Teaching 5th graders

Hi everyone,

Here are a few ideas from my classes. I know most of you teach older children but I hope they might be useful.

When asking questions in class, I think it is important that those who are less confident get a chance to answer. They get a huge confidence boost from this. I always throw in some easy questions which I feel pretty sure anyone can answer. Then when I am confronted by a sea of hands, I make sure I ask one of those students who rarely volunteer an answer. I sometimes preface questions with the words "This is a very difficult question" when the question is a bit tougher, Students take great delight in answering these questions accurately. Of course I always praise the students when they are right and add encouraging words even if the answer is not the one I was hoping for!

Sometimes I ask questions at the beginning of the class just as a warm-up activity. During this time, I try to avoid questions that require answers that are obvious to us all. Older students, in particular, find this type of question/answer session rather meaningless. I do, however, throw in a few 'obvious answer' questions as students have fun coming up with 'obvious answers' which actually illustrate their ability, even in 5th grade, to use English appropriately and cause amusement to the rest of the class.

When I walk round the class to listen to the students when they are working in groups or doing writing tasks, I always get down to the students' level when I talk to them and check their work. They respond much better when our eyes are at the same level. I try not to tower over them like Roald Dahl's "BFG".

When I give the class a new list of words for spelling tests I have small spaces next to each word in which the students draw pictures to illustrate the meaning of the words. This reinforces the meaning much better than a translation of the word which they often pay little attention to. It also helps them to focus on the meaning of those words which cannot so easily be illustrated, such as "some". The comments they make about such words and their efforts to illustrate the words give me a good idea as to whether they understand the meaning or not. These comments by students, usually in Japanese, help the students who have not completely understood, too. I print each spelling test on a colored piece of paper so that the students can easily find the right list of words to study each week.