It has been more than a year since I have been with my chess students in The U.S. (A.B.D.) and I miss them. They were so eager to learn new things everyday. I took a page from my classes to incorporate an idea I got from Jim Mitch (you can see his site, "Chester Nuhmentz", at www.professorchess.com using a blend of Scrabble and Chess together.
My goal is for my students to begin to see English in many places, and infuse their days with a little English to improve their speed, their comprehension, and their joy of learning. The class went well--they had to find words in the puzzle following a particular pattern (in this case, Knight leaps) and when the exercise was done, we had to compose a paragraph with a topic chosen at random by the students.
They worked well together and then were creative with the paragraph, which they thought was difficult. Then we proofread the other papers by switching papers (one to the left) and taking a prescribed amount of time to recognize mistakes, and then "proofing the proof" with me. That gave me time to go around and correct the papers but using the time to evaluate their abilities to see 'right and wrong' in the process.
They weren't chess players, but following directions was the goal of the exercise, and they had fun with it. What do you think you could incorporate of your own energies and interests into your class exercises?
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