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Glenski
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Posts: 12844
Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN
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 Posted: Wed Aug 08, 2007 9:58 pm Post subject: |
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| I teach at a tech high school in Korea, where the majority of students are not going on to university. |
So what will the majority of them do? Give us something to help you with.
I'm sure you don't teach classes with 400 students. The total may be that many (I've done that in HS). How large are your class sizes? Perhaps there can be some group work to whittle down the in-class assignments they can do. |
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John Hall
Joined: 16 Mar 2004
Posts: 452
Location: San Jose, Costa Rica
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| Posted: Sat Aug 11, 2007 2:44 pm Post subject: |
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Jizzo,
Your basic problem is that you are not teaching English learners, you are teaching English lenors. Teaching lenors is always a much more difficult task than teaching learners.
Does anyone know what "lenor" stands for?   |
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mdk
Joined: 09 Jun 2007
Posts: 425
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| Posted: Sat Aug 11, 2007 4:22 pm Post subject: |
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If you have to "motivate" a student it seems to me that the student is just not ready to learn and you are banging your head against a wall.
My friends, who teach in the public school system face this problem constantly and it seems to me it is only an invitation to very turgid flux states in the lower chakras.
That's why I like teaching adult privates with the odd smattering of motivated youngsters.
There are those who make a virtue out of "motivating" students. I say good for them. There are also people who spend lots of time trying to invent a perpetual motion machine. I say good for them as well.
(NB: My friend Susan the public school teacher is looking over my shoulder and remarks that my view is "full of baloney" and that I am being tacky.
But like the guy said when they were burning him at the stake for saying that the earth moves around the sun...."it still moves" |
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JZer
Joined: 16 Jan 2005
Posts: 3898
Location: Pittsburgh
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| Posted: Sat Aug 11, 2007 5:16 pm Post subject: |
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| I teach at a tech high school in Korea, where the majority of students are not going on to university. While I like the challenge, I honestly can't see a reason why the students need to learn English other than their exams. |
You might want to see if any of your students are interested in baseball or soccer. Ask them if they want to understand what is happening during the games? You might even have your students do some reading on one of these sports.
I was tutoring a 10 year old Korean boy and we used to read sports illustrated for kids because at least it was interesting for him. |
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killian
Joined: 10 Jan 2003
Posts: 937
Location: fairmont city, illinois, USA
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| Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2007 10:45 am Post subject: |
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can you speak korean? ever notice how many english loanwords are already in korean?know the korean words for oil, engine and radiator? the amount of english words already pre-existing in korean for automotive/coputer and industrial applications is already staggering (sports as well). do they know that they already know a horde of english words in "disguise"?
i carry the lonely planet korean phrasebook with me at all times. it never ceases to amaze me the inroads english has already made on the local language (compared to chinese). |
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John Hall
Joined: 16 Mar 2004
Posts: 452
Location: San Jose, Costa Rica
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| Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2007 6:55 pm Post subject: |
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| LENOR = Learning English for No Obvious Reason. |
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Teacher in Rome
Joined: 09 Jul 2003
Posts: 1286
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| Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2007 7:06 pm Post subject: |
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| My friends, who teach in the public school system face this problem constantly and it seems to me it is only an invitation to very turgid flux states in the lower chakras. |
Have no idea what this means, but it sounds like the opposite of my state school students: highly excitable, poorly disciplined, sugar and additive- fuelled demons incapable of sitting still and listening quietly for more than one minute... Complicated instructions? Forget it. Pair work? Forget it too - by the time you've got round the class the first ten pairs have finished and are bored.
I'm not their regular teacher, so can't give marks or homework. My job is to provide them with the opportunity of speaking English with a native speaker, but not all of them are motivated and many of them have no need for English - as they see it.
The only thing that has worked for me in the past - and which keeps the kids focused and the noise levels slightly less than disco-decibel is to do group work. When they work together on developing a tv ad or group poster which they then have to show the rest of the class, they work very well. Of course, they use Italian a lot to get the work done, but the end result is in English. It's good for their self confidence to produce something that others appreciate and applaud - and motivates them to keep trying to do well.
I'm trying to think of some more ideas for the coming year. I really like the idea of some acting, as it gives the kids the chance to goof around and have some fun with English. Any others? |
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