Table of Contents
How to teach chess
If you are here it is because you are interested in passing on your chess knowledge to someone else and you don't know how to do it. We must learn the keys to teach chess effectively.
Maybe you are looking for a good technique for your students. Because you want your pupil to understand and develop the best way to give a good chess lesson.
Starting a chess class, you have to prepare what you are going to instruct. Especially thinking in your student and what you are going to instruct.
It changes if it's for a new player, an intermediate player or an advanced chess player. Although what you will read below is primarily focused on teaching beginners.
Basically, the keys to teaching at all levels of chess are the same. Here are the keys I would like to share with you.
How to teach chess? It's not easy, you have to take it easy.
Every good coach has to bear in mind that teaching is not an easy task. There is always one student who stands out and another who finds it difficult to learn a little.
The first thing to be a good coach is to have an excellent methodology, patience, and tolerance. Chess is an easy game in terms of movements, terms, etc. However, it's complicated when it comes to explaining it and playing a game. So, before you read on you should know many of your students will not understand it at first.
Keys to teaching chess:
– You should start by explaining the basics in the first class such as pieces, squares, and movements. Then your student becomes familiar with this, later you have to explain the difficulty of chess, such as an opening, captures, and castling.
– You need that your student understands, to achieve this goal, so use the technique of “repetition”. According to experts when you repeat things numerous times, our brain stores the information in long-term memory.
So each time you give a class, ask your student to repeat what you have taught, to say what is done and show it on the board. In the event that your student does not know or make a mistake, you have to start again.
Create a good connection with your chess students is fundamental
– Once that you learn the basics of the game of chess, you must continue with the advanced level. This is the correct order: castling, promotion…
– Organize a test with the concepts you have taught them to make sure that the student has really captured all the information is the most recommendable. If there is something to correct it is better to do it from the beginning, so that after you advance you don't have to go back to the beginning.
– After your student has learned the basics, it's time to start placing pieces on the board. Teaching them things or moves that should not be done and the way they should think during the development of the game of chess.
It is important to teach your student all their pieces are key and the ultimate goal of the game of chess is to find the checkmate.
-They must learn from the beginning the value of the pieces, being this primordial. When a person knows the value of something, she/he knows how to take care of it or how to use it better. This is the system of losses and gains. It doesn't matter if you lose a knight if that leads you to win a queen.
Teach chess is a universe of possibilities
– Always be patient and keep calm, non-serious, rather cheerful, an active environment so your pupil can feel motivated.
– When your pupil does something well, tell, applaud, motivate, give to him/her the necessary incentive to go on and play better. Let him/her know he/she is learning well and will soon be able to play a good game.
– Just as repetition is key to learning, it is also important “the review”. The technique of reviewing previous classes before starting a new one guarantees the fixation of what you have taught them.
The student must overcome the teacher, do everything possible to make this happen.
-If the student has reached an almost complete level of understanding of the game of chess. Now it is time to move on to the openings, then the middlegames, endgames and the checkmates.
The theory of the openings is the last thing I teach. Understand the concepts of the middlegame and endgame is better.
The middlegame also depends on the person but where you have to focus more to teach is in the “tactic” at the beginning. Find the checkmate is not as easy as it seems.
-The process of how to teach chess depends on the time and dedication given to the student. Also, the way to speak and explain, how much the person knows and how much more they are able to learn are important.
It's necessary to adapt to the student to teach well the game of chess. You know that you teach well when the person is understanding and he/she begins to investigate.
