How good should you be to teach?

[Joshua Gibbs]

I like teaching people things and want to teach chess.

I know people who teach chess who I think are nowhere near good enough to make children or adults sandwiches, let alone teach them chess. These people don't know anything about the game, and the people "learning" will actually suffer from their input.

Having said that some of the better players on here might argue that someone with an ECF grade of 100 (myself) should not be teaching people!

What is everyone elses opinon on this?

My personal opinion is that my online accomplishments make me good enough to teach some elements of chess though there are certain elements I shouldn't teach and that you should beat some good players and be around ECF 150 to teach...

[Robert Stokes]

I'm also not very good at chess (ECF 106) but I am a retired teacher (of mathematics although I don't think that's relevant).

I think that providing you have a good basic knowledge of the game and the right personality (i,e, someone who would make a good school teacher whether or not trained to be one) then you can certainly teach beginners. You need patience and a friendly attitude so that you can understand the difficulties of someone learning (and that applies to anything not just chess).

Someone very good at chess may not make a good teacher of it. (I knew some very good mathematics graduates who couldn't teach the subject at all well.)

Robert

[Gary Kenworthy]

It is a baseline, plus a gradient, dependent on the level of your target audience.
Plus the ability to convey knowledge in a positive and helpful manner (thus adjustments can be made to this graph).

e.g If your student is 105 ECF, then you should be at least 145. It drops slowly away to a twenty point difference, until you get over 195 student - coach 215. Then it even can start becoming an inverse difference. e.g a 225 ECF coach can still successfully and positively teach a 240 student, with suitable preparation, material finding, experience, and core skills.The student is now beyond a threshold, also into self study, and peer group capabilities of improvement.

Regards (FM) Gary Kenworthy,

Thus, if you are 106 ECF, then primary teaching grades 50/60s, etc is absolutely fine. Often works well. When they get stronger, here, over 66 ECF, then please hand to the next coach. (Otherwise, the risk of lots of de-coaching. Does often happen, with bad advice having to be replaced.)

[Roger Lancaster]

Spot on, Gary.

[MJMcCready]

It is a baseline, plus a gradient, dependent on the level of your target audience.
Plus the ability to convey knowledge in a positive and helpful manner (thus adjustments can be made to this graph).

e.g If your student is 105 ECF, then you should be at least 145. It drops slowly away to a twenty point difference, until you get over 195 student - coach 215. Then it even can start becoming an inverse difference. e.g a 225 ECF coach can still successfully and positively teach a 240 student, with suitable preparation, material finding, experience, and core skills.The student is now beyond a threshold, also into self study, and peer group capabilities of improvement.

Regards (FM) Gary Kenworthy,

Thus, if you are 106 ECF, then primary teaching grades 50/60s, etc is absolutely fine. Often works well. When they get stronger, here, over 66 ECF, then please hand to the next coach. (Otherwise, the risk of lots of de-coaching. Does often happen, with bad advice having to be replaced.)

I think Gary is correct in what he says but your question is about teaching chess. Teaching skills are required and in my opinion more important than knowledge and ability. But like Gary says, you would need to be better than your students.

Some people are naturally good at teaching, some people are less so but more qualified and thus approximately better. Teaching involves communication and not just knowledge. It's just not the case that you can turn up and it all comes together naturally unless you have the right skill set. Best to ask those who both teach professionally and can play chess well. They are the right people to ask. I think the principle weakness that a lot of high-rated players have is that they think their rating is sufficient, and usually that's not the case as you need the ability to communicate it also, if we are talking about teaching chess that is. All thoughts welcome.

An example: I was once asked to take over a class from a German FM (23xx which means better than me by some distance) who insisted the students (5-6 years old, barely knew the moves) annotate all their games. They lost interest immediately and the Headmaster lost patience. Hardly surprising. I just got them playing, but before that split each session into a bit of theory and Q&A. They liked playing with their friends, that was obvious. Perhaps the quality of the play left a lot to be desired but I was aware of the fact that some students were 5 years old still and could barely write, let alone annotate games! Not the first time I had seen such things.

[Andrew Zigmond]

As others have suggested it depends on who you are teaching. I've been privileged to get involved a new junior club locally where the organiser is not a strong player (although she enjoys the game and is learning) but a truly brilliant teacher and the kids (average age about eight) are going from strength to strength and outperforming youngsters being taught by more experienced players. I went along largely because I thought somebody from the adult chess club ought to take an interest (our own junior initiatives over the years have generally failed) and I've learnt more about how to teach chess in twelve months than I have from countless junior organisers.

Of course when the children get older and more experienced they will need more experienced players to help them along, but even then the ability to teach is more important than playing ability.

Answering the original question, an adult with a playing strength of roughly 100 could teach adult beginners without difficulty, provided they have the right communication skills. Obviously the higher the grade of the students gets, the stronger the teacher will have to be but by the time adults get to around 150 strength their natural ability will have leveled out.

