It is believed that to study chess games and achieve good results at it, you need special talent and disposition to logical thinking in a child…can’t not agree with that, but still, if you consider chess not only as a sport but as a way of educating a full-fledged, fully developed person, such an approach limits us to seek ways of presenting basic chess knowledge that would be suitable for all children who wish to study them.
If we consider the universal global trend for the inclusion of chess into the school curriculum as a compulsory subject, the question of teaching methods is becoming increasingly important for modern coaches and teachers.
I have often heard that those children who are gifted with certain mental abilities in complex with hard work and dedication, destined to have success in chess sport. If the proportion of children dropping out from the group, the reason is banal expression – “chess is not for them…Vasya need to play football, and Katya have knitting to do! There are those who are smarter, brighter and are diligent”. But the learning process is equal cooperation of the teacher and wards! So why there is a strong tendency to write off all responsibility for the presence (or absence) of certain abilities of children (and not a teacher!).
Perhaps when we put such diagnosis, there is a certain sense, but it is not for us to decide and if those children have special abilities in other areas, they will be implemented with proper support. And our task – trainers and teachers to find the key to each child, to instill a love for this amazing game all those who manifests this commitment!!!
The biggest challenge in this situation is the recognition of what is possible, we do not have enough specific knowledge in the field of child psychology, lack of enthusiasm or desire to seek alternative methods of teaching chess. This is especially true of coaches groups for beginners.
In order to properly select the material, to plan the course lessons and fun to apply the knowledge you need to understand with whom we are dealing! Knowing who we teach, will be a major clue to how it should be done, so it was all most interesting, and the material was acquired at 100 %.
That is why every coach, teacher of chess you need to confidently navigate the kinds of children’s intelligence, the types of temperament and character, as well as the varieties of learning and age-related peculiarities of their wards! This knowledge will be the basis by which to ensure maximum success of the training course, in conjunction with the professional competence of the coach and as a player.
So, if you hold classes based only on theoretical presentation, the children active, sensitive and communicative type will quickly lose interest, and as a result, attention will be scattered, discipline will be broken. If you oversaturate classes emotionally and overdo it with secondary methods of presenting the material, the child can not grasp the essence of the theme, as it will not be enough time to delve into it, in addition, will be not just to calm raging children. The excessive desire of the coach to teach children everything at once, can lead to the fact that children are receptive warehouse will lose the logical connection and as a result can cause serious problems, such as children simply need regular revision, when as children communicative warehouse should ask more questions, which implies that the coach just needs regular quizzes, small competitions and. etc. Such examples and nuances very much and this is just considering the types of temperament, but there are still factors such as types of intelligence types and learning in combination with the age of the students…
Based on the foregoing, we must conclude that each lesson should be carefully and made up of aspects that will meet the needs of each ward. This is the main secret of teaching chess, especially for beginners. Over time, naturally may be no such acute need for such auxiliary methods of teaching, but I recommend to use elements of these ideas at any age and at any level that will make the lessons exciting and effective. What can help to diversify studying chess and help learning novice Champions? This is a very interesting and broad topic that requires a separate article and we will talk about this on the pages of our website in the near future. At the moment we list a few ways that I personally use in my coaching practice.
Below are the names of these methods:
-art breaks( short breaks with elements of creativity).
-play breaks ( a break in the middle classes with a job in the games fascinating form) -sports breaks (a break in the form of a game with elements of sport).
-video breaks (view a short video on chess themes, for example on the work of famous players or even cartoons on chess themes) and other.
– chess quizzes count points earned.
– a session of simultaneous game, where the session can conduct one student, regardless of his strength.
Coach oversees and helps (not tells).
In fact, such methods are very much in the Arsenal of every coach has their “signature” recipes, which are sometimes kept in the strictest confidence.
The essence of such breaks is to distract students from intense mental activity, thereby preparing a base for learning, already with fresh eyes. But one of the important reasons of this method is to meet the emotional needs of children with different types of information perception.
Sure many people may argue with such methods teaching, calling it Amateur and unnecessary, unrelated to chess relations activities…in addition, such activities need more time to be prepared and to apply creative thinking, and somewhere to put the material means…
Yes, it’s really harder than usual monotonous lesson, saturated theoretical knowledge, which, sometimes, you can fall asleep from boredom…
I think that every coach should be approached seriously and to the topics discussed in this article, because it is our responsibility not only to educate the professional, but also a complete personality, which will be on his coach-mentor, willing to improve their skills and open to new information, able with the skill to bring it to their wards!
Author Ava Suleimanova
project partner Fenix-64