How To Make Learning Fun For Highschoolers?

[889]

Big kids can do real damage with a basketball. Watch the windows. And your head.

 

Reminds me how, in college, someone once -- and only once -- had the great idea of putting big bowls of unshelled peanuts on every table in the dining room.

[ChTTay]

8 hours ago, Pianote said:

I would really prefer having fun conversations relating to the topic in the book instead of playing games. I don't think they understand English enough to play games and I feel that they will learn more from reading and talking about the subject.

 

As I said above, the problem isn’t them, it’s you. As Roddy pointed out, playing a game or activity takes MUCH less English. You can essentially teach students with no English something simple then immediately play a game or do an activity.  It requires no English... just a good demonstration! As per Roddy’s example, throwing a ball is a “game”. Another super simple one is get two balloons and write “Q” on one and “A” on the other. Knock them around the class, use a timer or just say stop, whoever is nearest or holding the balloon must do the question or answer (that you’ve taught and practiced). 

 

It’s not about what you’d prefer, it’s what the students can do. Unless we’ve got the wrong impression, it seems like you’ve tried having “fun conversations” but that hasn’t really worked. Likely because most of the students English level means they can’t have conversations. I’m not sure if reading and talking is the way to go if students won’t/can’t talk. 

 

When we talk about games it’s not just for the sake of it. You need a goal and that game should help you reach it in some way. There are activities for everything, you just need to find or think of them. 

 

Another example for reading: 

1. Reading race

Download a “bomb timer” from the internet (a countdown timer that explodes at the end).

Aim: Students must “beat the bomb”. 

A student reads a number of words or a sentence from the text (depending how long the text is), when they’ve finished, the next one continues from where they left off, then the third student continues from where the second student finished and so on. All the students must read and follow along otherwise, when it’s their turn, they will have lost their place and will waste time. Everyone will lose if time is up and the bomb blows up.

Practice without the bomb first. Set the time so that students can’t win the first try. Reduce/increase the time depending on the text. 

 

2. Find the word

After reading/ reviewing the text, you say a word within the text. Student finds it and reads the sentence that it’s in. As a reward, they come to the front and try for points (e.g get a sticky ball and draw a bullseye, use a waste paper bin and have points on the floor that increase as students get further away from it). 

 

Teach the students you have, not the student’s you want. If most of them can’t talk and discuss, you can’t build lessons around talking and discussing! Discussing something in a foreign language is a really high level skill. 

[Pianote]

@ChTTay. Yes. I'd rather have discussions with them in a foreign language because that's how I learn a foreign language. I will ask them more re questions, etc. Plus, there are 50 students in a class and it's tight in there.

[ChTTay]

Right .... my point is if their level isn’t high enough then discussions aren’t possible. 

 

As above, regardless how long they’ve had English classes in the Chinese state school system, most won’t know anything (as you said yourself, even words they’ve learned in other classes they don’t know).

 

So, with that in mind, you can say that the majority of your class are beginners in terms of speaking. Are you a beginner Chinese language student? Could you go to a class, read a text, understand it and then discuss it in Chinese? 

 

I think the advice here is all great and enough for you to change what you’re doing so the students find it more useful! 

 

You’re not the first to teach in a class where the students are all squeezed in. Lots of ideas for teaching in these Chinese style classes online. 

 

Good luck!

[Pianote]

I played games with my classes today and they really enjoyed it! It was a game I call follow directions where the students had to draw what I ask on the board (example: draw a tree to the left of the house). I have one more class today - the 12 year olds. Hopefully, they like it just as much. Will definitely do games more often.

[Flickserve]

On 08/04/2018 at 1:12 PM, Pianote said:

Yes. I'd rather have discussions with them in a foreign language because that's how I learn a foreign language. I will ask them more re questions, etc. Plus, there are 50 students in a class and it's tight in there.

 

Yeah. This method won't work. The baseline verbal skills are just too low. It's like me trying to have a discussion in Chinese with a Chinese Mandarin teacher. I just get lost because of my lack of listening and verbal skills. However, most teachers assume my level is much higher for some reason. 

[roddy]

3 hours ago, Pianote said:

It was a game I call follow directions where the students had to draw what I ask on the board (example: draw a tree to the left of the house).

That's a good one. If they're able you can also get the students themselves to call out the instructions. If they're as young as twelve they'll love that kind of stuff. 

 

What else are you teaching this week? 

 

Edit: With the drawing game, I used to set it up as a competition between two teams. Most accurate reproduction of the picture wins. They have to call out instructions to a team representative who has half the board to draw on. All you do is deduct points for language mistakes and not using English. Can also be quite funny: 

 

"There is a duck to the left of the tree..."

"Er...What is a duck?"

"Delicious!"

[Lu]

On 09/04/2018 at 6:15 AM, Pianote said:

I played games with my classes today and they really enjoyed it!

Thanks for the update, it's good to hear good news!