Teaching chess is just like teaching any other discipline.However, a chess teacher has two goals:
-To teach children the correct skills n chess and thereby enhance there local and critical reasoning skills.
-To make the children appreciate chess so that there interest and enjoyment of the game will increase.
It is critical that interest be stirred in the children in the early stages so as to implore on their creativity. The first chess games are usually the most difficult and this is where maximum concentration for the child will be needed. By imploring on the children’s interest in chess their appreciation of the game will be increased and they will indeed be savor on the opportunity.
Learning chess is similar to learning just about anything else. The rules don’t change. In chess, you want to educate students and improve their analytical skills which will be important for future learning of other disciplines. You should start from the known to the unknown. This means that you should move from simple techniques to more complex ones, maintain a good balance between theory and practice and a good relationship between the teachers and students. You should repeatedly present chess problems to students in a personalized form. Known problems are even made more complex by the addition of new ideas. For instance, the idea of double attack can be used by chess players of all abilities.
As the chess teacher you should gradually move from simple ideas to more difficult ones. You should introduce new topics and ideas only after the student has mastered the previous ones. This will help the student broaden his mind and help him to assimilate the matter which he has studied previously in a sound manner.
New concepts and ideas must be explained to the student before assigning them homework. The dividing of homework and class work for the student is the discretion of the coach. Though it is important to follow the rules of the game, it must be remembered that children like to compete against one another and therefore the practical part should be emphasized.
As a coach you should ensure that the students have a firm mastery of the subject before you go on to the next topic. You should never skip a lesson so that you rush in taking the child through the lessons. Remember that the lessons act like a jig-saw puzzle and skipping any one of them will lead to the collapse of the puzzle.
The length of the lesson will depend on the child’s concentration. As soon as the child begins to show weariness then the chess lessons should be stopped. It is better to learn a small amount of material than grasping large quantities only to discover that the student never actually learnt a thing. The child should be encouraged to play as many games as possible with players of differing abilities. By playing with players of different abilities the child’s imagination will be stretched and in this way the child will learn the game faster.
On the other hand, you should not remove too much subject matter as this will make the child to lose interest in the game.
