Children’s Class: Chaotic or
Joyful?
Sari Kamil
How do we feel, as teachers, when we know that we will have a children
class for the new term? Do we feel happy and delighted or panicky and
frustrated? Do we need extra preparation to deal with this class? Teaching
children is not an easy task; perhaps it is more demanding than teaching adult
class. In this presentation, I will focus on three issues:
children’s learning styles, multiple intelligences, and discipline. The
first issue is to have a class of mixed ability children with different
learning styles. What will be our strategy? As quoted from Children Learning English there are three things to do:
1. Teach children in groups according to their ability
2. Prepare activities to suit the level of the groups
3. Vary teaching methods to cater to a range of different abilities and
styles of learning. (Jayne Moon, 2000).
We may be concerned that these three things will be time consuming,
burdening and difficult. Based on Jayne Moon’s book, there are some possible
ways to adapt the strategies by: Planning
differentiated activities. Planning does take time, but we will have the
satisfaction of seeing children make progress at their level. One way of
reducing the problem is to collaborate with other teachers to develop a
materials bank, which contains activities at different levels for particular lessons.
------- ---- -------
Kamil,
S. (2005, March). Children’s class: Chaotic or joyful? Paper
presented at LIA International Conference,
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