Be genki,

Richard

The presenter the other week was taking a few ideas from the king of classroom management, Fred Jones and specifically from his “Tools for Teaching: Discipline, Instruction, Motivation ” book (or here on Amazon Japan) A very recommended read.

For example one technique that was presented was to control the class simply using teacher presence. For example if we have a class like this with the teacher at the front, which student A,B or C is going to give the most problems?

The answer is C of course as they are furthest from the teacher.

So one of the simplest ways to combat this is to simply move around the classroom as you teach. Sometimes being at the front, sometimes in the middle or sometimes even teaching from the back of the class. This simple thing is sometimes all you’ll ever need!

One other very effective technique is to remove the podium or teacher’s desk from the front of the class. Not only does it create a communication barrier between students and teachers, it also hinders your movement around the class.

Sometimes in larger classes the desk arrangements can prohibit this movement. So Fred also suggests a few other seating suggestions e.g. islands of desks or clear walkways between desks.

There are lots of other techniques in the book, including why kids behave like they do and it is highly recommended.

However having said that it seems quite a few teachers prefer picking up the ideas from his DVD set instead of the written page, which I can quite understand. I can’t find the DVD set on Amazon, but it is available on his website for $795. (I tell you the Genki English Teachers’ Set is way under priced!) If your school has the budget it seems well worthwhile.

Needless to say with such a high ticket product there aren’t that many video clips around to see what it’s like. But here are a couple for you. One is Fred in action so you can see his speaking style, and one is of some teachers who have used his ideas. They are a bit “salesy” & don’t have too much substance, but have a look and check out the book on the US or Japanese Amazon.

Fred Jones on why traditional punishments don’t work

Behavior and Grades Improve after Fred Jones Training

Great addition to a gingerbread house making session

That’s such a good idea isn’t it! In fact I was so impressed I’ve recorded a Christmas “Gingerbread House” remix of the song to test over on the Beta Test Forum.

It fits very nicely with the “Let’s build a snowman” song I put up there over the weekend. I hope you like them and take the chance to help make changes to them.

Tomorrow I’ve got another post about discipline - always a popular subject!

or a Gorgeous French Guiana Breakfast?

Over on the forum we’ve been chatting about breakfast videos and Carol, from the comments section here, has sent in this video of her breakfast.  It makes you want to move out there, doesn’t it!

Even if you can’t get your kids to do the projects right away, it would be really cool if you could video your breakfast (most digital cameras are cool to do this) and send it in.  I think it would be great to see all the breakfasts from around the world,  never might the kids!

I can do it!

At the end of the workshops last week the Cambodia teachers were also getting into the “I can do it!” song.  You couldn’t imagine they were all poker faced “We can’t do this” teachers the day before!

I thought I went through things really quickly, but the students were asking all the right questions at the end, e.g. how do you do this without any staff? How do you support the teachers afterwards? etc. etc.

It was also amazing that they were all from different countries with different experiences in the field. Actually I wouldn’t have minded taking the course myself!

I also tried out a touch of Power Teaching in the demo doing clap, clap, clap “Pairs” and getting them to reply clap, clap, clap “OK!” before doing the Warm Up game in turns in pairs.

We’d been doing a review of an academic paper before hand, and there was another presentation before mine, so it was good to see them all joining in, and getting genki, before going onto the main part of my presentation.

Hopefully a few of the students will be reading the blog, so please get in touch if there’s anything I can help with!