[David Shepherd]

One thing to remember is that there is some lag in the grading system when you are improving but don't play that many rated games. Teaching others may well help your own grade. Looking at your results for last year I suspect the 100 grade above is too low and somewhere in the range 115-125 is more realistic

[MJMcCready]

One thing to remember is that there is some lag in the grading system when you are improving but don't play that many rated games. Teaching others may well help your own grade. Looking at your results for last year I suspect the 100 grade above is too low and somewhere in the range 115-125 is more realistic

But many people who teach chess say their grade goes down whilst doing it. The most cited reason being that you get used to bad moves being played against and fall into bad habits as a result. Yet to meet anyone who claims teaching chess actually improved their own play.

[Joshua Gibbs]

One thing to remember is that there is some lag in the grading system when you are improving but don't play that many rated games. Teaching others may well help your own grade. Looking at your results for last year I suspect the 100 grade above is too low and somewhere in the range 115-125 is more realistic

Thanks for the compliment! I find over the board chess frustrating.... I can play a lot better online and recently beat a Very strong FM as well as having beaten candidate masters. Do you think this would make me suitable to teach chess even though I mess up over the board, or do you think the fact that my OTB play is so weak rules me out?

[David Shepherd]

Nothing to do with teaching - but I would recommend that you try entering a few chess congresses. I notice that all your results are league games - these tend to be in the evening when you may well be tired which increases the chance of mistakes, you might find that your results are significantly different in a weekend event.

[Niall Doran]

I find over the board chess frustrating.... I can play a lot better online and recently beat a Very strong FM as well as having beaten candidate masters. Do you think this would make me suitable to teach chess even though I mess up over the board, or do you think the fact that my OTB play is so weak rules me out?

I wouldn't say it rules you out, but it is important for anyone teaching chess to be able to give practical advice on playing in the real world, preferably based on their own experience. The following topics are important:

Time management
When to spend more time on a move
What to do if your opponent's behaviour is inappropriate
When to call the arbiter
Dealing with stress
Managing energy levels over a longer tournament

All practical things that chess players need to be able to deal with. It's all well and good working on tactics, strategy and so on, but when you find one of your students has been mated in a 20 min game with 19m40s left on their clock, or they tell you an hour after the tournament that their opponent made an illegal move, you realise that these practical skills need to be worked on.

[Joshua Gibbs]

I find over the board chess frustrating.... I can play a lot better online and recently beat a Very strong FM as well as having beaten candidate masters. Do you think this would make me suitable to teach chess even though I mess up over the board, or do you think the fact that my OTB play is so weak rules me out?

I wouldn't say it rules you out, but it is important for anyone teaching chess to be able to give practical advice on playing in the real world, preferably based on their own experience. The following topics are important:

Time management
When to spend more time on a move
What to do if your opponent's behaviour is inappropriate
When to call the arbiter
Dealing with stress
Managing energy levels over a longer tournament

All practical things that chess players need to be able to deal with. It's all well and good working on tactics, strategy and so on, but when you find one of your students has been mated in a 20 min game with 19m40s left on their clock, or they tell you an hour after the tournament that their opponent made an illegal move, you realise that these practical skills need to be worked on.

Thanks for your input Gary Robert and MJ i really appreciate your replies.

Yes you are very right Niall I need to learn about all these things, yet unfortunately I don't have the time to play FIDE rated chess or weekend tournaments...

[Roger de Coverly]

Yes you are very right Niall I need to learn about all these things, yet unfortunately I don't have the time to play FIDE rated chess or weekend tournaments...

Perhaps another way of wording the original question is "How experienced should you be to teach?". So a coach who can offer introductions into the wider world of weekend Congresses, 4NCL, FIDE rated tournaments etc. is of higher worth than one who cannot.

[Gary Kenworthy]

Thank you Roger L, I like what I see at Watford, plus I see the result tables.
I have had to de-coach students of bad advice too much. Hence why I created the Kenworthy trianagle of hierachies of rules and advice, in order to explain the collating sequence of rules, axioms, advice, adages etc. It based on te Maslow Hierachy that I learnt at Teaching Training college, at Bingley, West Riding of Yorkshire. Plus the compelling need to explain to querying juniors why doing x is invalid in this case because y overrides because of its higher importance... etc . Then the need for myself to handover my top students of the past to GMs.

Roger de C. valid as well, a conveyor belt for sifting and selecting to elite standards.
Much of my experiences of junior chess is like bishops of opposite colour, ships that often pass in the night. Complete and utter isolation in some parts.
rgds (FM) gary Kenworthy

[Andrew Varney]

During the last few years since I've been teaching chess professionally, I've often wondered & worried about this question.
My own OTB grade has only got up to just under 150 and dropped like a stone within a year of starting to teach chess at more than informal level.
However, my online correspondence rating is quite a bit higher (my blitz is awful!).

I'm reassured by both fellow players that know me, my own students and my own kids that my ability to teach chess is significantly greater than my OTB playing ability, and I think part of it may be that I can grasp some quite in-depth ideas and see complex combinations given time, etc, yet often blunder to a few-move cheapo. The latter doesn't matter too much for the coaching because the student spots it and you can laugh it off. But I do think it is important to know one's own limitations and then you can teach from your own mistakes not just your successes.

Also my experience has been that teaching someone of around (or a little higher than) my own grade is different from teaching someone significantly lower. It tends to be more a collaborative exploration of ideas, which is enjoyable for the coach as well as inspiring for the student, it seems.