GAME OF THE WEEK: The Show Game
A challenge has been put forth… Can you answer the call?
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December 10th, 2006 at 12:26 am
So like… in response to the game of the week, perhaps this is where this belongs. I got two topics.
Anyways, I thought that an interesting topic would be something along the lines of curriculum planning. Something I’ve witnessed (and experienced) a few times is that an organization will hire/invite a teacher or volunteer teacher after assuring them that they don’t actually need qualification or experience teaching ESL (or anything, for that matter), and then places them in a school or situation where they’re suddenly the “expert.” Afterwards, they may be provided with materials, but no actual curriculum, and then must spend a lot of time getting to know the level of the students, trying to find out what they’ve been learning recently, and coming up with an interesting way to teach new stuff. This is aggravated a little bit by the fact that the class sizes might be larger than the teacher is used to seeing, or that they have to start teaching the very next day, or that they only see each class once or twice a week. I don’t know how many teachers in this situation listen to your show (you’ve got at least one though!), but it would be nice to hear how other teachers who have a) been teaching longer or b) dealt with this challenge in a successful way, have been able to come up with a curriculum. Or at least it would be interesting to hear how your experiences have been similar/different. This is all coming from China, by the way, and has been my experience in two different cities. I mean… that was all just one reason it’d be a cool topic… just general advice/stories/examples/whatever would be fun too.
I’d also like to hear a show on the so-called “conversation class,” which is sort of related, where schools/mothers/training centers/what have you tell a teacher simply to talk. About things. And then leave you to your own devices. Because “the students rarely get to talk to foreigners.” I know that in small groups or students who are there voluntarily, this can be a really fun class, but in, say, large high school classes, it’s possible to lose track of the… goal(?), I guess, for a number of reasons. How do you approach classes like this, and what lessons have worked well? Anything you’d recommend against?
Well, there’s my input. Maybe you’ve discussed these already and I’ve missed the shows? In any case, fun podcast, thanks for it!