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When we consider all the elements that go into becoming a skilled reader it seems a monumental task and yet some how young children learn the many different decoding skills necessary to them and most become proficient readers within the first few years of school.

However not all young children learn to read with ease and even those who will eventually succeed face struggles on the road to success. One easy way that parents can help smooth the path to reading success for their children is through the use of word families.

Word families, sometimes called phonograms or chunks, can really help emergent readers begin to understand our complicated, and often inconsistent, language by providing some predictable patterns within words. As you and I learned to read, we picked up these patterns effortlessly, and they still help us when we try to decode new words. When we direct our students' attention to these same patterns, they too will be able to untangle the seemingly unrelated sounds of English.

When learning to read, patterns are important. Children recognize word patterns and this makes it easier when sounding out words.

For example, let us consider the "all" word family. First, show "all" to the child and have them repeat the sound. Then show the word "ball" and demonstrate how you can "read" the word by first making the "b" sound and then the "all". Repeat it slowly and then more quickly. Now continue with some other members of the "all" family such as call, fall, hall, mall, stall, tall, wall.

Can you see how much easier this method of using "chunks" of letters is compared to sounding out one letter at a time? We break words into chunks naturally as skilled readers and teaching children this skill can help them learn to read.

What is even better is that once children learn the 37 most common word families in English they will be able to decode 500 words. That puts emergent readers well on their way to mastering the entire decoding process. The most common word families include: ack, ain, ake, ale, all, ame, an, ank, ap, ash, at, ate, aw ay, eat, ell, est, ice, ick, ide, ight, ill, in, ine, ing, ink, ip, it, ock, oke, op, ore, ot, uck, ug, ump, unk.

Word families are indeed an efficient way to get children reading. Once children learn these one-syllable phonograms then they will more easily be able to decode longer words, too.

Exposing your child to word families, teaching the use of these language patterns, and reinforcing the knowledge with rhyming games and activities will help your child learn to read.

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Source by Deanna Mascle

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The Association Technique can be a helpful tool to help you memorize many seemingly unrelated items or ideas. Association is a powerful memory aid. We all experience sensory stimuli that remind us of something else. The smell of fresh baked bread might remind you of your mom's great apple pie. Hearing the end of the "Sesame Street" theme song might remind you of your wonderful pre-school teacher.

The Association Technique connects the items or ideas we want to remember to one visual theme. Recent hemispheric brain research has proved the power of associations. Our brains act as computer file folders, slotting newly learned information in the same file as already-learned information that fits within that same file. This Association Technique connects the new information you want to remember with existing information that you already know, much like our brain file folders do. If we take the time to organize new information in same way as our brains, we can improve our retention of that information.

Directions

Select a visual theme in which to place clearly objects that represents the main idea or "title" of the majority of objects, or key words, to be remembered. Place the numeric symbol that represents how many items you need to remember somewhere in your visual. Substitute any abstract objects with more concrete ones. For example, substituting the yellow "Have a Nice Day" smiling face for the abstract "happiness" would be a much more memorable object. Connect the object or key word to one part of the common visual. If the exact order is important, connect each in clockwise order.

Example

Suppose you needed to remember the following errands for Saturday afternoon:
-Pick Up the cleaning.
-Mail Kenny's birthday package.
-Buy A jar of mayonnaise.
-Buy A three-pound can of coffee.
-Pick Up a dozen roses for Mom.
-Call For reservations at Luigi's Italian Restaurant.
-Make A doctor's appointment for your yearly physical.

Picture a large orange "seven" standing up in the middle of a green, grassy field. Picture yourself leaning up against the "seven" with a plastic bag containing your cleaning on your right arm and a birthday package with a bright red bow hanging from your left arm. Then, picture your right foot stuck in a jar of mayonnaise and your left foot stuck in a coffee can. In your mouth is a long stem rose. Hanging out of your nostrils is a few spaghetti noodles from Luigi's and hanging around your neck is a doctor's stethoscope.

Now prompt yourself to remember the errands by identifying each object. Works well, does not it? A little rehearsal will place these facts into your long term memory.

Memorizing using the The Association Technique will enable you to retain the memory of many seemingly unrelated items. Useful for upcoming tests, lectures, speeches, shopping lists, and weekend errands? Of course.

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Source by Mark Pennington

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The physical education games that are described in this article can be played at the beginning of gym class as part of a warm exercise, during the period wholly or partially devoted to games or physical education activities or at the end of class as part of cool down exercises. In addition to the obvious benefits of providing good exercise, combating obesity and developing motor skills, the other skills that I wanted my students to demonstrate when they play these games are co-operation, sportsmanship and enjoyment.

Here are 6 examples of physical education games that my students and I enjoyed.

1. Face to Face

Scatter formation (possibly in a large circle) with partners. One odd player stands in the center and alternates between calling "Face to Face" and "Back to Back". The students take the positions accordingly. When he calls "All change" the students must find new partners and the center player tries to get one too. The student left without a partner goes to the center and gives the commands. If there was no "odd student" then I played too.

2. Partner Tag

All of the students but two hook arms in couples. Of the two that are free one is "it" or the chaser and the other is the runner. The runner tries to avoid being tagged by locking arms with either member of any couple he chooses. When he does, the third student of the group becomes the runner and must avoid being tagged. If the runner is tagged the runner and chaser change positions. To make the activity interesting, the couples should run and twist to elude the runner. For a large number of students there can be more than one runner and chaser.

3. Catch the Cane

Have the students form a circle or divide the class in two and make two circles. Each student has a number from 1 to the end. One student is "It" and stands in the middle of the circle holding a cane or yard / meter stick with one end on the floor. This student calls out one of the numbers and lets go of the cane. The student whose number was called, must catch the cane before it falls to the floor. If he fails he becomes "It".

