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Published: June 22nd 2010
We would all be dishing out 狗屁 or
gǒupì, literally meaning “dog-farts” aka bulls**t, if we claimed to never have encountered computer problems. In the case of working and living in China I would be flat out lying through my teeth if I said my IT world was all happy with smiles. Oh Lord the frustration; so in my usual effort to avoid too much direct confrontation, perhaps mid-November,
I gave up on Chinese computers all together.
As it turns out, we don’t need computers for everything and often times a piece of paper and a pencil do the trick just fine. Third graders don’t care if their lesson on kitchen utensils is presented on a hand-drawn worksheet instead of a
Power Point presentation. Why should I? Since this small revelation mid-November I have sat myself down every Monday morning for the past 30-odd weeks and graphically thought my way through the next week’s English lesson.
Each class of kids contains between 35 and 37 kids, third graders, all ready to be as energetic as possible. The minute the bell rings, and then for the following forty minutes, the flood gates open and the student’s attention is either 47%!(NOVERB)
mine or not at all. From the very beginning, teaching a mass of kids is a complete race against time and an uphill battle keeping everyone as active, busy and engaged as possible for as long as possible. Usually we start with a drill or two - reviewing days of the week, today, tomorrow, and yesterday. From there we segue into a song or two like the “Itsy Bitsy Spider” or the “Hokey Pokey”. This past week we learned “You Are My Sunshine” with a token fake-puke after the line, “You’ll never know dear, how much I love you,
blaaahhhh”.
The next portion of the battle plan is to attack on all fronts - we sing, we dance, we draw, we write, we talk and ask questions, and then we do it all over again. A long time ago a smart guy named Fleming came up with a silly acronym… “VARK”.
V is for visual Learning
A is for auditory learning
R is for reading and writing
K is for kinesthetic or tactile learning aka “touch it or play with it and thou shalt learn.”
Acronyms aside, I figure everyone learns a little
Jim's Beach Store
What is the original price of a beach towel? And the sale price of a pair of sunglasses? You tell me --bit differently and if I throw in something fun for all those different learners, hopefully at least a little bit will stick. That said, my kids and I learn from a splash of everything; with a large emphasis on “
Vark”, “v
Ark”, “va
Rk”, and “var
K”…
I especially enjoy two portions of this approach to teaching - moving around and drawing. I feel lots of moving around is especially good for my personal mental health; it can’t hurt to apply the same mentality with third graders. The other thing that keeps me especially engaged is learning through drawing. Drawing keeps me happy and it keeps the kids a bit busier - they either draw on their desk, on other kids, or on my worksheets, and if they are going to draw, they might as well do it in English.
My student’s endless energy is absolutely contagious and after a full year of teaching nine and ten-year olds I will really miss them --
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Donna White
non-member comment
Great teaching methods!
Your teaching methods are really creative! I loved the photos. You will miss your students, but they will undoubtedly miss you! Can't wait to see you!