Teaching go to newcomers / Discussion

(Sebastian:) Thanks to Jared for trying to put some order into these pages. Unfortunately, in the process, contributions by several people got deleted or obscured. (Not by me. -Jared) I am trying to salvage what was there before, while moving his outline into Teaching Methods / Proposed Outline. I think a good outline should start at the level "teaching"; I regard the three-tier hierarchy Jared proposed (“Curious people are newcomers, and thus this is a sub-topic of Teaching Go To Newcomers, which is, itself, a sub-topic of How to Teach Go.”) as an added complication and believe a clear outline should start at the level "teaching".

There seems to be a bit of confusion between the terms “Newcomer” and “Curious Cats”. This page deals with Newcomers who are really interested in Go. I think, these are very different from “Curious Cats”, who don't have the time or patience to learn it (yet). As Jared pointed out, the name “newcomer” does maybe not adequately express this distinction, and only lead to confusion. Thoughts?

Kris Rhodes: (How about a page on HowNotToTeachGo?)

BenShoemaker: To create a useful TeachingGoToNewcomers page I think we need to discuss:

• What should be covered when teaching a first lesson
  1. What concepts are absolutely neccesary to start playing go?
     • Alternate plays
     • Liberties
     • Atari
     • Territory
  2. What concepts are advanced / semi-optional?
     • Ko
     • Two Eyes
     • Corner vs Sides vs Center
     • Joseki
  3. What concepts are completely optional?
     • Culture / History
• What are good ways to teach?
  1. What order should concepts be introduced?
  2. How to adjust teaching to the student?
  3. Should the "capture game" be used?
  4. How to keep things fun and interesting?

I personally would find the organization and completeness of such lists to be very helpful. (As I think about it, it would be nice to have a list of concepts for the beginner to study further, not just during the first lesson. If the list could be in order of complexity, that would be great, but maybe at least ordered to allow certain concepts to build on others.)

Dieter: I think we have that already at TeachingPaths and BeginnerStudySection

I get the sense that this site is a sister-site to SL, but just in case people don't know about it..

I accidentally typed in http://www.senseis.xmp.net/ instead of leaving off the www part. I fell in love! This page contains the cutest and most entertaining introduction to Go I've ever seen! If you're showing people how to play and they speak some French, send them here!

SAS: The usual URL is http://jeudego.org . http://put-some-nonsense-here.senseis.xmp.net works only because it's undefined and gets redirected to the main page.

Nico: This redirection does not seem to be working anymore.

And I can't find a list anywhere of web-based sites for leading folks through the basics. Should we start one?

-- Scartol

Scatterbrain?: The Go Institute @ http://thegoinstitute.animeworld.ca/lobby.htm has a pretty good list of sites. Their links are under 'crashcourse' in the menu.

As a beginner I think there should be a place for a few newcomer games to be posted and commented (not only pro games). I have commented one of my games against gnuGo 3.2 and want to post it and get some feedback. Maybe there is but I could not find such a place. Do you think it would be useful? I will make a new page and place a link here, BeginnerGameSamplesToComment. Thanks anyway.

                                           Orcun

I tried to contact the AGA about sponsoring my new go club and they never even responed. Is this a normal thing or did I not write to them correctly? Cole

StormCrow: That's a hard question to answer without knowing what email address you sent your mail to and how long you've waited for a response. The AGA is a volunteer organization and the people performing the various tasks have lives away from the AGA.