(By Guest)

I worked for a company that only teaches kids for five years. Kids are different to teach than adults, thats for sure.

I can give you a couple tips for teaching children off the top of my head:

1) Even though they dont understand English, treat them as if they do. If you mutter "little bastard" under your breath, or swear, it doesnt matter if they understand it or not, its bad for two reasons:

a) kids will often understand the vibe of what you are saying than adults will. Kids read body language much more than adults. Adults rely more on language for communication, because their language level (in their native language) is at a high enough level that they can do this. Kids have a lower level of language, so they rely more on reading peoples body language and emotion.

b) its almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy - if you start staying stuff like that, you start believing yourself more justified in saying things like that, and it can set your mood as a teacher in a negative direction.

2) As a teacher, you will teach multiple lessons every week. For every lesson you teach, its just another lesson. But if you look at that lesson from the kids perspective, its the one hour a week they get to spend with a foreigner, playing games and having fun. So for any lesson you have that you dont prepare well for, or are in a bad mood/hung over/tired for, you are removing that kids chance to have fun for an hour

3) Kids like to sing and dance. If you dont, you should try to drop any self image concerns you have with singing and dancing, and enjoy yourself with them. It will make your lessons more enjoyable for them and for yourself.

4) Repition is the key to language acquisition for kids. They will not learn by long grammar explanations. Thats not how kids brain works. However, having kids repeat something will only work for about 1.5 minutes tops, depending on their age level. So the trick is to use games to make them repeat stuff. The game itself doesn't matter, it just has to be fun to the kids, whatever it is. Then, whatever the game may be, you just make it so the kids have to say the key sentence, or key vocabulary that you are working on in that lesson. You can make them say something every turn, or you can make it so they cant progress without saying something, or you can make it so that their level of success depends on saying the language properly. It doesnt matter. In essence, you are tricking the kids into learning - their primary motivation is to win the game, and since winning the game involves remembering and using the target language, they will try their hardest to learn the target language in order to win.

5) Many teachers in Japan bitch and complain about not being teachers, and rather being clowns, or just playing games. But that's how kids learn, and not just in Japan. If the lesson is fun, the kids will learn. If the lesson is boring, they wont. There is a direct correlation.

6) Always have a game prepared to play if the game you are playing flops. You always gotta have a plan B. Its like a comedian who has a bit that isnt working - he switches to a different bit. Sometimes you will prepare a game for 4 kids, and only 3 will show up. Sometimes they just dont like your game. Sometimes you realize that you hadnt thought about something, and the game isnt gonna work. There are any number of possibilities.

7) I often find that teachers have learned certain Japanese words, because they are words that they always use in class. Its like they find a situation that keeps arising, and learn the Japanese to deal with it, such as shizuka-ni shite - be quiet. The thing is, if you are finding yourself always using this Japanese, its a prime opportunity to teach that English to the kids, and since you use it often, it will get stuck in their head. So if you find yourself relying on the same Japanese phrases all the time, teach the kids the English for that phrase and use that.

8) Consistancy is of prime importance. If you are consitant from lesson to lesson, your kids will come to understand what you expect of them, even though they may not undestand English. So make sure you keep the same rules, and use the same English phrases from week to week.

ABOUT TEACHING KIDS (by Kris)

Tis a hard-job, frankly. A challenge that'll keep you on your toes. Adults are a piece of piss in comparison, and kids take real work and preparation. My first 6 months was nothing but stomach aches, but now I can say it does have its rewards. Firstly, it is a lot more fun than adults. If the kids like you, you might find yourself starting to feel quite attached to them after a while. They're also quite entertaining and you can have a bit of a laugh watching them doing daft things like bundling each-other and joking about. Unlike adults, kids are pure, and you might find that teaching kids affects you spiritually and also changes your enhances your personality in many good ways.

How to format a lesson. Let's say its 50 minutes long.

10 minutes: Conversation. Teach them a simple question/answer pattern, and do the same thing every week until they know it well, then change to the next question. What's your name? How old are you? How's the weather? Can you

I chuck in random questions to test their vocab too. Give me 10 animals in English. Give me 10 sports. Etc.

10 minutes: ABC stuff. Use cards and go through the alphabet. It's important to teach them not just the letter, but the phonic sound. Play games using the ABC cards, like getting kids to slap the whatever letter you call out, or whatever.

10 minutes: Whatever the lesson objective is. The last 10 minutes

10 minutes: Textbook

10 minutes: Game. Or a song (check out GenkiEnglish.com) or read them a book.

GOLDEN GAMES

These games were invented by me, and they are gold. I gaurantee that you will never fail to entertain if you do it right, with a bit of charm.

TEMPLE OF DOOM

First teach them up, down, left, right, go and stop.