4. Overpass

Divide the class into 2 even teams (or 4 for a large class and run two games simultaneously). Team 1 forms a circle and each member of team 2 stands between two members of team 1. A team 1 member holds a ball (volleyball, soccer ball, football, etc.) and a member of team 2 holds the same type of ball ( differentiate the balls, colour, etc.).

On the word "go", each team member passes their ball to their team member on their right (or left). The team that completes the full circle with their ball gets a point.

The teacher can vary the game by calling out, "circle" (the student with the ball must run around the circle before passing the ball) or "zig-zag" or "bounce the ball", etc. I'm sure you get the idea. It's great fun.

5. Pass and Change

Arrange all the students in the class except one in a circle of about 40 feet in diameter. The student who is "it" stands in the center of the circle with a large (soft) ball.

To start, "it" calls the names of two students in the circle and at the same time throws the ball to a third student. The two students whose names were called, run to exchange places in the circle. The third student, upon catching the ball, throws it back to "it". "It" then throws the ball at one of the two students, trying to hit one before they manage to change places. If "it" succeeds in hitting one, the student who was hit becomes "it". The game starts again with the new student being "it".

6. Fish Net

This game is played with two teams. One team is the NET and the other team is the FISH. To begin, each team stands behind a goal line at opposite ends of the field. The NET team chooses a Captain and joins hands in a line. The FISH team runs free. At a signal, both teams run forward and the NET team tries to make a circle around as many FISH as possible. The FISH may not duck under the arms of the NET, but if the NET drops hands, the FISH may escape.

When the NET team has made its circle, the Captain counts the number of FISH that were caught. The other team now has a turn to be the NET. These are only a few of the elementary physical education activities and games that my kids participated in during their gym periods. You'll find many more by visiting my website. I hope you enjoy teaching these games because your students will love them.

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Source by Honey Krumholz

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Are you ready for a completely different approach to time management? Read on to discover Bill Burns' take on how to manage to do lists.

Bill Burns is an incredibly gifted psychic and spiritual teacher in Los Angeles. According to Burns, there are two very different types of people: validation incarnations and change incarnations.

The change incarnation people are those for whom traditional time management systems, complete with planning and schedules, work very nicely. Since they're also in the majority of the population to the tune of about 90%, it seems like this is the way it should work.

This reminds me of the time when the prevailing "wisdom" insisted on making us all follow a low fat diet, which caused some of us a lot of misery and weight gain.

Now we know that many of us are designed to thrive on a LOW CARB diet, with ample protein, quite a bit of good fat, and as few carbs as possible, other than mostly veggies. And most of us do much better without eating grains too. There goes another sacred cow of the dominant nutritionist paradigm.

Time management works much the same way.

Yes, it works great for Change incarnation people.

However, it causes a lot of grief for the rest of us – the Validation incarnation people.

How so? Because validation incarnation people "function" pretty much exactly in a way that's in perfect alignment with the teachings of Abraham-Hicks.

In fact, I'm sometimes wondering if Abraham Hicks are simply just talking to Validation incarnations, since their teachings are perfect for us. Maybe that's because it's really mainly validation incarnation people who are open to that kind of teaching.

Change incarnations would be skeptical to say the least, and probably turned off by those teachings.

And if Bill is right, change incarnations will not need it anyway- all they have to do is work their plans.

But for validation incarnations … things are very different.

If they follow their gut, and focus on doing the things that feel right, while feeling good about themselves at all times, things tend to fall into place.

Yet if they push and shove and force themselves to keep up with something they do not really want to do, they tend to get into big trouble.

Now that does not mean they can be irresponsible. They still have to do the regular stuff, but overall, the emphasis is on following your bliss – just like Joseph Campbell used to say, who was obviously another Validation incarnation.

And just as Abraham's teachings lay it out.

Any time management course that would work for validation incarnation people would have to be compatible with that. It would have to help you reconcile getting stuff done while following your bliss at the same time.

By the way, would you like to know if you're a validation or a change incarnation?

Here's a quick test:

1) Have some of the best things in your life ever come to you out of the blue?
2) Does planning often lead to disaster or get you stuck in a place where you're not happy?
3) Did the above article speak to you?
4) Do things work best for you when you feel good about yourself?

If you answered Yes to most (or all of the above), you are very likely to be a validation incarnation. If you answered no, you should probably think about your answers a bit harder since most change incarnation people would have stopped reading this article long ago.

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Source by Elisabeth Kuhn

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Picture the scene: You get up one morning and are met by several unexpected upheavals. Nothing major, just the little things that tend to get you down … The clothes you left out neatly ironed have been knocked off their hanger and are now in a mess on the floor; the friend who promised to help you today will not answer her phone; the plumber has left a message saying he can no longer fix the toilet; the kettle has blown a fuse mid-boil; the postman brings a bill for something you've already paid and you look out of the window to see workmen installing a bus stop directly outside your house. None of these are life threatening but they certainly wind us up. Taken collectively they can set the tone for a very bad day.

We do not like it when the rules have changed; we like things to be dependable. We like to be able to rely on people, machinery and our daily routines. Disaster movies illustrate this point very well. Just think of poor John McLain in 'Die Hard'. Kids are no different. In fact, perhaps more than us, they positively need to be able to depend on things. They do not possess the level of self control most adults do when things go wrong. They need consistency. When I run training courses in schools the one question I'm asked more than all others is "How do we become more consistent?"

On a personal level that's an easy question to answer. Effective teachers ensure consistency in their classrooms ( and automate their classroom management in the process) through routines.

Routines refer to specific behaviours and activities that are taught in order to provide smooth, uninterrupted class operation.

