry is that you always run up against the limitations of the teachers, or people preparing the material you use. They may be great at English, but how much do they know about other stuff?[/quote]

Loretta’s dead on the money with this one. I also have to teach Drama, Math, Science, Social Studies, Music, and Art at my preschool. I feel spectacular when I teach English, but I dread Math and Science days. Sometimes I don’t really understand what it is that I’m supposed to be teaching–simple vs. complex machines?–and that makes it REALLY hard for me to figure out how to simplify it and make it interesting for four-year olds. Plus, even when I do think I know something, the book may just be wrong–like showing a picture of a ladybug with four legs on one side, meaning insects have 8 legs instead of six! :s[/quote]

That’s because it sounds like some of the things you’re supposed to be teaching to 4-year-olds doesn’t sound developmentally appropriate. Simple versus complex machines for preschoolers? How out of touch with reality is the person who writes the syllabus for your class?

If you’re allowed, bringing in outside materials, such as photographs from old calendars and science magazines will give them examples of accurate pictures when what you have is less than substantial. If you can, simply the lessons so that they include a lot of discovery learning - like in the simple machines versus complex: show them the different simple machines used in a bicycle to make the work easier (wheels for tires, gears to turn to rear wheel, cranks for pedals, screws to hold it together) and how they work together to make a complex machine and ask them what would happen if the wheels were missing, or the gears, or if the wheels were square? Do hands-on activities like rolling a cylindrical block versus a cubic one to see how more difficult it is or show them how much more work goes into using a lever to move something than a crank.

There is a lot more work that goes into teaching other disciplines compared to English which simply requires something to read, something to write with, and someone to talk and listen to. Perhaps that’s why not many English programs here don’t cover all the disciplines.

8

I think Imani and Persephone have very valid points. Teaching English as something that has some meaning in and of itself is the way to go, but…

Ask an English teacher to teach geograhy, or math, or sociology, and what happens? It’s a better way to teach, probably, but is much more demanding of the teacher, and there’s the added dimension of the parents’ unreasonable expectations. I don’t usually have the latter problem, but I do have the related one of trying to teach essay-writing skills to post-grad students who don’t know shit or have any opinions of their own. You spend all your time teaching them to have an opinion about, and applied vocabulary to discuss, subjects they don’t appear to have much grasp of in their own language.

We all do the best we can, and I’m not trying to bitch anyone out. The post was triggered by absurd articles presented as teaching material. That’s the worst part. If you’re going to teach English immersively, surely you should teach it correctly? Six legs, not eight, surely that’s the difference between an insect and a spider as far as a language teacher is concerned. What answer do you give when a student asks you if the book illustrates it incorrectly?

9

Yeah, I am dealing with a few misprints in materials that were produced by a very reputable educational publishing company in the US. However factual errors are more than one should have to tolerate when teaching content.

I wonder if the 8-legged ladybug was very cartoonish so the drawing was simplified just as the hands on the Simpsons have been simplified from an accurate 5 fingers to only 4 because 5 fingers would be too realistic. Showing 3 legs might have made it look unbalanced. Five legs would have been strange and six legs would have looked too busy so they stuck with an even four.

If it were a picture to teach the word “ladybug” I could understand, but if it were an illustration meant to accompany factual information about insects, I’d suggest taking the book to the original publisher and whacking a few people in the head with it for letting it get marketed.

But that’s just me. :angel:

10

It was in the phonics book, not the science one–but sheesh! The timing was bad because that was the week we were learning about insects :fume:

Anyway, what’s killing me now is that I have to teach “this” vs “they” when it should be this/that vs these/those.

Q: What are they?
A: They’re my eyes.

:loco: