Learn English
This video was posted by @ddeubel on his blog EFL Classroom 2.0 which is a blog that I really love. He's chosen this as the #1 video for English language teachers.
It's a tremendously moving video about a Japanese teacher and his class. Their objective for the year is to "understand how to live a happy life (and) how to care for other people". What a wonderful syllabus objective?!
Find more videos like this on Seoul Education Training Institute
The great thing for me about the video is the fantastic relationship between the teacher and the students: the great empathy, the friendliness and the physical contact. Above all, the physical contact. Here is a teacher with his primary students, doing high-fives, hugging and consoling, joking around and even playfully wrestling with one.
As a male British teacher, working in Europe, I was struck by the fact that I have been forced into a mind-set that says - don't touch kids.
When I started teaching in 2003, I worked in Portugal and there had recently been a high profile paedophile case involving a British teacher in a language school. As a result, we were told by the directors to try not to touch the kids at any time and never to be in a room alone with them, particularly male teachers with female students. This has also been a procedure at other school's I've taught at, summer schools in the UK particularly. Some advice has been that if a student wants to talk after class you should move towards the door, leave it open and talk in the doorway, meaning that others can see you, just to protect the teacher from any potential difficulties.
In Spain, where the culture is far more touchy-feely than the UK, I've been made to feel uncomfortable by little kids wanting to hold my hand, sit on my knee during a story or cling to my leg, just to be playful. These are perfectly normal things that are now seen as dangerous or wrong by many. I don't think that there's any need for the kids to sit on my knee, that's taking it a bit far, but kids being tactile is perfectly natural and maybe some of the discipline problems I've had are because they see me as cold. Who knows? I'm not a cold person and I do laugh and joke with the kids, but maybe I appear distant by never allowing physical contact.
I love the idea of high-fives. My friend who teaches in the same town always does this and it's great when I've seen the kids run up to him and slap hands in the street. I'm thinking of using this as a hello or goodbye routine, or both! Maybe I could use a handshake for some good work? Neither of these things should be considered strange and are totally acceptable forms of contact. I still don't think I'd be happy giving hugs though, I would be genuinely worried about it being misinterpreted - though maybe I'm paranoid.
What do you think?
Other thoughts on physical contact with YLs here at Ranting Manor.
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Learn English
A wonderful video for all teachers
This video was posted by @ddeubel on his blog EFL Classroom 2.0 which is a blog that I really love. He's chosen this as the #1 video for English language teachers.
It's a tremendously moving video about a Japanese teacher and his class. Their objective for the year is to "understand how to live a happy life (and) how to care for other people". What a wonderful syllabus objective?!
Find more videos like this on Seoul Education Training Institute
The great thing for me about the video is the fantastic relationship between the teacher and the students: the great empathy, the friendliness and the physical contact. Above all, the physical contact. Here is a teacher with his primary students, doing high-fives, hugging and consoling, joking around and even playfully wrestling with one.
As a male British teacher, working in Europe, I was struck by the fact that I have been forced into a mind-set that says - don't touch kids.
When I started teaching in 2003, I worked in Portugal and there had recently been a high profile paedophile case involving a British teacher in a language school. As a result, we were told by the directors to try not to touch the kids at any time and never to be in a room alone with them, particularly male teachers with female students. This has also been a procedure at other school's I've taught at, summer schools in the UK particularly. Some advice has been that if a student wants to talk after class you should move towards the door, leave it open and talk in the doorway, meaning that others can see you, just to protect the teacher from any potential difficulties.
In Spain, where the culture is far more touchy-feely than the UK, I've been made to feel uncomfortable by little kids wanting to hold my hand, sit on my knee during a story or cling to my leg, just to be playful. These are perfectly normal things that are now seen as dangerous or wrong by many. I don't think that there's any need for the kids to sit on my knee, that's taking it a bit far, but kids being tactile is perfectly natural and maybe some of the discipline problems I've had are because they see me as cold. Who knows? I'm not a cold person and I do laugh and joke with the kids, but maybe I appear distant by never allowing physical contact.
I love the idea of high-fives. My friend who teaches in the same town always does this and it's great when I've seen the kids run up to him and slap hands in the street. I'm thinking of using this as a hello or goodbye routine, or both! Maybe I could use a handshake for some good work? Neither of these things should be considered strange and are totally acceptable forms of contact. I still don't think I'd be happy giving hugs though, I would be genuinely worried about it being misinterpreted - though maybe I'm paranoid.
What do you think?
Other thoughts on physical contact with YLs here at Ranting Manor.
- Esl Kids - Great Website For The Kids To Learn English
Whether you?re a teacher or a parent (or both) and are looking for a website where children can learn English, you?ll find ESL Kids a strong ally. ESL Kids offers many resources like flashcards, worksheets, games or songs. And all for free! It?s worth...
- Smories - Great Stories In English For Kids
Smories is a fantastic web page that contains hundreds of stories (in video format) for kids. Moreover, every story is read by a child and it?s also possible to add subtitles, so it?s quite easy to understand these stories. Every video-story has a title,...
- Over A Year Since My First Blog Post!
One year on How time flies?! I've only just realised that it is now more than 12 months since this humble blog was launched with this post. The original purpose of the blog was to reflect on the process of initiating my first class blogging project...
- Classroom Routines
One of the most important things I have learnt about teaching young learners is the need for routines. There are many things that can be used in the classroom for many reasons, but today I'm interested in discipline routines. When I started teaching,...
- A Little Happiness Can Go A Long Way
One of my students posted a great video on our class blog site today. He states that it's the best video he's ever found on the internet and I think it's certainly worth a watch. I really enjoyed it, because I'd been having a bad day and...