Carefully taught, routines can save large amounts of time during the year. When students know exactly what is expected of them in a variety of situations, the time saved can be spent teaching rather than organizing or disciplining.

With clear routines in place pupils know exactly what to do at the start of lessons. They know exactly what they have to do at the end of the lesson and they have a clear procedure to follow for every transition or activity throughout the school day. Handing in work, what to do when you've finished work, how to behave during group-work, toilet breaks, practical work, field trips etc. etc. can all be automated through thoroughly explained and well-practiced routines.

But consistency in school is not just about what happens in one teacher's classroom. In order for the school to run smoothly consistency is needed across the board – all staff need to be singing from the same song sheet. If we truly want to create order and stability in the school where policies and routines are upheld by all, inter-staff consistency must be developed. The next question, as always, is 'how?'

For various reasons teaching does not lend itself to team-play. It's a lonely job really – you're on your own in your classroom for most of the day and when visiting the staffroom there is often an undercurrent of competition rather than collaboration around the issue of behaviour management. "What do you mean he's out of control? He's alright in my class." Some teachers prefer not reveal their secret methods but this is not exactly conducive to a whole-school approach.

What works for one staff member is not necessarily going to work for another but regular whole-staff training sessions where good practice is shared and discussed provide an excellent starting point for development of effective strategies that all staff could adopt. Another obvious way to learn from each other is to simply watch others at work. But the opportunity to observe colleagues or even 'team-teach' alongside them is a luxury normally only enjoyed by NQTs and trainee teachers.

I remember my first teaching practice during my PGCE and being desperate to get in front of the class rather than follow the tutor's advice and 'take every opportunity to watch other teachers.' By week three I, like the majority of my fellow students, had finished with the trivia of observations, preferring to spend lessons actually teaching rather than merely watching. Had I known that those few weeks would be the only opportunity I would ever get to watch other excellent practitioners at work, I would not have been in such a rush to move on. During 15 years of teaching I learned quite a bit through trial and error. But I also learned an awful lot during 3 weeks from simply watching other teachers.

While regular training sessions, providing opportunity to observe colleagues and setting up team-teaching initiatives will go some way towards establishing whole-staff consistency, they're not exactly cutting-edge strategies that are going to address the real heart of the matter. They are what we might term 'level one' solutions, just as a lick of paint provides limited improvement to a rotting window frame. We want to go deeper. We want to sort out the rotten wood.

In my mind there is one issue which is overlooked when we talk about creating consistency. It is without doubt the most difficult to address but never the less holds the key to a successful and truly consistent school. It concerns the attitudes of the staff.

If there is to be whole-school consistency, it must start with staff sharing a consistent attitude. Everything starts with attitude.

An interesting article I once read cited a story which illustrates perfectly the difference in attitudes in a guven situation. It was a story about two schools in an area of ​​flooding. Head teachers at both schools announced one morning that, because of flood damage to several classroom, s two teachers would be required to work together in the gym with their respective classes side by side. In both cases it was explained that it would cause considerable upheaval to the members of staff involved and would require them to work hard to make the best out of a bad situation.

In one of the schools two very negative teachers were picked to work in the gym. At the other school, two very positive members of staff volunteered themselves to work in the gym. Needless to say, the negative teachers found every reason to make the situation a failure. They grumbled and complained about every aspect of the situation giving reason after reason why they would not be able to work in this way. Result: A failure. The idea of ​​collaborative classrooms never took off in this school.

At the other school it was a different story. The two teachers immediately got together to plan how they would work in this exciting new arrangement. They spent time getting the layout of the room right and arranging resources so both sets of pupils would benefit. They decided a strategy of team teaching would suit certain subjects and certain groups and did everything they could to make it a success. Result: A success.

Ok, it's a bit pithy and I'm not even sure it's true but it could be. The point is that from a positive attitude, positive results flow. And in terms of dealing with behaviour this is crucial. Our attitudes dictate our own behaviour and therefore how we respond to pupils when they are breaking the rules. Obviously it is far better when we all respond in the same way.

Consistency is not just about having clear school rules – it's about the way those rules are enforced and one of the main difficulties in tackling behaviour problems in school come down to the fact that different members of staff respond to problems in different ways.

Some will treat a boy with his shirt out as if he has committed a heinous crime – shouting, yelling, pointing and threatening – while some will calmly give him a knowing smile and simply stand in front of him while he tucks it back in. Still others will ignore him completely, fearing the backlash from challenging a cocky youth.

The teacher who screams and yells, the teacher who points and threatens and the teacher who is calm and approachable may well have the same opinion about the school rules but they will treat pupils who break them very differently. This difference in approach is to be expected, we're only human after all.

Post why? It all comes down to attitude.

A teacher who screams, yells, points and threatens – or even ignores, sees challenging pupils as a threat; a threat to their leadership, a threat to the smooth running of the school, perhaps even a threat to decent society. They see only the bad in these kids. They are focused on the problem.

The calm, approachable teacher knows it is she who is in control. She has no need to yell and threaten because she knows there are a wide range of strategies she can use to get compliance before she needs to even think about punishment or threats. Her approach to the boy reflects this and he sees her as more approachable from the outset. She also knows this is a boy with problems, not a 'problem boy'. She sees the challenge as a teachable learning opportunity rather than a personal affront. Her attitude is one of empathy, support and cool, calm confidence.

So how do we get everyone's attitude in sync? Let's take those facets of confidence, empathy and support one at a time.

Confidence comes from experience, from having the right skills for the job and also from knowing that you are part of a team who will back you up to the hilt. Gaining skills is relatively easy to solve – through regular training sessions using both in-house and outside agencies, through experience and through good feedback from mentors and colleagues.

