X Things I Learned From Teaching Young Children — 4. The Number of Topics

Focus

This continuous series of articles about X Things I Learned from Teaching Young Children is based on my experience.

Just a recap from previous articles: 1. Age, 2. Character, 3., Learning Materials, and this time is about Number of Topics.

4. Number of Topics

I usually had to follow the chapters of the books. Some students were able to do almost perfect and fast. Some complete about 3 chapters or more of a topic (i.e. nouns). Others would complete one or two chapters with or without exercise questions. The length of each chapter was somewhere around 5 pages with some questions at the end.

Just stick to a very small portion of one topic. Kids can learn so much in such a short amount of time.

But they also have limitations. Like all adults, we can’t learn everything perfectly.

For example, if you are teaching a kid whose first language isn’t English, you probably just want to teach a few adjectives out of so many adjectives we use daily. But if the kid is a little older, say in his or her junior or high school years, and has learned English for over one year, they may be able to consume a bit more from you than those who just started learning it.

Depending on how well the older kid speaks or writes English.

You may start with one or two adjectives if the kid understands very little of English.

I liked the method that we gave young students headphones and let them listen to a story while they also had a chance to follow the words written in their textbook. First of all, they all seemed to like it which was GREAT! Second, I could see they were able to concentrate looking at their textbook with their headphones on.

All students and teachers were all in the room, teaching different subjects and students were talking to the teachers asking and answering questions. The advantage of having headphones on was, I think, they shut down all other noises in the whole classroom except the voice from the headphones. So they can focus better. And probably learn better as well.

Not only for those young kids, but I think the method is great for older individuals too, including me. There is no doubt that learning content is extremely important, but being able to listen and follow the words visually can sometimes make a huge difference in one’s learning.

One of the reasons why some of the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) programs are so successful these days is that learners can leverage this kind of learning style in addition to the precise and concise materials taught by great instructors.

Learners can listen to the recordings (lecture, stories, and so on) as much as they want.

As a teacher, I can only do so much within a limited amount of time. I was teaching a few students at the same time in one slot. Each slot was less than 120 minutes, but I sometimes just felt time flew by so fast.

It was always nice to see very young kids so focused on the text with headphones on, learning a new language called English. They usually just focused on one chapter.

I mainly taught small children English and math. Watching small children being able to read, write, speak English, and solve math problems was amazing.

Not just this experience, but many other great experiences I had never experienced led me to work there for more than three months.

Thanks for reading!

Next is Unexpected Performance.