Teaching English with Chess

Today I taught my ‘New Interchange” class (7 girls) how to play chess in an effort to use chess as an English teaching tool. Because of the similarity between some of the Chinese chess pieces and International chess, the girls learned quite quickly.

This class is my most advanced class and is also the only one where I don’t have an assistant in class with me. Funnily enough, the level of spoken English for half the class is quite low. I can barely get some of them to say a word in English in class.

I’ve improvised on the book material by allowing the class to present one or two short skits on a topic of their choosing. Sadly, this is where I notice the level of spoken English for an advanced class is so low. Next week I hope to get the girls to explain chinese chess (in english!) to me.