Observations from teaching Go to a 3rd grade class

[Ophitoxaemia]

50 minutes, 21 students. Successful.

1. Getting them playing as soon as possible was a good idea
2. They needed only minimal info to start playing: scoring, liberties and groups
3. Having two kids that already play to help is huge
4. Showing them ko later works fine
5. It worked fine to teach them standard Go first and not Capture Go
6. Deliberately omitting any strategy tips seemed beneficial- I think they kept playing longer when they weren't afraid they were doing something 'wrong'.
7. Knowing when the game is over is still one of the hardest things for me to teach. They'll get it after a few games though.
8. Glad I didn't talk about how complex Go is, as Go players like to do

9. Based on reading another thread in this section, I didn't sense using terms like 'liberty' or 'stones' had any negative effect in my case. Some even seemed to have an attraction to the special Japanese terms, perhaps they seem like secret or magic words!

Always great to see how much interest and enthusiasm kids have for new things.

[EdLee]

Thanks. Good notes and data points.
( Generally seem to align with ( most ? ) existing observations. )

[Dragonstone]

Thank you for your summary but i have 2 questions:
1.) I want to show go to my family and friends and want to start with capture go but when i read your text...maybe it is better do start with "real" go?
2.) Which japanese teams do you use for your indroduction? and how many?

[EdLee]

Hi Dragonstone,

Interesting questions. Curious to compare different results. Here are one set of observations:

maybe it is better do start with "real" go?

This depends on the beginner. Some are happy to try capture for some time, then move on to real Go. Some are happy to play real Go. Maybe you can try one way with half your group and the other way with the other half and compare the results.

Which japanese teams do you use for your introduction?

Zero jargon. ( From 14 years of experience with raw beginners: with no loss of information. ) Again, maybe you can try zero jargon with half your groups; and various number of Japanese terms, and compare the results.

Please let us know how it goes.

[Galation]

Hi,
with childs I fully agree with the choice of avoiding any jargon.

The only point for complicating things out with Japanese is if the audience came in contact with Go through japan culture and/or considers Go as part of japanese culture and is fascinated by it...
...to incentivate this (wrong ) perception.

As I said before, I like using japanese rules, but playing more and more with chinese system, I came to the conclusion that chinese rules are easier for beginners. This is especially true about:
- handling dame
- not punishing any additional move when closing the game
- counting the result

Galation

[sybob]

Please define "3rd grade".
Schooling systems vary per country, and this is an international forum, isn't it?
What age are you talking about?

[Bill Spight]

50 minutes, 21 students. Successful.

1. Getting them playing as soon as possible was a good idea
2. They needed only minimal info to start playing: scoring, liberties and groups

Right.

3. Having two kids that already play to help is huge

Interesting.

6. Deliberately omitting any strategy tips seemed beneficial- I think they kept playing longer when they weren't afraid they were doing something 'wrong'.

Good point!

5. It worked fine to teach them standard Go first and not Capture Go
7. Knowing when the game is over is still one of the hardest things for me to teach. They'll get it after a few games though.

If you start them on Capture Go, they know when the game is over.

Always great to see how much interest and enthusiasm kids have for new things.

Yup!