Draw a little maze thing consisting of a few lines on the whiteboard. Ask a kid what their favourite fruit is and then make it the target. Now get a toy koala, or whatever you have handy, and get the kids to scream out "LEFT! RIGHT!" etc, as you hand control the koala towards the target. When they make a mistake, or dont say stop or something, follow what they say anyway - it's quite funny for them to see the koala walking back the way he came or bumping into walls because they made an error.

This works with even very small kids.

The next level is where it gets fun. This time you have a ball in your left hand that you sort of pretend is like a rolling stone that will crush the koala if he doesn't get to the end in time. This will have the kids SCREAMING at the whiteboard when the ball gets close to the toy. Even if the koala gets squashed, everyone just thinks it funny.

BAKUHATSU (EXPLODING) CHICKEN

I use this cool little rubber chicken thing I've got for this one. After you teach some new vocab, to test the kids you can pretend like the chicken is jumping on the card, and they have to say the cards name before he lands, or else he'll explode. This one gets a good laugh when the kid doesn't know the card, and you melodramatically launch the chicken in the air while you make a big exploding sound. It's just a random, fun way to drill them with vocab. I know it sounds daft, but this is what teaching kids is all about, making a prat of yourself whilst educating them. Do it for long enough, and you'll enjoy it. You won't even care.

Other ways include getting them in lines and one by one they can say the card in your hand, and if they get it right you let them jump up and touch your hand, or get them to all open their legs, and the kid at the front gets to 'tunnel' to the back.

TREASURE ISLAND

For teaching EAST, WEST, SOUTH AND NORTH.

This one takes time to prepare, but the older kids enjoy it. You have to draw a big grid on the board, and then with about 7 of whatever cards you have, pin them face-down somewhere on the 'map' so that the kids don't know which is which. Then get some magnets and put them somewhere on the edge. These are the kids counters. Choose one of the cards like say "Apple" and tell them they have to find that card, which is the treasure card. Now, the kids throw a dice to determine how many moves they can have. And then as they say "EAST, EAST, SOUTH" etc, you move their counter along the corresponding amount of moves. As they get to the pinned cards with their counter, you reveal what card they got to. If it's the treasure card, they win.

NUMBERS

For teaching HIGHER, LOWER. And practicing numbers.

Easy one. Draw a number on your hand, then tell the kids they have to guess what number it is. Say you write 66. One kid might say 10, so you say HIGHER. Next kid. 100. LOWER. ETC

With little kids, just do 0 - 10.

COLOUR TOUCH

Not even a game really. Just shout out a colour, or show a colour card, and the kids have to touch something of the same colour within 10 seconds, or they're out. With small kids, I just get them to touch the colour, nobody 'loses'.

21

Everyone gets in a circle. You start by saying 1. Then the next kid says 2, the next kid 3. Etc. When they get to 21, you explain that 21 is the losing number. Then you show them the two extra rules. 1. If somebody says 2 numbers in succession (ie. 2,3 , or 13,14), then the next person in the circle is skipped. If somebody says 3 numbers (1,2,3, or ,18,19,20 etc) then you REVERSE, and change the direction of the flow.

Bit hard to explain that one, hope you get it.

CHAIR-SWAP

This isn't one of mine. Give the kids three cards each. Then shout out the names of two cards. The kids have to take their card, and swap chairs. The last one to sit down loses a 'life' (which means you take one of their cards). Keep going until

Teaching TIPS.

1.Never lose your cool if a kid cries. This happens all the time. Even if it's your fault, kids get over hurt quickly, so just move on to something fun.

2.Punish naughty kids. If you don't, you're fucked. What I do is I get a chair and put it in the corner. If a kid pisses around too much, get him to sit, face to the wall in the chair for 5 minutes.

Some kids may seem rude by being overly chatty or excited, but it might just be their age, and you might have to bear that in mind and be a little lenient on the occasion.

3.Don't play too many games.

Ages 1-3 : Can only grasp the basics. Colours, the weather, simple vocab. Do the same shit every week. DO NOT do anything competitive as they cant handle it. Every game needs to have everyone winning. Concentrate on simple songs, and don't allow them to run around too much or else they'll lose focus or start playing around. Use Genki English or Wee Sing, none of those LETS GO songs which are all crap.

Ages 4-5: Capable of playing some games with limited competition, so somebody can win. You might have to cunningly cheat to make sure that there isn't always a consistent winner, though. These kids are usually very fun and don't have personality issues. You should be teaching them how to write at this age. They love being swung around and things.

Ages 6-8: The high-energy age. They can play games and don't cry if they lose. At this age you might not have to use many songs, and you should perhaps focus more on teaching them how to spell properly.

p.s. Don't worry about parents too much. You will find that most of them are nice people, who only care that you try your best. You can ask them to have a word with their kid if he's pissing about too much, but sometimes they wont do anything. You're better off just trying to get the kids respect by punishing him yourself.