4 Responses to “The Difference Between Average Teachers & Great Teachers!”

1. 

   Tammy 4:33 AM

   Hey Richard!

   This is very inspirational! Thanks!

   One thing, though. I’m using your phonics worksheets and the lesson worksheets for my students and we came across a problem that I have with SO many teaching texts; the small letter “a”. You teach the rounded version in the Phonics worksheet, but then use the annoying “a” (<-this one) in all of your other worksheets/picture cards. My students, when they do their homework of copying the words into their notebooks for homework, invariably copy the "a" on the worksheet. I really like the fonts that you use, but that is a point that often confuses my students.

   Is there anything you can do to change this? (I realize it's no quick fix, unless you use a different font or go through each document and manually change the a's.) Or, do you have any suggestions on how to get students to stop copying the non-printing "a"?

   Cheers!
   Tammy in Oita, Japan

2. 

   Richard 6:33 AM

   Hi Tammmy,

   Very good question, and very easy solution. Please don’t have them doing any copying! 🙂

   The reason is that the regular lesson worksheets/workbooks are for when the kids are pre-literate, before the phonics, and the words are purely there for parents/teachers, not for the kids. Of course they physically *can* do copying, but it does far more harm than good to introduce writing at this stage.

   Once they’ve got the basic speaking lessons covered, then we move on to the reading/writing with the phonics and all the graded phonics material (i.e. the phonics workbooks, the phonics stories etc.) are all in the nice rounded Sassoon font so everything is fine.

   But please, please don’t have them copying words from the regular song worksheets! 🙂

3. 

   Susan K 6:33 AM

   A poster to inspire positive thinking in teachers – great!

   Yes, we do need to remind ourselves now and then that all kids have a great capacity for language learning. I must admit it’s been quite humbling to realize that they could have done better and I still have a lot to learn! On the other hand, believing in my students has made me want to figure out better ways of teaching.

   Cute picture!

4. 

   One Miller 9:33 AM

   I can’t begin to count how often I have to deal with homeroom teachers are always telling me that something is too difficult for their students. 『あーむずかしい!』It is so frustrating because these children CAN do it. They ARE doing it. Teaching English is fun! Teaching alongside some Homeroom teachers…that is difficult.