I received a Fulbright grant to be an assistant English teacher in Germany this year. I’m very excited about it. I’ve received some very warm and sweet messages already from the headmistress, teachers, and students–the school is in a small town, and they have never had a native English speaker there to teach before. I feel that I will be welcome, and have a sense that in general I won’t be headed into some inner-city-public-school-like atmosphere. I also speak Germany pretty well already. A lot of things are in my favor.
Still, I am a rookie teacher, and I figure I can use all the advice I can get for working creatively with students on foreign language. Any thoughts on good resources? Or thoughts, period?
I can’t really help you because I have no teaching qualifications whatsoever but I’m curious what type of school it is. That narrows down the age range a bit.
Welcome to the wonderful world of being an English clown [well, Germany may be completely different to what I’m used to)! I’m sure your school will have a bunch of resource books for games, role-plays and various other activities. I’d recommend actively trying out as many different kinds of activities with each bunch of kids. I’ve been very surprised as to what works and what doesn’t. Sometimes a game works well with one group, but another very similar-seeming group is bored to tears with it.
Don’t be afraid to say completely provocative things to liven up a dead class (don’t know about Germany, but it’s a big problem here, as debate seems a foreign concept in the classroom):
“Girls should only wear skirts and dresses, not pants, because pants are for boys. That’s right, Lily. Tomorrow I want you to wear a skirt.”
“People should be killed when they turn 70. Old people don’t work and use up all our medicine and hospital space, and they can’t really enjoy life anyway.”
It depends on how you interact with your class, of course, but it’s helped jumpstart discussions in English, as they try to convince me why I’m wrong while I try to steer them into using language points from the lesson.
Have fun with it. Do all the things you wish your teacher had done.
Harry Wong’s The First Days of School. Quite possibly the best ever written, hands on guide on how to set up a classroom and run it. It did me more good than any of the credential classes I took.
