Fun Method to Teach Beginners

@AlexSmiles I very much look forward to hearing more of your thoughts on this. I have begun teaching new players and I’m just trying a bunch of different methodology out, without much structure. I look forward to see how this unfolds :wink:.

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“How to not be a good friend”

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Hi Alex! I’m 32 years old. Live in Argentina. I play chess, and recently i started learning Go! (3 or 4 weeks ago). I’m super interested in learning more and very curious on how you will manage to put your thoughts in a pdf book. I offer you my attention, time and Go ignorance to use me as a student…

Also i can help with anything involved in making the pdf book. Have no expertise, but yes the motivation!

:slight_smile:

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@WISHMIRRA, I would like to suggest something you may be interested in: @JethOrensin wrote a free book, A Go Guide from a Beginner, and started a collaborative project in order to translate it into as many languages and release it in as many countries as possible:

I’m working on the Brazilian Portuguese translation myself and I figured you might be want to contribute with the Spanish one and provide your fellow Argentinians with a book in your native language. Take a look. :slight_smile:

P.S. @AlexSmiles, I hope you don’t mind my posting this suggestion here. If you need any help with your book, and there’s anything I can do, I’ll be glad to help.

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Thank you @lucasfelix!

I haven’t seen this book before, but it seems like it’s a great resource for beginners learning how to play! The aim of the book that I’m writing, though, is that it teaches teachers instead of beginners. It goes over some common pitfalls of teaching and addresses them through a standardized curriculum for both individualized and large group instruction.

Eventually, I’d also like to include a workbook, but that will be for later. I feel like there’s enough resources out there for beginners to get started on their own accord, but not so much for the teachers who want to bring the game to those less inclined to teach themselves. This applies especially to elementary students.

Hopefully this can play a part and a standardization of go and schools, but since I’m a new teacher, I don’t expect the first edition to go viral or anything. I’m just doing my best. :slight_smile:

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http://agfgo.org/downloads/LoveBaduk.pdf

Aaah reading is not just for Go! So reread it. There is some stuff out there but go is more art than science so it’s hard to put up a method, in Basketball you can always tell somone what they need to work on. Go is just weird and needs to be experienced and shown

@cromone I agree that go is both art and science. I do think there should be a method on it, though. Music is an art and a science as well, being often categorized as more on the art side. That said, there’s a standardized curriculum for music in school that works.

Obviously every student you will ever teach will be different. So as the teacher you have to adjust to their needs and maybe even work with them on an individual level. I think the more time a teacher is able to spend focusing on the student’s needs while having a good base to work from is important. That’s all I’m trying to do is make a base for go teachers (who aren’t necessarily school teachers) to work from.

OfftopicMusic class at my former high school was almost as bad as art class. The only instrument we ever got to play was a frickin' xylophone. The rest was 10% "our teachers playing the piano" and 90% incredibly boring theory. In retrospect, what they did wrong was simply the format. If instead of the status quo - "here's the theory and here's some boring piece of music no one gives a shit about, let's analyze that boring piece of music" you do "here's one weird trick you can use to write your own chord progression / melody and make it sound awesome" and then provide people with a way to create that music, it would probably be way less boring.

Art class was worse because the art teachers I’ve had the pleasure of dealing with were all lunatics who couldn’t draw for shit, but reveled in berating kids’ drawings. You hate to prime the paper because it gets all wrinkly? Here’s an E. You don’t like watercolor in general? Here’s an E. You drew a car? Cars are evil, here’s an E. Useless people.

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Offtopic

@smurph Oh gosh. I’m so sorry to hear that. I’m a music teacher, and I’ve never met anyone who teaches like that in my professional career. Same for art. Like, I do teach a little bit of music theory in class, but I always make sure that it serves a purpose to what we’re working on at the moment. My purpose as a music teacher at a high school and Elementary is not to make professional musicians, but rather Foster a love and understanding of music. To do that, you have to make it interesting and fun. You know, like the ENTIRE point of music? I’m sorry to hear that the arts weren’t taught right at your school. That honestly sounds like some reddit level stuff…

P. S. How’d you do that “off topic” thing?

EDIT: Thank you! :slight_smile:

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Not @smurph, but the answer is the same:

Like this. :)
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Music class at my former high school was almost as bad as art class. [...]
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@AlexSmiles

I haven’t seen this book before , but it seems like it’s a great resource for beginners learning how to play!

Yeah … Marketing is harder than writting … :stuck_out_tongue:

The aim of the book that I’m writing, though, is that it teaches teachers instead of beginners.

In this case, maybe you will like this lecture by Andrew Jackson titled : “Hard Boring Work and Sneaky Tricks - Teacher’s Workshop 2013” and it might help you get another point of view on the matter, by another Go teacher:

Personally I have found it very interesting and I really like that “informal” way of lecturing. :slight_smile:

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I think it’s more the case that we don’t know how to teach it. I expect that there is a “standardized curriculum”, as @AlexSmiles put it, for Go but that we don’t have access to it. I expect that Korean Baduk schools have standardized curricula for example.

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Without a doubt. Korean, Chinese, and Japanese schools all have standardized curriculum for official schooling. I have often wished I could get access to the school materials for children who forgo a standard education and are instead educated in Go from the age of 4 or 5. You can find kids will all sorts of Go books in school pictures all over the internet. I’m jealous of those little children. That they have access to such materials :blush:

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Probably right. I have a very clear picture of what to teach and how when it comes to basketball. But the link I put down is an actual curriculum that they use in Korea

Might be useful:

  1. Curriculum Guide for Go In School (234 pg)

  2. Level Up (30k-10k, 10 books), and Jump Level Up (10k-1k), published by BadukTopia

  3. I’ve heard the Elementary Go Series is very information heavy. You can read more on Sensei.

  4. In terms of research material: David Carlton’s Go Bibliography, Organized by Difficulty

  5. A Go Course Outline (7pg)

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I think BenGoZen (blogger) has a very nice article about teaching beginners:

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Thanks for the wonderful information guys! I’m familiar with most of the links posted, but there’s a few things in here that I haven’t seen. The end of the school year is crazy, so I’ve been pretty busy getting ready for our end-of-the-year concerts. I haven’t been able to dedicate a whole lot of time to outlining the book, but I definitely have a few more ideas on how I’m structuring it. I write really detailed outlines so that’s why it usually takes me a while. I have the memory of a goldfish so I try to get everything I can on the paper while I’m still thinking of it. :stuck_out_tongue:

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Interesting discussion!

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I think @tonybe would like this.

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