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ChuckECheese
Joined: 20 Jul 2006
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 Posted: Tue Feb 13, 2007 4:35 pm Post subject: Public School Students' English Level |
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Although my current hagwon gig is ok I am considering making a switch to public school when my contract is up.
I find my current hagwon students (mostly adults) to be in intermediate or higher English level. How about public school students? |
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techno_the_cat
Joined: 30 Aug 2006
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| Posted: Tue Feb 13, 2007 4:48 pm Post subject: |
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I think you'll find it to be lower than your standard hakwon. Of course, I do work in the country, so that also plays a part in that.
Although I think the general rule of thumb is that, yes, the English level is alot lower. |
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JeJuJitsu
Joined: 11 Sep 2005
Location: McDonald's
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| Posted: Tue Feb 13, 2007 4:59 pm Post subject: Re: Public School Students' English Level |
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| ChuckECheese wrote: |
Although my current hagwon gig is ok I am considering making a switch to public school when my contract is up.
I find my current hagwon students (mostly adults) to be in intermediate or higher English level. How about public school students? |
The level is "difficult" as you typically have 3-4 kids in each class that can speak very well, and 28 kids that range from low to completely illiterate (can not even read English letters), despite the fact they have been studying English in some form for 8 years (if they are HS 1st year). So it's a challenge.
However, I'm kinda lucky, I've been trying to re-work our school's system, and currently they group kids together arbitrarily, not by academic level, so I proposed that they be grouped according to English level. The Principal likes the idea, I'll find out in a week if it will be implemented. This way I will be able to teach about 7 levels, instead of one. |
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ChuckECheese
Joined: 20 Jul 2006
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| Posted: Tue Feb 13, 2007 7:55 pm Post subject: Re: Public School Students' English Level |
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| JeJuJitsu wrote: |
| ChuckECheese wrote: |
Although my current hagwon gig is ok I am considering making a switch to public school when my contract is up.
I find my current hagwon students (mostly adults) to be in intermediate or higher English level. How about public school students? |
The level is "difficult" as you typically have 3-4 kids in each class that can speak very well, and 28 kids that range from low to completely illiterate (can not even read English letters), despite the fact they have been studying English in some form for 8 years (if they are HS 1st year). So it's a challenge.
However, I'm kinda lucky, I've been trying to re-work our school's system, and currently they group kids together arbitrarily, not by academic level, so I proposed that they be grouped according to English level. The Principal likes the idea, I'll find out in a week if it will be implemented. This way I will be able to teach about 7 levels, instead of one. |
I think your approach is the best. But what you're saying is that it's only at your school.... so if most Korean public schools don't implement such a concept and just mix all levels of English learners, what you're saying is that half will fall asleep while other half will end up learning something and vice versa right? How do you deal with such a challege? |
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saybanana
Joined: 28 Mar 2006
Location: LA
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| Posted: Tue Feb 13, 2007 8:23 pm Post subject: |
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I think grouping kids by abilty rather than one level is a great idea.
I teach in a public elementary school. You dont have that choice. Students in each classroom go to the English classroom once a week at a designated time.
I average about 37 students per class. For the 3rd grade, most are near the same level. 4th, 5th, and 6th grade gets worse and worse. The difference in ability goes up. Those with the best English ability are the ones who lived in an English speaking country, whose parents speak decent English and encouraged their children, and/or have been going to a Hagwon since Kindergarten.
This accounts for about 10% of the class. Then about 50-70% have some English ability through their hagwon, or what they learn from school/Korean pop songs. The rest, I dont have clue. Then there are some who dont know how to write, read, or speak or know the sounds of letters eventhough they are in the 6th grade and have been learning since whenever.
I think those who teach middle and high school will have a larger diference in ability. |
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JeJuJitsu
Joined: 11 Sep 2005
Location: McDonald's
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| Posted: Tue Feb 13, 2007 8:28 pm Post subject: Re: Public School Students' English Level |
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| ChuckECheese wrote: |
| JeJuJitsu wrote: |
| ChuckECheese wrote: |
Although my current hagwon gig is ok I am considering making a switch to public school when my contract is up.
