Great Videos from a Great Teacher
March 25th, 2008 by MarkOne of the really great teachers I’ve worked with before has put up what appear to be training videos for new teachers at his school. Ross’s school could be the best 1st and 2nd grade English program in Taiwan.
Dick Whittington:
Hansel and Gretel individual reading:
A fun civilization board game:
Discussing an environmental campaign:
Ross and his program have also made the local news a couple of times.
China Post: Students struggling for positive identity, foreigner says
:
March 25th, 2008 at 10:19 pm
does he have a website?
March 26th, 2008 at 12:09 am
I don’t know. He’s got a youtube channel, though.
March 26th, 2008 at 2:37 am
He is very energetic.
Kids understand what he is saying. I see that China and Taiwan prepare multitudes of English speakers. The rest of the world is getting behind…:-)
When kids were reading, they put their fingers on the right of the word that is being read, covering next words. I would put my finder underneath the line.
March 31st, 2008 at 2:37 pm
oh wow, this is what English teaching is like? :O
April 3rd, 2008 at 11:37 am
In my opinion, Ross is pretty exceptional. He consistently keeps the entire class focused. Part of it is his classroom control skills and part of it is that they’re using English to learn about other things such as, history, the environment, etc…
Unfortunately, most English cram schools I’ve seen have spent an unconscionable amount of time on whiteboard games that involve students racing up to the whiteboard and hitting words with hammers, throwing sticky balls at the whiteboard or similar activities.
April 11th, 2008 at 5:43 am
How long have these students been learning English? They seem to be doing quite well for cram school students. BTW Is using English to learn about other things (history, environment etc.) really such an exceptional practice? It was the norm for many of the teachers I worked with.
April 13th, 2008 at 9:59 pm
Elliot, the classes in these videos are from a variety of levels. The most advanced one has been studying five hours a week for three years, assuming Ross hasn’t made any major changes to his program since I’ve visited his school.
I think it’s pretty exceptional to use English to learn other subjects at a cram school for kids in this age range. Keep in mind, they only have four or maybe five hours a week of English classes. There are quite a few “immersion” kindergartens and quasi-bilingual elementary school programs in which students have hours of instruction in English every day. At that kind of place, it’s common to use English to study other things. Some of those programs are good, but many are not. I regularly meet students who have studied four hours a day for years but still end up in my lowest level of classes. The grammar and phonics for the lowest level aren’t very complicated, either.