Having taught young learners in Singapore for the past year and a half, I’ve noticed the regular hurdles that trip up my students while learning English. 1. Androgynous – he or she? This is a common mistake for my Chinese students, who usually default to the gendered pronoun he in any situation. Before I recognised this,…
Category: TEFL
Classroom Curiosities VI
I, for one, am a fan of Roman numerals. This week brings you more merry mishaps straight from the classroom. Hand-eye coordination One of my favourite tasks for my Kindergartners is asking them to wink. As a four sound word, it often comes up in my ‘Teacher Says’ blending game (after all, who is this…
Classroom Curiosities V
The latest round up of the things my students say in our classroom: Prepositions These small words, such as ‘at’, ‘on’ and ‘in’, may seem insignificant, but they can really bugger up the meaning of the sentence if used incorrectly. My lower primary students find it particularly confusing that you get in a car or…
Classroom Curiosities IV
After the Christmas break, I’m back with more insights from the classroom. Enjoy! Graphic imagery In one reading class, a child misread ‘failing eyesight’ as ‘falling eyesight.’ I mimicked what that could mean (dangly eyes) and the children were grossly delighted. ‘J’ is for… Anthropomorphism Students often encounter animals exhibiting human characteristics in literature (especially…
Classroom Curiosities III
This week’s instalment of comments overheard in my classroom: Consumerism Isn’t it amazing to think of the varieties of fresh produce and items available in our supermarkets? One text prompted a student of mine to write, ‘She saw milk in the refrigerator.’ Yet she didn’t actually write milk. She wrote ‘milf.’ Hosting Like many others,…
Classroom Curiosities II
This week’s round-up of the weird and wonderful thoughts from my students: Magic One of my reading class students read the word ‘magician’ and asked what it meant. I described the traditional image of a magician using a magic wand, and pulling something surprising from his (seemingly) empty hat. The boy had a flicker of…
Classroom Curiosities
Each week, I’ll be posting the weird and hilarious comments from my students. If you missed it, check out last week’s edition here. Word association One task that we frequently ask students to complete is working out the definitions of new words within a passage. In one example, my eight year olds were asked to…
Learning from my students
Curiosity. I lost it temporarily. The pursuit of it caused me to quit my job and move halfway across the world. Now as a teacher, my students often ask me about things I’ve never really considered, such as why a toothbrush is not called a teethbrush, or why carpet isn’t a pet for your car….
Teaching English – one month in
I’ve completed my first four weeks teaching English here in Singapore. I’m enjoying the job, and mostly teaching Kindergartners (aged 4-5) their phonics to enable them to read, along with expanding their vocabulary. However, I have some older groups up to Primary 3 level (8-9 years) which focus on comprehension and honing productive speaking and…
Ferns and forest 