[Flame]

the normal bridge book give you a hand and ask you to make a plan.
Unfortunetly for many novices this isnt working , they arent good enough to think so much a head, I have many old ages student and i wonder if there could be an alternative approach. One example that could work is book of one suit play examples, I remember one such book on the books thread but i think it wasnt for novice. Do you know any very very simple books (many of of my students are old people). Do you have other ideas for things that can work. ?

[blackshoe]

"Old" doesn't necessarily mean "stupid".

The ACBL teaching series (Club, Diamond, Heart, Spade, Notrump is how I learned the five books) covers, respectively, basic bidding, play, defense, and conventions. There are some very simple hands in these books (particularly the first three). They're available on the web from The ACBL or from Baron-Barclay, and possibly from Amazon as well. They're written by Audrey Grant.

[pdmunro]

My 2 cent's worth.

One of my older partner's learnt to play the cards using Bridge Baron, a computer program. He plays 20 or so hands a day.

Yes, try Audrey Grant's books. I read the 1990 editions she coauthored with Zia Mahmood. Audrey has thought a lot about how to present ideas to beginners. The ideas are clearly set out.

Other books that might suit your students' needs are:

Edwin B. Kantar
1) Introduction to Declarer's Play
2) Introduction to Defender's Play
These are both fairly short books.

Paul Marston "The Principles of Card Play".
Paul is an Australian author. The book is the clearest, simplest explanation of how to play the cards that I have read.

It's always hard to know how much we remember from reading books. And when we are tired, everything that we have learnt seems to fly out the window.

Bridge is learnt by playing lots of hands. The more we play, the more scenarios we start to recognize.

I find making mistakes is part of the learning process. I find a bad loss is often the best lesson. It makes me more alert, when I face a similar situation the next time. Then I play better, just from being alert and thinking harder.

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Flame, I think you know all the above. I am interested in how people learn, as I can see you are. I know I haven't really answered your question about an alternative way of teaching card play. Sorry.

I am a High School mathematics teacher. I find the hardest ideas to teach are those that I found easiest to understand.

And I find it easy to teach those concepts that I had to really struggle to understand myself. I can anticipate the problems the student's will have. It's probably similar for bridge.

In any mathematics or bridge class there is a whole range of abilities. In all four mathematics classes that I have at the moment, the results range from 100% to 1%. All students have been exposed to the same classroom experiences over the last six months, and some brains get it and some don't.

It is obvious to me that experts process a lot more information at bridge than I do. I guess I am somewhere in the middle ability range. There must also be people who struggle to manipulate a simple play sequence in their head.

My wife didn't like bridge because she felt the pressure of people waiting for her to make a play. This stress drove all ideas out of her head.

I didn't mean to end on a negative note. I guess I simply wanted to clarify for myself that there are different reasons why a person may find it difficult to see a particular card play: lack of experience, tiredness, lack of ability, stress, the idea was never properly explained to them, etc.

Of course, we are all on a learning curve. We can only hope it is an upward curve. :-)

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[Flame]

Thanks you helped.