Experience is obviously gained on the job but could be speeded up somewhat with lesson observations and team-teaching sessions. The key with regard to any type of training is frequency – it's far better to take part in a very brief session each week rather than one long session once a year. Training companies and schools alike are now seeing the benefits in long-term projects where support and assistance is continually provided through a range of platforms including coaching, email courses, online support, video and telephone mentoring rather than the traditional, crammed and soon-forgotten one-off INSET day. Being part of a team who will back you up to the hilt is something we'll cover in a moment.

Empathy for our more challenging children lies at the heart of changing attitudes towards them. Some teachers forget, or do not know, that many of today's school pupils come from horrendous backgrounds in total misalignment with our modern, so-called civilized society.

Early on in my own career I tore strips of a 15 year old boy who rudely interrupted my science lesson during my first day at a new school. I was very pleased with myself and puffed my chest out when he eventually followed my bellowed command to remove himself from the room and never return. I conducted the rest of the lesson with a swagger.

Later that day a senior colleague took me aside and told me some of the pressures that poor boy was facing at home. No wonder he was causing problems at school. I spent the whole of the lunch break tracking him down so that I could apologise to him and returned home that day with tears in my eyes. I think about that boy often and he reminds me that there are always reasons behind their behaviour.

My view of challenging pupils changed in that moment and there have been many similar incidents since then to remind me of the importance of empathy and understanding in our dealings with them. Staff need to be given the full background on difficult pupils. They need to know why they act the way they do so that they see their behaviour as the cry for help or genuine problem it often is rather than a personal attack. With empathy comes a total change in the way we view these young people.

The abusive, rude adolescent becomes a young person who's only way of dealing with the world is the anger he carries as a result of troubles he has faced. The noisy, silly child's behaviour is seen perhaps to be a result of a lack of control when he was younger or the absence of love, attention and support.

With this change in viewpoint comes a change in the tools used to address problems. No longer do they reach into their standard 'Problem Child' toolbox with its limited assortment of shouts and threats. Instead they begin to find new strategies, de-escalation techniques, humour, fair consequences and offers of support. Relationships between staff and pupils are improved and problems are generally reduced.

One way we can improve attitudes across the whole staff is to bring them more closely together. In many professions involving a group of people working in the same proximity a high priority is placed on Team-Building. This is done for obvious reasons. Real teams communicate with each other. They find solutions, they help each other and they back each other up. They operate as one unit. And this creates … you've guessed it … consistency in the workplace. It has to be this way – for the benefit of the team. Sadly, this just does not seem to happen so much in schools.

In many schools it's a case of 'every man for himself'. If you can not hack it with the pupils there must be something wrong with you. It's your fault if you can not get them to do as you say. There is often a total lack of support for those who are struggling and a reluctance for those with their hearts set on leadership to share their expertise. The idea of ​​a team simply does not exist.

Now, that's not just a problem for staff – and it's a big problem because nothing makes you feel more alienated or incapable than colleagues who do not back you up – it's also a huge problem for the pupils. Children and young people need to feel safe, they need to know where the boundaries are, they need security, they need … here it comes again … consistency. And nothing is more inconsistent than a group of staff who do not work together. Just like the good cop / bad cop or the parents who can not agree this type of inconsistency causes problem after problem.

The answer? Lessons could be learned here from the corporate world and indeed any effective group of people. The old saying 'those who play together stay together' may have some relevance too. Without doubt the schools who place a priority on community involvement (let's not leave the parents out of this) and on the social welfare of every member of staff are the happiest places to work and, I'm sure, the most satisfying places to attend as a pupil.

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Source by Rob Plevin

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Pricing plays an important role in the success of any tutoring business. However, there is a lot of confusion about the best way to price your tutoring services and how to go about finding the right price. This article looks at pricing strategies for independent tutors and tutoring companies and how to research prices in your market.

Setting your Pricing Level

The first step in determining how much you should charge for your tutoring services is to determine what other tutoring services in your area are charging. You'll want to focus on tutoring companies that offer similar services to your own tutoring business since there can be a large variation in tutoring prices for different types of tutoring.

The next step is to do some research just like someone searching for tutoring would. Search for tutoring services in your area online, check the phone book, ask guidance counselors about other tutoring companies. When you have a list of similar tutoring companies in your area you can find out about prices by calling them up and asking or checking their website for prices. You can also check online tutoring directories to find out what independent tutors are charging for the subjects your company offers.

If your company is new and you or your tutors have average experience and credentials then you should try to price your services a bit above the average price.

If your company has been operating for a while, you have satisfied customers, and you or your tutors have teaching experience and credentials then you should price closer to the upper range of comparable tutoring services.

Many new tutoring companies think they need to start with low prices in order to attract clients, but this is a risky strategy and can actually hurt your business more than help it. The reason for this is that if your prices are very low, you will be generating very little profit to reinvest into promoting your business. If you are paying tutors to work for you, you will also have a difficult time attracting and keeping high quality tutors which are extremely important for building your reputation and creating satisfied customers who will refer you to other clients.

Early on it might make sense to focus on an under-served segment of the tutoring market in your area. This will allow you to charge higher rates, and generate higher profits which will help you afford more marketing and better tutors. These in turn will help you establish a base from which to expand into more competitive segments of the tutoring market.

Tutoring Price List

Providing different pricing options can also help your business meet the needs of more clients. There are several pricing or billing methods you can use.

Pay per Session

This pricing option has clients pay before or after each tutoring session. This is a good method if your business does not have much of an operating history. It also puts new clients at ease if they are new to your business and are wary of paying for a longer period of time in advance.

