What should be my ESL syllabus for teaching physics for baseball?

[cloa513]

My student is very basic in physics in first grade of a Japanese junior high school and the physics is so basic such as they were teaching about forces and not yet gravity. He is pretty good at reading English and formulating a speech but the lessons are not very responsive.

I worked on Energy as far as Kinetic, Potential, Gravity and Forces as far balanced and unbalanced forces in a linear way, Friction such static and sliding but I didn't he really understand more than qualitative. I now have a bit more freedom with the course so I thought since he is interested baseball, I am thinking a syllabus of physics for that and so only thinking kinetic and potential energy with reference to batters and pitchers, The simple understanding of forces acting on bats and balls, torque on a bat (sure there is torque on a ball but hard to explain easily), elastic and inelastic collisions.

What other basic physics should I include? The textbooks provide very little support only energy a little, forces and torque but naturally I will have to exceed them.

 

[berkeman]

Conservation of momentum (bat hitting the baseball).

The Magnus Effect and the curve ball: https://www.livescience.com/32714-how-does-a-curveball-curve.html

...which leads into other aerodynamic effects... https://www.physicsforums.com/insights/airplane-wing-work-primer-lift/

 

[cloa513]

Thanks for your reply. Conservation of momentum.

The other parts are way too advanced for him. As I pointed out they haven't done gravity at school. He is going have trouble if I try to explain drag and lift.

 

[Frabjous]

There is a book on the topic.
The Physics of Baseball by Adair
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0060084367/?tag=pfamazon01-20

 

[Steve4Physics]

Hi @cloa513.

I’m guessing that ‘first grade of a Japanese junior high school’ means about age 13.

Also, you haven’t said anything about your knowledge of physics or your experience of teaching it.

Could you introduce some practical work? Physics is fundamentally an experimental science after all. (I expect others might disagree/qualify, but never mind!)

Projectile motion is obviously highly relevant to baseball. But it requires some background knowledge and maths – which is likely to be a problem at age 13.

However, if you can get your hands on some suitable apparatus, the student could do an investigation, e.g. how firing a projectile at different angles affects the range. No theoretical analysis would be expected - but a written report explaining the method and giving the results (including a table and graph) would be required. And the students could be asked to give a short verbal presentation on what they did, their results and the relevance to baseball.

 

[cloa513]

Hi @cloa513.

I’m guessing that ‘first grade of a Japanese junior high school’ means about age 13.

Also, you haven’t said anything about your knowledge of physics or your experience of teaching it.

Could you introduce some practical work? Physics is fundamentally an experimental science after all. (I expect others might disagree/qualify, but never mind!)

Projectile motion is obviously highly relevant to baseball. But it requires some background knowledge and maths – which is likely to be a problem at age 13.

However, if you can get your hands on some suitable apparatus, the student could do an investigation, e.g. how firing a projectile at different angles affects the range. No theoretical analysis would be expected - but a written report explaining the method and giving the results (including a table and graph) would be required. And the students could be asked to give a short verbal presentation on what they did, their results and the relevance to baseball.

Classroom has next to nothing- I bring all for any demonstrations and they pay for nothing beyond some not very good or appropriate textbooks and the principal who was an engineer has some books but they aren't helpful for this course material. I graduated from university in Engineering but that was 20 years ago. Still everything I do remember is way about his level.

 

[berkeman]

Classroom has next to nothing- I bring all for any demonstrations and they pay for nothing beyond some not very good or appropriate textbooks and the principal who was an engineer has some books but they aren't helpful for this course material. I graduated from university in Engineering but that was 20 years ago. Still everything I do remember is way about his level.

When I was living in the Yokohama/Tokyo area of Japan (as an 11 year old boy, part of a US Army family), I played a lot of baseball, and frequented the many Japanese batting cages in the area. If you can pull it off, it might be a fun field trip to take all of the students to the local batting cage and have them use their cell phones to take videos of each other batting, and later process the videos to try to show Conservation of Momentum in the hits. They should weigh the bats and balls as part of this field trip experiment...

https://en.japantravel.com/tokyo/batting-cages-and-driving-ranges/4513

 

[cloa513]

Thanks for replies but this is syllabus question alone with very basic physics. I am teaching one child in a room . Maybe he can bring a baseball bat and ball from school. I choose baseball because he plays it.

 

[berkeman]

Thanks for replies but this is syllabus question alone with very basic physics. I am teaching one child in a room . Maybe he can bring a baseball bat and ball from school. I choose baseball because he plays it.

Can you still take him to the local batting cage and film him hitting?

 

[cloa513]

I earn 3500 yen per hour. I don't own a car. I don't paid for anything other teaching in the room. The school is one station away from Shinjuku Station.

 

[symbolipoint]

Because of the intent or focus on ESL, this topic could be put into or placed into The Lounge: Art, Music, History and Linguistics; as if that might help.

 

[CrysPhys]

Because of the intent or focus on ESL, this topic could be put into or placed into The Lounge: Art, Music, History and Linguistics; as if that might help.

I think the title is misleading. This isn't really an ESL issue. The issue is explaining the physics of baseball to a 13 yr old. An instructor trying to explain all this to the boy in the boy's native language would be dealing with the same basic issue. ESL is secondary in this instance.

 

[cloa513]

I think the title is misleading. This isn't really an ESL issue. The issue is explaining the physics of baseball to a 13 yr old. An instructor trying to explain all this to the boy in the boy's native language would be dealing with the same basic issue. ESL is secondary in this instance.

The only ESL issue is limited vocabulary. Avoid using terminology.