Recently one of the chess clubs whose e-mail list I’m on sent out a request from a local library for someone to teach “beginner chess lessons for all ages”. I have some experience teaching chess, but only one on one, and plenty of experience teaching and tutoring groups, but am a little shaky on how to combine these two. I volunteered because no one else seemed to want to and thought that it would hopefully be a fun and interesting experience. The initial request also says that, “Depending on the turnout we may wish to separate the group into an adult and children group that met on separate days”. Clearly they’re not quite sure how many people/what to expect, so I have absolutely no idea. While they say “beginner” I’m also not sure what strength to expect. I hope to be able to just go over the basics, perhaps show a game or two, and let people play each other. I’m also assuming that they have few to no chess boards but hopefully I can borrow some from the club. Any ideas or suggestions would be very welcome!
I would usually try to divide mixed groups into two sections - advanced and beginner. The beginners I would lecture for a half hour (while the advanced played a game). Generally very basics - how the pieces move, basic rules, some tactics. In a six week course, you can start with K+Ps and add a piece each week. Then I would have the beginners spend the next half hour playing (with pieces limited to what had been taught so far) and lecture the advanced players - usually a quick review of the beginner material with some more advanced examples on the same material.
Thanks for the help! Turns out that the group is only going to be five kids (at least to start, hopefully if I keep them interested word will spread). I made a packet which is about eight pages long for the first lesson which includes how all the pieces move, including castling and promotion but not en passant (yet) as well as Notation. I’m planning on making a packet for each lesson (there’s only 4-5 over many weeks) and hope to cover basic tactics, and combination, basic opening and endgame principles, perhaps some more famous and lively annotated games or a more in depth look at some quieter openings. If anyone wants to see the current packet, or any of the future ones (I’ll post what’s in them after I finish each one), for either your own amusement or to use for yourself or others, let me know and I’ll post them. There are many many diagrams in the packet as well that I made using a freeware diagram generator that I would highly recommend.