Pay per period

Paying per period may have clients pay for a week or month in advance based on the number of sessions they will have during that period. This method is good for tutoring businesses because you receive the money up front and do not have to worry about students forgetting to pay for each session. It's more convenient for clients because they can pay for a week or month and do not have to worry about writing a check for every single session. Some tutoring companies may bill at the end of each week or month, but for new companies it's best to require payment in advance since this will allow you to receive payment for tutoring sessions before you need to pay your tutors.

Prepaid Packages

Some tutoring companies sell prepaid bundles of tutoring services. Such as 10 hours of math tutoring or 12 hours of English tutoring. These hours can then be scheduled over the following months as the student schedules them. This method allows you to offer volume pricing which can encourage potential clients to commit to more tutoring sessions.

Adapting your Prices

The tutoring market is constantly changing so it's important that you're flexible with your tutoring company's pricing. If your pricing structure is not helping you meet your business goals you simply need to try tweaking your prices or possibly your services. People are concerned with value so if you offer more value in your tutoring services you may not need to lower your prices or if you offer more value than you did a year ago then it might be a good idea to raise your prices.

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Source by Christie M Van Arragon

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If you are an ESL teacher who is having problems with classroom management, there are ways of taking back control and maintain order in your classroom again. There are methods to deal with a few troublemakers and approaches to dealing with an entire class which is out of control. First you need to assess why you're having ESL classroom management issues.

Let's take a look at why children might be misbehaving. Are the children bored? Are they tired of sitting in their desks? Do some of the children have behavioral issues such as ADD or ADHD? Some children might find learning English difficult so they end up misbehaving rather than admitting they do not understand. Perhaps they have not been praised enough and feel the teacher does not like them.

The most effective way to regain control of the ESL classroom is to be the boss. If you do not step up and take control the children most certainly will. There's a fine line between being friendly and kind and letting the children take control of the classroom. You really can be both the friendly helping hand and the boss. Ideally, you must take control of the class from the very first day you enter it. Unfortunately, many newly certified teachers do not realize this right away and are shocked that they've lost control of the group.

Ultimately, you must find your own personal style in teaching but there are many proven techniques and strategies for good classroom management. Of course, you must comply with the rules of the school you work for. Your school should always be your ally and not your foe.

The first key to ESL classroom management is your attitude toward the students. Students who respect and love their teacher will be more apt to behave in the classroom. Here's how to make that happen!

ESL Classroom Management Rule # 1 – Are you trying to be hip and cool?

Do you want to be friends with your pupils? If you try to be the hip teacher who is a friend to all, more than likely the students will laugh at your expense the moment you are out of earshot. Be their mentor. Teach by example not only how to speak English but how to behave in general.

In class behave as a role-model for ideal classroom behaviour. The children will at least have the example to follow. If you can not control your temper, why should they? If you find yourself barking at your pupils something is wrong!
ESL Classroom Management Rule # 2 – Are you predictable?

I'll never forget Miss Bain. Oh a truly terrifying woman with spectacles and a cardigan who dished out detentions for real and whose name one only mentioned with dread. I only had her in the sixth form but her reputation proceeded her. In fact she was a nice old lady! She never raised her voice, she was not even bossy! I could not believe it actually. She just EXUDED the fact that we were there to learn and messing about was not tolerated. Full stop. Really an outstandingly simple formula.

Earn trust by being fair, consistent and firm. Establish rules from the very first day and do not bend. Lean more toward being overly strict in the beginning as it is harder to become strict if you've started out being lenient. If rules change on a day to day basis the students do not know what to expect and can not trust you.

ESL Classroom Management Rule # 3 – Are you trustworthy?

Oh yes there are teachers out there who lash out at pupils and put them down in a futile effort to feel important. When people put others down they are trying to elevate their own self-esteem. This systematically backfires as putting others down truly undermines ones sense of self-worth, though some people have such low self-esteem that a bit more self-degradation hardly notices!

Thirty one years ago a English teacher in France put me down in front of his class and I can still see and hear the scene today – that is how much it marked me at the time. He was scared of the fact that he had a native speaker in his class and was too stupid to use me to enhance the class.

Never belittle your students. Avoid losing control and yelling. Never call a student names, put them down, use sarcasm or embarrass them. They will never trust this kind of behavior. In addition in the worst case scenario you could put them off wanting to learn ANY subject, and not just your subject.

ESL Classroom Management Rule # 4 – Show them you care

Take the time to ask questions about their lives. If you can talk with them, informally, outside of the classroom, such as walking from one class to another, you'll find an opportunity to get to know them. Your students will feel special if you take the time out to find out about them and who they are. It will be much harder for someone you've had a conversation with, on a personal level, to act up in the classroom.

Eye contact will help let your students know you are paying attention to them. Think about how they may be feeling. They might not want to take this class but have to. Put yourself in their shoes and try to come up with positive ways to see your students.

ESL Classroom Management Rule # 5 – Move around

Come out from behind your desk! Take the time during a writing assignment to walk through the desks and stop for a moment or two at each student's desk. This is a good time to hand out praise and to ask your students how they are doing. Ask them if they have any questions about the work they are doing.

ESL Classroom Management Rule # 6 – Onwards and Upwards!

Generously hand out praise and encouragement! Imagine how much good you can do in a person's life by giving them encouragement and praise. You can change a student's whole way of thinking about themselves and in turn, this changes how they view the world.

Think about how people are always telling kids what NOT to do. Some parents' entire dialogue with their children is negative. Do not fall into this trap. Remember, what you give out, you get back. Children who are given negatives often give negatives back. Children who are given positives will more than likely give back positives!

Reward good behavior. Ask for children who behave well to be your helper and thank them for their good behavior in front of the class. Having a student of the week will reinforce good behavior.