I find my current hagwon students (mostly adults) to be in intermediate or higher English level. How about public school students? |
The level is "difficult" as you typically have 3-4 kids in each class that can speak very well, and 28 kids that range from low to completely illiterate (can not even read English letters), despite the fact they have been studying English in some form for 8 years (if they are HS 1st year). So it's a challenge.
However, I'm kinda lucky, I've been trying to re-work our school's system, and currently they group kids together arbitrarily, not by academic level, so I proposed that they be grouped according to English level. The Principal likes the idea, I'll find out in a week if it will be implemented. This way I will be able to teach about 7 levels, instead of one. |
I think your approach is the best. But what you're saying is that it's only at your school.... so if most Korean public schools don't implement such a concept and just mix all levels of English learners, what you're saying is that half will fall asleep while other half will end up learning something and vice versa right? How do you deal with such a challege? |
http://www.singshot.com/index.html
But for regular lessons? Since I only have essentially one _class_ level, so one lesson plan a week, I make three difficulty levels of the same material. One worksheet (high level) will have minimal Korean alongside the English, one a moderate (intermediate level) amount of Korean, with some simplification of the English, and one worksheet with every single English word translated to Korean (low level), and no difficult English words.
I know which students get which sheet, and have their level color coded on my seating chart, so when I call them to "speak" I know which level I'm working with. All the kids are down with the plan, and know they don't all have the same worksheet. When participation time comes, I have the high levelers maybe read or speak a paragraph worth of material, and the low level kids, I'm happy if they say one or two easy words.
A good thing I've discovered is that the more the low-level students know you won't ask the impossible of them, and they know they just have to say a few words, or an easy sentence, they participate without "shutting down" as many Korean kids tend to do if the level is too high for them.
Of course, the kids that want to sleep, I let them sleep. I'm not their mommy, and it's their grades that will suffer, as out of the 25 question Quarterly English Exam, I contribute 5 or 6 questions, so 20% or more of the test.
For me though, the key to managing the huge classes of 38 or 42 students is spending a lot of my hallway time, or out-of-class time, chit-chatting or joking around with the asshats and troublemakers, maybe sneaking a handful of them into the computer lab so they can play games during lunch or something like that. Coaching the school team (for free, but worth it for the lower stress level), as many classroom troublemakers are the jocks. Since they want to continue playing sports, and we've bonded through winning and losing, etc., the team are now my classroom enforcers.
Anyway, it's up in the air at the moment whether the kids will be divided in the school by English level, as there might be some district policies in the way, as well as maybe a need for last minute level testing and stuff, but we'll see. |
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bnrockin
Joined: 27 Feb 2006
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| Posted: Wed Feb 14, 2007 7:47 am Post subject: |
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| How is the hagwon that you are teaching adults at. Split shifts? |
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yingwenlaoshi
Joined: 12 Feb 2007
Location: ... location, location!
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| Posted: Wed Feb 14, 2007 8:01 am Post subject: |
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37, 38, 42 students? Once a week? High five in the halls?
Oh yeah. That's an effective way to learn English. 
Why do they even bother? Huge waste of the tax payer's money.
Last edited by yingwenlaoshi on Wed Feb 14, 2007 5:57 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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ChuckECheese
Joined: 20 Jul 2006
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| Posted: Wed Feb 14, 2007 2:48 pm Post subject: |
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| bnrockin wrote: |
| How is the hagwon that you are teaching adults at. Split shifts? |
Yep, split shift but very low hours (20 hours/week) with maximum of 5 students per class. And it's cake walk to teach higher level students. I focus only on creative essay writing and advanced speaking (debating). Not much to prepare for the class. I get a few news articles from the Korea Herald or from the the Internet to get discussion and essay topics. |
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