Korean Job Discussion Forums

[declan]

Hi i am starting teaching kindergarden on mondays. I have eight classes of thirty kids in each class. The classes are only twenty minutes but i need ideas to entertain all thirty kids in a class.
What can i do? I would appreciate all replies.

[Eazy_E]

Did I read that right? Thirty kids? You might have quite a handful. Hopefully you have a Korean-speaking assistant.

Kindergartens have incredibly short attention spans, so the 20 minute classes will no doubt help. But you may well end up doing a lot of heads-down colouring or activities. Get a book full of photocopiable activities. Conversation and games are chaotic enough with under ten kindergartens!

Kindy isn't really my thing, so you'll probably want to wait for a post from someone who knows what he or she is talking about.

[Toby]

Find a job that offers considerably smaller classes?

Songs. Head, shoulders etc. Hokey Pokey etc etc etc.

[osangrl]

Hey there......

New to Osan? Are you male or female? Im in Osan too....welcome!

Are you teaching them only on Mondays??? Because wow....im a kindergarden veteren and i couldn't do that everyday of the week.

ideas:

Everyday,- teach them the traditional "good morning"
- Make a calendar and do the date everyday.....
-make or buy a few flashcards....and teach them 4-5 new words
each day. Have them repeat.
- Then play different silly games with the flash cards.
- with 3 minutes to go...make it an everyday tradition, to sing a
goodbye song. (lets go 1- see you later alligator, or for small
little babies...tiny talk 1a...the goodbye song.) I have the
if you want to come over and borrow.


flashcard games:

Play a song, have them pass the cards around in the same direction. Stop the music....and whoever has a card, has to come up to the front and say "it's a __________" (or whatever the sentence pattern)

Clear away all the desks, or go to a playroom...... and make maybe 4-5 teams for this group..... line them up, tape the flash cards to the board, give them a fly swatter or rubber hammer, call the flash card, first kid to hit it gets a point for their team.

of course on tired days...make a worksheet with pics of the new words.... and have them color and copy the writing.

..........actually alot of my ideas i got on the internet...i have more, but could type all night....look on Daves idea cookbook.

[discostar23]

I suggest if you have a class with twenty kids to go to your local stationary store and buy some charts. They have ABCs, numbers, colors etc.

Also go to your local english language store and buy a craft book. They are easy to find. crafts keep the kids busy and help them to learn about colors and shapes. Also get a copy of kids songs (here we use a tape called "melody Song" and "Sing Chant and Play". One thing the kids will enjoy is songs.

Have they learned english before? You will find it hard and frustrating at first but as you get into the groove things get easier.

Also I have heard of people doing role plays with situtation (ie. One child plays the student , one plays the teacher etc.) I haven't really tried this a lot in my classes but when i do the kids have lots of fun with it

oh yeah good luck!

[hereinkorea]

Use lots of songs. I taught two kindy classes every day and it was pretty fun, stressful though. They loved Alice the Camel, the Hokey Pokey, Head and shoulders, etc. Also if you're doing a new phrase have them all repeat it, no matter how boring is it. For example.

T: How are you today Sarah?
S: I am fine thank you.

T: How are you today James?
S: I am fine thank you.

Keep doing that until all of the classes. It's repetitive, but repetition is what they need to learn.

Also, use some sort of discipline and rewards thing. Happy faces and Xs work well.

Hope you have fun.

[jazblanc77]

Teaching kindies is really all about "edutainment". Lose your inhibitions and quickly!

I recommend starting with the essentials and then stick with them through review. That means, start them on counting, colours, shapes, days, the alphabet, animals, etc., IMMEDIATELY. Decorate your classroom with posters, charts, calendars, alphabet lists, or whatever else you want to help you. Flash cards are okay but I much prefer to use the classroom itself as a teaching aid, it allows more spontenaiety.

Make it really fun. Get them moving, singing, dancing, or whatever makes them learn.

Be silly! If you want to teach them simple adjectives, have them act them out. Like, if you are teaching them, "I am sad", bawl your eyes out, they will love it.

Make a routine for your class. Generally, that is. Don't make it stail! What I mean, is let them know how you want things done.

Get a good curriculum. For young kindies (4,5 or 6 years old) try Tiny Talk. It is good because it is designed for short bursts of learning. There is a lot of colouring in the workbook when you run out of ideas. I wouldn't put them on Let's Go Starters or Magic Time if I were you.... Boring! However, Let's Go Starters does have some really good songs.

Use songbooks; one per month. Check out 'Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you See?', 'Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What do you Hear?', and 'Today is Monday' to get started. It will seems awkward at first singing but you will begin to look forward to it.

*GET A KOREAN ASSISTANT* 30 kids is bloody ridiculous... good luck!


I hope this helps! Anything more, PM me or post again!

[Crois]

I thought the Tora Tora Tora song would be funny.

[jazblanc77]

One more thing. Simplify your English a lot. Don't speak incorrectly just because they don't understand everything. Use simply catchy expressions and instructions.

For example:

Let's count!
Let's read!
Let's sing!

It's time to go!
Please clean up. Let's clean up!

Sit down please.
Push in your chair.
Make a line.

Hello/Goodbye.
*Who needs booger tissue?* Remeber this one!


Have them speak to you correctly like:

I want ____.
I like _____.
I have _____.
It is ______. (orange, a pencil, big)

You can say stuff a lot more complicated like:

When I call your name please say "here", but make sure that you are demonstrative in your explanation and don't expect them to catch everything.

REmember that even though they are really low now, they will pick up on things you say and do in class, especially if it is repetitive. So use catch phrases for certain actions and always say them correctly. Their bad habits are your teaching faults, sometimes!

[Dawn]

[jazblanc77]

I taught Magic Time 1 and 2 to a very boring and unmotivated class. That could have something to do with it. In general though, I found the learning points fairly good but it contained so much vocabulary that it made me a my students just groan and the workbook didn't have enough writing activities for the level of student it was assumedly designed for. I also didn't like the chants and songs, they reminded me a lot of Go Go Loves English which I taught a couple of years ago.

Don't take me wrong, I still think that the Magic Time/English Time series are among the best out there.

[Dawn]

Ah, the class would make a big difference. I've got a roomful of high-energy overachievers, several of whom need hear a word only one time to remember it. Plus, nearly half of them were in my kindergarten last year, but were still too young to start public school. My initial fear was that the kids would be bored by the lack of new vocabulary in Magic Time, but they've found plenty of ways to have fun with it. Had to laugh, though, when one of them interrupted me in the middle of the food unit to point to a picture and say, "Teacher, this is junk food, I think. It would not be a healthy meal."

[Len8]

Learn how to explain some of the games in korean to the kids. Could make tjhe class a learning experience for you. It's not too difficult to learn the korean to explain "Simon Says "

[Len8]

Learn how to explain some of the games in korean to the kids. Could make the class a learning experience for you. It's not too difficult to learn the korean to explain "Simon Says "

I got a Korean teacher to write the explanation out in Korean and memorized it, because I was sick of trying to explain the frigging game in English, to kids who took forever to get it.

[ajuma]

jazblanc77 had some GREAT ideas! Keep things short, simple and use body language as much a possible! Keep to a routine! Maybe "good morning" first... (PLEASE...NOT "I'm fine" Use "I'm good" "I'm ok" "Not too bad"). Then a song. Then reviewing, then something new.

"Head, shoulders, knees and toes" is a great "starter". If you need more lyrics than the basic ones, PM me. I've made up lots of other verses!

Colors....numbers...nouns and verb. Lots of games! Check Dave's "Idea Cookbook" for ideas. 30 is WAY to many, but for 20 minutes, it's doable!