Bill Spight: Go pedagogy is not really very well understood, particularly in the early stages. There are certain basic concepts to master, but if you understand them reasonably well, you are already a fairly strong amateur!
I have the fond notion that play on small boards gives a good start, even though I never even played on a 9x9 when I was learning, but always on a full board. The 3x3 teaches that the player with an eye has the advantage in a fight. The 5x5 shows how to live with 2 eyes, and a mistake can lead to a ko.
When I was learning there were few go books in English, and I was unaware of the Japanese go books. Mostly I learned by playing, and my weakest opponent was a 5 kyu. In less than a year I was 4 kyu.
What did I learn during that first year? Certainly not tesuji. It was then that I got a book on tesuji. I didn't even know the basics. Certainly not life and death. I didn't even know the basic vulnerable shapes. Certainly not shape. One of the first Japanese go books I bought dealt with shape. It was a real eye-opener. (I loved it.) I remember three things that I learned during that first year that I think were very important to my progress:
Dieter comments on Bill: You have told so before and it has made me reconsider my strong opinions on TeachingPaths more than any other comment. I still think you are the exception, but nonetheless other exceptions will exist and then again we have maybe been wrong all the time and more players should be initiated the way you were. The problem is that I think one can better stick with one approach until the need for another approach is apparent. The Korean university of Baduk can't come soon enough with a sound statistic study on this subject.
Comments:
Jan: Here's why I think BasicInstinct is important.
I've recently started teaching the game to a lot of novices (my friends at the Biton Go Club?) and there even seems to be a more basic skill needed to play the game: knowing the Basic Edge Patterns. Sure, you get to see them after a while, but it still brings back painful memories of my first struggles against IgoWin.
Grauniad: Should Section 11 (Strategic Concepts) of Beginner Study Section be extended to reference Strategy of go - introductory, perhaps modified as suggested in Strategy of go - introductory / Discussion? (:-)
Should there be another Section on tactics that refences Basic Tactics of Go, or is this covered elsewhere on the page?
Ectospheno: I think the EssentialGoTerms link is more than adequate in section 0. What is Go? The links to the foreign go terms are just confusing to a beginner and should be removed. Does a beginner really need to know the kanji for aji along with its direct translation? I'd say no.
Gresil: I think EssentialGoTerms shouldn't be anywhere near section 0! Look at the contents. Semedori? Joban? Ponnuki? Instead of teaching something of practical significance, that page only intimidates and confuses the beginner.
Bill: I agree. I think that there are many go concepts to learn, and learning the terms for those concepts helps. However, you don't start with a hodge-podge of strange terminology. (And many terms on the page, like the ones Gresil mentions, are not really essential, are they?)
unkx80: So I have removed all references to Go terms from section 0, and put some of them to the interlude after section 9.
Also, the essential go terms list seem much more than essential, I might consider swapping it with common go terms (currently an alias to essential go terms). And then deprecate (and delete) the basic go terms and beginner go terms aliases altogether.