ESL Classroom Management Rule # 7

Vary the way you carry out lesson plans. Do not always use the same technique. If you use varied activities, games and teaching methods, that appeal to different learning styles, chances are you'll reach each one of them in time!

By using these tips, you'll keep order in your room, your students will respect and trust you, you'll have an impact on their self-esteem and you'll teach them much more than just how to speak English.

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Source by Shelley Ann Vernon

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Social studies prepares students in geography, nations, and cultures because they will be required to have knowledge of their surroundings and the world in which they live. Social helps students acquaint themselves with, debate and study humanity. "Humanity" in this case includes the intercontinental, countrywide and native community. Whether you plan on learning or teaching, social studies helps disburse information to the population as whole. It will give students the desired edge they need during the semester. It employs a few navigational subjects such as geography to totally imbibe the knowledge of the nations and the globe in general.

Oftentimes teachers have a tendency to decrease social lesson plan preparation, stating that they are much too regulated and inflexible to be able to teach productively. Nevertheless, it's possible to insert a little spur-of-the-moment in even the most demanding of schedules. Certain constituencies and schools entail that teachers must put forward their study proposal to a board. This ensures that the resources, teaching space dialogues, and other activities are precise, current, and reasonably prepares the student effectively. If the proposals do not effectively tutor the students or prepares them for the social challenges, they are usually declined.

When teachers have finally created their social strategies, they will be amazed at how social studies prepare their students mind for a live long learning. The students will be very enthusiastic to learn. It does not matter whatever school, class or level they are teaching because no matter what students will be able to detect if their teacher is indifferent, less concerned or very oriented towards the subject area (social studies). Teachers should do their part to make your social studies class plans are paramount as much it could be. The teachers should be able to impart self-reliance in them. Social studies prepare students to be able to embrace the instructional skill of the teachers as well as their own capacity to learn.

Using presentations, text books, field trips, group activities, moral guidance and more social studies prepares the student to brace up for the challenges in all spheres of life. It highlights the importance of learning, group activities and other forms of social studies to the students and gives them a remarkable ability to apply various knowledge's garnered from around different disciplines.

Social studies prepares students for self-teaching purposes. It awakes the desire in the students to ask their own questions and provide solutions to them. That is to say, it provides students with a mental curiosity about why certain things are the way they are or how certain things work, thereby making them research for answers themselves with the use of the library, social media and now the Internet as well other various forms of formal and informal knowledge. It is important for teachers to emphasize these points when writing lesson plans for their class.

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Source by John Halas

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As a teacher for 11 years and middle-school math teaching consultant, I've seen a wide array of different math programs and classes. I'm sharing here the 10 best teaching tips I've compiled over the years.

1. Provide compelling content to study.

Years ago, a colleague I was working with said, "Maybe class can be fun, but I can not make class compelling. I have to teach math!" It's an assumption worth exploring.

Take Ron Berger's middle-school math project to study levels radon in their own homes. Studying radon is boring. But Berger's class project has got to be one of the most compelling projects in math class history. What if his students discovered dangerous levels of radon in the homes of one geographic area and published the results as they had intended? What would happen to real estate values ​​in that area? What he found is that students were highly engaged in mapping, taking averages, looking at standard deviations- students that heretofore did not care one bit about radon or the other concepts.

So what's the trick? The trick is that there is not one. You can not trick students into finding something compelling if it is not. Take a little bit of time to develop a few topics of study throughout the year that you find compelling- the Economy, the Presidential Campaigns, the Human Body, etc. Find an authentic way to present your result- the paper, the web, a magazine. Keep the project small, authentic and do-able.

Students of teachers that do take this kind of time have better outcomes on state tests than students of teachers who only stick to the text. Almost any social studies context provides a backdrop for learning that adds depth.

Even teachers who hold a math "topics" class only once a month see real benefits, so you do not have to abandon your regular class. And, you'll find that students are more engaged when regular class is held.

If you want to go really deep and have solid administrator support, look into the school reform movement of Expeditionary Learning Schools who have an excellent approach to thematic teaching.

2. Do not use extraneous rewards such as candy, purchase points, stickers, etc.

There is nothing more certain than seeing the culture of a math class decline over a period of years when a teacher bribes them. The intent of the teacher, of course, is good. A teacher cares about his or her students and wants the very best for them. "I do not care how they learn math," one teacher said to me. "I just want them to learn it so that they are prepared." The teacher cared enough to purchase candy out of her own pocket, but the real message to students is this: the "positive reinforcement" of candy means "math is not worth doing on its own." The research is clear on the matter too, and shows us that extrinsic, non-relevant rewards hurt learning.

Even if the effects are not immediate, over time so called "positive reinforcements" like these mentioned above erode an otherwise high-quality math program. As a teacher, you are much better off trying to create inherently compelling curriculum than buying candy.

3. Build a culture where students teach each other.

For many teachers, one student helping another is called cheating. But I actually found that the better middle-school math programs all encouraged students to team together at certain times throughout the week. The activities were usually graded as complete or not-complete, and when tied to meaningful tasks, such as building a survey together and collecting original data, student comprehension was greater than on individual tasks.

Building the kind of culture that works for student pairs or groups takes years and lots of practice. But before you give up and decide it does not work, determine if you are following tips # 1 and # 2 first.

4. Give less, but more meaningful work, including homework.

The Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study labels the curriculum in the United States as "a mile wide and an inch deep." Their review of math texts in middle-school found that some were almost 700 pages long. With heavy pressure to teach to the standards, as a teacher you might be tempted to skip and jump to many topics throughout the text. Do not. It achieves little learning.

Choose the most important pieces before the beginning of the year, and keep it simple. Teach the concepts you do teach with depth.

