I’ve talked before about how we can “flip” a classroom, so the kids learn at home , and class time is actually spent interacting with them, instead of lecturing. If you haven’t tried it yet, it will revolutionise how you think about teaching.
But there is so much more that we can do. Have a look at this amazing video from Salman Khan:
(The bit about badges and awards at the end might interest a few of you!)
Now, do I know how to do this with your English classroom?
To be honest, I don’t.
It is a huge challenge to bring English teaching up to the level of other subjects.
Heck, some teachers even today are forced to teach crazy tests or grammar translation.
But I’m sure with all your help we can come up with some amazing ideas and new solutions to make classrooms like Salman aspires to!
What do you think? Would love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
This was a great video, and in my opinion, a great example, in terms of his philosophies of how to go about teaching, not just lecturing the student – Self education and peer to peer education!
Thank you Richard.
Once again and every time I step in front of students, I’m happy I sent you my money and subscribed to your news letter.
Please keep the greatness coming.
Great ideas and video. I saw this earlier on TED and forgot about it. Thanks for the reminder…it is giving me an idea for English reading tutoring.
Great idea because the software isolates where the student is having problems. This allows the teacher to target a lesson specifically to the student’s needs. Imagine the time and frustration that is saved by knowing what the student’s needs are. This concept would free up time for the teacher to focus on each student as the student progresses at their own pace. Brilliant! Rather than having a lesson based on a book, the lesson is based on the student’s ability. The sky is the limit with this idea. Applying this concept to English would require a lot of intitial work. Where would you start? Khan started with basic math, 1 + 1 = 2. It’s pretty straight forward. English conversation is not as cut and dry. Do you start with the alphabet or phonics? At some point, the student will need to speak. That’s the main difference and problem between doing calculus and conversation with this concept. Perhaps an affordable program that recognizes speech? Students need to interact with people not machines, right? The concept allows for repetition which is great for learning a language. I think learning grammer would work well with this program. Learning conversation would require an interaction with someone. I’m not sure how a student’s weakness could be monitored so that a teacher could pinpoint the problem.
I know, isn’t that a great site? And Richard, you too have a great site. I hope to see you in a video with Bill Gates on day. Keep up the good work
The internet is an amazing tool for sharing information. The internet is almost like a multi media library but on steroids! If I like an author or see something on the t.v I can just jump on to google and search. In seconds I can wikipedia the subject and go to various other links to learn more. I can watch the author give a lecture or debate the topic. I can do so many things that 10 years ago seemed impossible or fat too expensive. Learning in this sense goes far beyond the traditional method of tests. It is open to everybody as long as they are ready to learn and have an inquisitive mind.
As far as teaching is concerned..sites where teachers can create and share materials with each other are great. Although, there are problems with those sites but I won’t go into detail here. The videos Richard or other experts upload to youtube are great too. The keys seems to be sharing information leads to the evolution of ideas.
Thanks for sharing the video.
Richard,I love to follow your website. Your teaching technics is so fresh and unique. I used to try it in my classroom in South Korea. Kids loved it.