Teach English in Jinzhuang Zhen - Jining Shi

Teaching classes containing a wide variety of ages can be a great challenge. It can also be a very rewarding experience watching the students of different ages work together to achieve a mutual goal. When I was in elementary school the older grades would often go to the classes of the younger grades to read stories with them on a 1 to 1 basis. The younger kids usually loved it and they would be smiling and waiting for the older kids to arrive on story days. The older kids also felt a large sense of accomplishment helping a younger student to learn to enjoy books. Having multiple age groups also works well in skits and roll plays. As its easy to create a play that involves multiple age groups with different levels of English and have them work well together. For example when I was in secondary school we had an improvisation drama class the grade 7's with the grade 12's. There was a lot of family skits the grade 12's playing the parents and the grade 7's playing the children and juvenile delinquents. We were given 5 minutes to discuss the topic with the other members of our group and what rolls we would play. The skits really turned out quite well. A mixed group of students for a math class how ever would be quite difficult as everyone in the class would be at a very different level and they would all be required to learn something new. That would not be an easy process to achieve and keep the interest of everyone in the class. Even with teaching kindergarten there are often kids of different ages with a very large skill level difference. To help the younger students you can pair them in a group with some of the more advanced students in order to try and help bring their level up faster. Because kids will try harder if they are trying to communicate with another student. Most of the younger students were quite far behind compared to the older students. Some couldn’t say any of their ABC’s others could recite them without help. Some knew their number and colors. Others not a clue. But after a while of them all working together you could see the younger students happy and catching up and the older students seeming to feel a sense of accomplishment for helping their classmates. There is a lot of song and dance activities in kindergarten classes to get them interested in learning the language. It does help a lot as the songs are quite fun and catchy to the students so even when they are not in class they are still trying to remember the words to the songs. When it comes to coloring activities the older kids would finish quickly and be a bit bored so having them go around and help some of the younger students with their work kept them busy. Dealing with classroom discipline is not an easy task in kindergarten when you have some students that do not understand a thing you are trying to tell them. So there is a lot of explanation with pictures and gestures to help them. Getting all the students to engage in all classroom activities can also be difficult as some things the older kids will find silly or childish and the younger kids just jump too it and are happy. Some of the harder tasks the younger student for a while just stand or sit there for a while trying to figure out what to do until the older kids explain it to them in a way that is easier for them to understand. When you are dealing with adult multi age multi level classes there are a lot of difficulties. Some of the less advanced students will be embarrassed to try to answer with the more advanced students in the room. While the more advanced ones will try to hog all the speaking time answering quickly. It is a difficult process but you have to try to make them feel comfortable that they will not be laughed at or teased for wrong answers.