The whole concept of "show, don't tell" permeates many aspects of my life, actually. With my art, I don't want to explain my picture to you. I prefer for you to look at it and tell me what you see. When I talk to people, especially here in Korea, showing gets my point across so much quicker. And of course, my teaching is all about showing.
The other day, while I was preparing a lesson on prepositions (in, on, under, etc.) for my 4th graders, I did a quick search on YouTube for a funny related video to use as a hook at the beginning of class. Instead I found a video I'm actually not going to show you, because I don't want to give the guy views. Basically, it's a home movie, part of a series, wherein a young man gives lessons on English. This particularly lesson was about prepositions. Curious, I decided to watch a bit of it.
"Today, I'm going to teach you about spatial relations."
Stop. Just. Stop. What are you doing, guy? Already you've lost your students. He continues from there, going into more detail about what spatial relations are, what they pertain to, why they're important, etc. I guarantee, if I tried to begin one of my classes with a routine like that, half the kids would be asleep before I could ask them to open their books.
Why do I take issue with this guy's methods? For starters, if you're teaching basic words like "in" and "out" to your students, then I highly doubt they're going to have any clue what the heck spatial relations are. Oh sure, you can attempt to explain to them the meaning, but that won't do them much good if they don't understand the words you're explaining with! Those poor students are still struggling with "in the box" and "on the box", and you want to give a dictation on the etymology of prepositions? Seriously.
My approach is a lot more simple. So simple, you probably already figured it out yourself:
Step 1: Show the class a ball. Or better yet, a candy bar. That will get their attention. "Candy!" Say it out loud, make sure the class repeats.
Step 2: Show the class a box. "Box!" The class repeats.
Step 3: Put the candy in the box. "The candy is in the box!"
Boom, done, and in three steps.
Kids are smart. After doing a few examples of in, on, and under with the candy and the box, they're gonna put together what you're going on about. Once they understand the basics, you play a little game to let them practice their new language, and that's it. You've just educated your students, and you didn't even need to tell them what a preposition is. They experienced it for themselves. That's what I'm all about. This is gonna sound strange, but I'm of the mind that the fewer words you use to teach, the better. Teaching is about showing, not telling.
That all said, how about I show you some pictures? Those are more fun anyway. The weather is so pleasant these days that I often go for little strolls after work to explore my town and the surrounding countryside. I love my walks. They let me see just what a wonderful place I get to live in.
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