Classroom as a Footbal Pitch?

I'd been long struggling with a class of 8-year-olds and I couldn't figure out what to do with two particular boys of whom one is quite smart but very disobedient and the other one just like him, though much slower when it comes to English. I increasingly often resorted to sending one of them out of the classroom. I knew it wasn't ideal as it didn't seem to work.



Luckily, while I was reading a book on teaching children in Asia, I came across this idea that any punishment is essentially wrong because it only makes things worse rather than the opposite. The author went on to suggest that we should try to turn a lesson into a big game where children compete in groups for points and so are stimulated to try hard throughout the lesson while at the same time under the control of their team-mates. This thing would probably seem banal to more experienced teachers, however, I came up with the idea of turning the lesson into a football match where I act as a referee.

Amazingly, what I did had an enormous impact on those boys. They all understand football very well and so I didn't have to explain at lengths what my yellow and red card means!

I need to teach more groupwork.
I need to learn more...

Turning Students Into Bloggers

Looking at our students' blog I think it works pretty well and it's precisely because of close-knit community we enjoy here.

Hari Raya

Malaysia is often described as an Islamic country. This is a little simplified description as, for example, I've been for the past 8 months almost completely separated from the Malay Muslim majority. Nevertheless, it is hard to miss that today is Hari Raya which marks the end of Ramadan.

The first day of Ramadan was special for me and so was, in its own way, the last. For the second time only in Malaysia I went to a church. To be honest, I was appalled that the preacher did not care to mention Hari Raya at all. He called for unity within the Christian community but remained oblivious to the fact that mosques are besieged by shocking numbers of beggars these days. Maybe I expected him to call for broader unity and mutual understanding, but then by going to church I was probably just like him.

The climax of the day was a symbolic one. I found myself staring at Kedah's paddy fields from the top of Gunung Jerai, as if a God's window was wide opened yet again.

A Special Moment

This was truly a special moment. I had an adorable 4-year-old girl on my lap drawing me - great pictures, I can tell you! But just a moment before that I finalised my first activity based on concordances. For the past week or so I've been utterly mesmerised by this part of corpus linguistics and though I'm just at the beginning, with my IT/analytical background I actually feel very close to this area of language teaching.



I've been saying for some time now that I want to direct my EFL career to teaching children only, yet I can't as I still bear the bulk of responsibility here. Come to think of it, however, it might eventually prove a huge advantage since I can get a well-rounded picture of English language teaching.

Phonics for pre-schoolers and concordances for upper intermediate students - that's what I call a challenge.

I was nervous, I was proud

Students-centred Classroom

I'd been absolutely positive up until last Sunday that the U-shape organization of desks in the classroom is the best option available. There are a few reasons to support this view, such as that all students have a good view of the teacher and her mouth in particular all the time, but I came to realize that's the old teacher-centred approach.

I handed over a class of intermediate teenage students who I struggled with enormously to a more experienced teacher. She immediately moved the desks together in order to form two groups sitting around and facing each other rather than the teacher. Apparently, she did only pairwork/groupwork activities and the class seemed a huge success. I was having my class next door and I could hardly concentrate as I was wondering what kind of magic tricks she used.

After that I decided to give it a try with my 6-8 year olds and it had me weep before the class when I saw one of the shiest girls with a smile on her face, utterly intrigued by the new arrangement.

Obviously, such a thing can never make the class unless it comes hand in hand with appropriate activities but I'm going to have a shot at it, especially with teenage classes.