The national advisory counsel formed from the study recommended "put first things first" and suggested that indeed, less is more. Take the time to cull the curriculum to a manageable size for your students, and present them with only that. If you have to "cover" standards, find out what standards and document when you indeed teach them in class. You'll find that teaching with depth often reaches to a broad array of standards.

It's helpful to know what's driving the breadth. As the national study panel concurs, publishers are trying to meet demands of hundreds of different districts by including everything that any school might want. And while publishers have been attempting custom publishing, it is just as difficult to create a math curriculum for a small district as a large one. Thus, the challenges of book publishing lead to a single, uniformly created overarching textbook. Often this is a very large text or an entire series.

In the classroom, teachers and students become overwhelmed and unable to handle the scope or breadth of learning in this form. As teachers, we have to recognize that predominantly negative emotions surround math in middle-school, and that anything we can reduce those emotions will go a long way toward gains in learning learning. Placing a 500 page text in front of a 7th grade student is unlikely to help, so use it sparingly and build little, home-made notebooks for daily use.

5. Model thinking, not solutions or answers.

Do not show a student how to solve something. Instead "think aloud". For example, you might have a whiteboard with a problem up, and start by saying, "ok, I notice that the 4 numbers I am to sum are all in the thousands category, and that the first is near 3,000, the second near 5,000 , and the third … I am confused about … "Model exactly what you thinking including confusion, emotions, skills, strategies and more.

When you do this, also let your students know how mathematicians think. One piece of research that is helpful to know is that mathematicians spend a long time thinking about how to set up a problem, a little bit of time doing the problem, and a long time "looking back" by asking the question, "Does this make sense? ' Model that for your students, by putting up a complex problem on the board and spending time not just jumping into a solution, but just talking about what strategies you might use to solve the problem.

6. Provide feedback that is immediate, relevant to the task, non-comparative, and leads the way to next steps.

Many teachers believe that grading is a form of feedback. It is not. Grading, when done well, can be a form of assessment of learning, but the distinction should be clear. Grades are not an effective tool as assessment for learning. Grades are the end of the road, when you assess what has been learned, but they should not be intended to inform a student where to go next.

Take, for example, three groups of students who received different kinds of "feedback" on math papers they had "turned in." The first group received only narrative feedback (no score) informing them where and how they made mistakes. The second group received a grade (or score) and narrative feedback. The third group received just a grade. Not surprisingly, the students who received narrative feedback improved when re-tested. Those who had received only a grade did not have the information to improve, and performed the same when re-tested. But here is the surprising part. There was no difference between "grade-only" group and the group that received the grade and narrative feedback. Post why? The students who received both a grade and narrative feedback completely ignored the written suggestions and only looked at the score. "I got a blah, blah, blah … what did you get?"

Because we live in a world where grades and formalized assessments are so important, work with the system by differentiating assessment for learning and assessment of learning.

When you are grading, one guide is to reference Rick Stiggins strategies of assessment for learning. That way, when you are conducting an assessment of learning (ie grading), you'll notice that you are momentarily stepping out of the role of improving a student's learning and will not have the conflict of trying to do two things at once.

7. Change mimeographed sheets to problems you and your students personally develop.

A pervasive aspect of our culture is to give out page after page of information. In faculty meetings, business meetings and conferences, hundreds of pages of documents are handed out. It makes us look organized and prepared. It's also a way to "cover" content. But for a middle-school math student, it also makes it hard to determine what is important. Was it the fractions part? Was it the decimals section? Was it the number line? Was it the triangle puzzle problem? Was it the cartoon?

Instead of another mimeographed page, have your student write their own story problems. Tell them to add artwork for comprehension. Give them the latitude to make them fun. Celebrate them by posting them in class. Give them 5 home-made story problems they create for homework instead of a mimeographed sheet with 30 problems, and really dive into improving them through revision.

8. Use story to teach math.

Write a story, a real story with characters and plot, and add the math problem set. Write about wizards that need to use angles for their sorcery. Write about spice trading ships on the deep seas. Write a story that lasts a whole page before even getting to the math portion. You've engaged the right-side, or less analytical, part of the brain and you'll see a powerful effect of enhanced engagement.

9. Get math tutor volunteers once a week for two-months before state testing.

As a teacher or administrator, spend time during the fall months by planning for and scheduling a single day each week during the months of February and March (right before testing) to have volunteers come in to teach math in small groups. But what's nice is that if developed correctly, these volunteers do not need to have any special training in math.

Start with a simple plan. Each student has 10 skills they have chosen to work on during the whole class tutoring session and have written down their practice problems in class. The phone calls are made, the specific planning with an administrator is done, and volunteers come in and help the students answer the 10 questions during class with support. Schedule tutoring once every week for two months before testing and see your scores greatly improve.

10. Work with the emotions your students have for math.

10a. Ask your students how they feel about math. Use a bit of class time periodically to gain a better sense of where they are. And, just let them feel how they feel. If they like math, they like it. If they are bored, empathize. If your students can not stand math, you will gain far more ground by seeing their perspective than trying to prove they are wrong. As a teacher this is hard because we are so accustomed to trying to "fix" the situation, and of course, our ego is tied to student emotion. If our students are bored, we feel like we are not doing the right thing. But the larger truth is that there is an ebb and flow in all of us for the topics we are learning. When the boredom, frustration and negativity does emerge, try understanding it. Perhaps class does feel a little boring. That's ok Sometimes it will. And then slowly, over a period of years, build those compelling pieces into your classes so that you punctuate boring times with excitement and joy.

