Pedagogical Consideration: How Do I Teach to My Students?

Promoting and increasing students' physical activity levels in schools has been identified critical to our efforts to fight the epidemic of overweight and obesity among children and youth in this country. Consequently, physical education teachers are urged to teach students lifelong physical activities or exercises (e.g., jogging, golf) so they can participate in them throughout their lifespan. As a lifetime exercise, Taichi (primarily in the form of 24 Yang Style Tai Chi Chuan Form) has been taught in schools, particularly secondary schools and universities, in China for the last 30 years. Additionally, considerable research has documented physical, health, psychological, and social benefits of Taichi for people of different ages or with different health conditions (e.g., Larkey, Jahnke, Etnier, & Gonzalez, 2009; Yan, 1995). Taken together, we believe Taichi can also become a lifetime activity for students, especially students at secondary schools or higher, in US. Accordingly, this presentation will provide beneficial information to teachers and youth program instructors who are interested in teaching Taichi as a lifetime activity to promote physical activity among children and youth. Specifically, two topics will be covered in the presentation. They are: (a) What 24 Yang Style Tai Chi Chuan Form is and why it is most taught in schools in China. The emphasis will be on its uniqueness in comparison to other forms of Taichi. And (b) Pedagogical Considerations. There are a number of pedagogical considerations associated with teaching Taichi. For example, the 24 Yang Style Tai Chi Chuan Form is characterized by soft, slow, circular, and gentle movements and thus it may not look appealing to some students. This can raise an issue of student interest. Motivation research in both classroom and physical education reveals students with high interest in learning activities achieve more and perform better in those activities than students who show low interest (e.g., Chen, 2001; Schiefele, Krapp & Winteler, 1992). Therefore, how to initiate and sustain students' interest will be discussed along with other considerations.