10b. Go slowly. Changing the direction of your math class is like trying to change the direction of a large ship, especially when dealing with emotions. Even once everything is place for the changes to occur, you will notice the "ship's" momentum going in the same old direction before you sense any real shifts. This is part of the process. It took me three years to develop a coherent math program at my middle-school and even then, we occasionally slipped in to old patterns. Good luck!

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Source by Scott Laidlaw

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Though there is hardly any fully fledged English for Specific Purposes (ESP) program run in professional institutions in India, teaching of one of its better known forms English for Science and Technology (EST) in tertiary level has up to now practically limited service role for work and study, accommodating demands for 'communicative' skills and 'needs' of the rural students who have limited previous exposure to functional abilities in English. Despite years of teaching communicative skills and scientific and technical English, qualitatively, I am afraid, there has not been much improvement, as obvious from the fact that about 75% of the technical graduates have not been able to get employment.

Perhaps most of them already know their 'specialized' subjects; that is, they already possess the knowledge and concepts of their subject, but they need English teacher's help in their ability to function or perform in English. Their expectations may relate to social-cultural-education, personal and individual, and academic or occupational. If the (general) English teacher could take it as a professional challenge, s / he can use, with some extra effort and fresh commitment, the ESP techniques and prove genuinely helpful to them. These include conducting the necessary needs analysis, designing an appropriate syllabus, preparing suitable materials, meeting and getting to know the students, teaching the course and devising and administering appropriate tests. The teacher's success lies in managing the learning strategies and promoting practice and use, or what linguists have mentioned as 'language as doing' and 'language as learning'.

Need for international perspective

Even as we talk about globalization, tertiary education in every discipline needs scholars and researchers who have good international perspective and ability to work in diverse settings. The common challenge facing us is: cultivating globally-minded graduates. How we do it may vary from institution to institution and region to region.

Needless to say, language competence is basic to acquiring a global perspective via the graduation courses. And, no doubt, English has been the lingua franca, and apparently, there may not be any need to learn other languages, but it helps to learn a couple of foreign language (and / or other regional languages) for expanding professional networks and gaining cultural experiences which are vital for global learning.

As far as English is concerned, teaching the creative, pragmatic and interactive uses of English in our academic and professional context is important. These are essentially localized functions.

Multiple Englishes

In his stimulating exposition of the spread of English, Braj B. Kachru emphasizes that English has not only acquired multiple identities but also "a broad spectrum of cross-cultural contexts of use." During the last twenty five years or so, scholars have progressively acknowledged the reality of multicultural aspects of English a la linguistic interactions of three types of participants: native speaker and native speaker; native speaker and non-native speaker; and non-native speaker and non-native speaker. Consequently, as Kachru points out, there has been "a multiplicity of semiotic systems, several non-shared linguistic conventions, and numerous underlying cultural traditions," paving way for English as an International Language, which provides access across cultures and boundaries. The focus has shifted to the diverse users and language activities within a sociolinguistic context which is often localized rather than native-speaker oriented as far as aspects such as communicative teaching or communicative competence are concerned.

Taking cue from international diffusion of English viewed as three concentric circles – an inner circle, an outer or extended circle, and expanding circle, we should recognize the institutionalized non-native varieties of English such as Indian English, Singaporean English, Indonesian English, Malaysian english, Chinese english, Japanese english, Nigerian english, Kenyan english etc and concentrate on english used in South Asian and South East Asian countries for reviewing the pedagogic developments in language teaching with an ESP bias as also for trying to integrate language and culture teaching. This is significant in that despite decades of activities in the name of communicative teaching or communicative competence, not much has been achieved in terms of methods and materials for international competence in English. The European parochialism continues to dominate the academics' reasoning even as discourse organization, both literary and spoken, reflects a certain regionalism.

Against such a perspective, correct identification of language needs for ESP learners has become very important just as teaching the need-based courses continues to remain a professional challenge for teachers everywhere. Unless there is a flexible attitude with a user / learner-based sociocultural approach to course design and methodology, ESP teaching will not become interesting and enjoyable.

Pragmatic communication

One also needs to reflect on changes in the linguistic pattern in recent years following the developments in communication technology, networks, and data banks. Aside from writing and reading, spoken English might have become a core business English with ability to understanding different English accents just as listening skill is vital for improving communicative performance at work. The reality of the varieties of English one comes across in ones everyday working and social life can not be ignored.

In fact, during the past three decades the shift in linguistic center has become more marked, more institutionalized, and more recognized. Therefore, we need to view concepts like communicative competence, or successful pragmatic communication from a realistic perspective of current world uses of English which is lexically and collocationally localized. With tolerance for localized discourse strategies, lexicalization from local languages, and creative texts from local creative writers in English, it should be possible to promote international interaction and communication, or achieve international intelligibility, comprehensibility, and pragmatic success, as Kachru points out.

The relevant material and method now, therefore, should meet the learners' need to interact, understand, and respond with respect for different cultures and speakers in professional / business meetings, discussions, presentations, interviews, telephone conferences etc. Teachers can indeed exploit students' creativity and the desire to relate to others with a task-based activity oriented methodology.

Summing up

Despite problems of theory and method posed by varieties of world English, the reality of multilingualism and adaptation to suit ESL communicative needs are too genuine to be ignored. We also need to accommodate new 'text types', accept different discourse patterns, and recognize local usages that are conventional and normal in the native cultures. If we think in terms of building global competency in the days ahead, we need to change and broaden our mindset, and be more tolerant to differences, shedding the 'departmentalism', the increasing 'ghettoization' in teaching and research, and sequestration of budget . The current emphasis on 'money' generation, I am afraid, will only corrupt teachers and administration, rather than create positive resources, innovations, or even skills development.

–RAM KRISHNA SINGH

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Source by Ram Krishna Singh