Korean Job Discussion Forums

[boss penguin]

Hello,

I'm currently working at a public middle school. I was recently informed that I will be responsible for conducting an English class for Korean the teachers and school administrators.
The problem is that the variance in English proficiency among Korean English teachers and other staff members is immense.
I have Korean English teachers with M.A's in Linguistics specializing in pragmatics, and the Principle who smiles and nods when I see him..Again with most things korean, the expectation is rather vague, and unclear.

Anyone else in a similar boat with ideas/suggestions?

[Scouse Mouse]

I've been asked if I want to do the same thing and am quite looking forward to it. Sure, some of the teachers don't have a great understanding of english, but most of the ones at my school can hold down a basic conversation and I see the teacher sessions as a great way to get to know people outside of the usual confines of the corridor/canteen.

Hopefully it will give me a chance to get to know some of the other teachers a little better and will encourage them to be less relucant to strike up a conversation with me in future.

[dridgway]

I'm in the same boat again this semester, as was I last semester, and I have the exact same issues about the whole thing.
Last semester I was given a huge group of teachers, some of whom could have a decent, although simple, conversation, and others who it seemed I was teaching to say "hello." All of this with NO direction...as usual. The more advanced teachers complained that it was too easy and the slower ones that it was too difficult. Personally I expected a little more understanding from fellow teachers but aparently that was expecting too much.
Eventually the scheduling of the class became too much of an issue for them and everyone stopped going all together (or maybe they were sick of the useless classes I had put together for them). Worked for me!
This semester I have a new boss and he would like me to start them back up again. We'll see how it goes!
Good luck to all of the others teaching teachers.

[mikowee]

I came here with the intention of making this exact same thread, but you beat me to it. My problems are similar. I have two classes to teach: one for English teachers and the other for the rest. The English teachers are all intermediate/advanced so I just hold a topic discussion session using a topic book. The class for non-English teachers isn't so straightforward, as some are beginners and others are advanced. I have no clue how to teach this class and to be honest I'd rather not teach it at all.

edit: Last semester, my non-English teachers' class kind of died as well. I find that teachers usually come 5-10 mins late to the class. I used it as an excuse not to show up early either. When they go to class late and don't find anyone in there, they are not going to press the issue. If they came to my office and asked me to teach the class, I would have. But I had a feeling they wouldn't. That was my solution to that particular problem.

[passport220]

http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com. You will find news articles prepared for teaching ESL. Many of the topics have the same article written twice one easy and one harder. I prepare a sheet with both versions on one page. The easy one allows more people to understand and be included in the discussion, and the harder one challenges the other students.

[JJJ]

Nice site "passport". I have to teach a 90 min. class starting next week (because I only have 20 classes a week and they say I must have 22...jeez) and this will really help pass the time. I just checked out the Prince Harry article and holy, there is a lot of work there for them to do.

Thanks so much.

[Kim Jong Jordan]

moi aussi. I have 8 teacher classes a week instead of teaching the second year high school boys and the majority of the teachers are beginners/false beginners with a sprinkle of teachers who have some experience/knowledge of english including two actual english teachers. I bought the book New Interchange: Intro because the majority were at the beginner levels, and I figured I should cater the course to their needs, the majority, rather than to the needs of the more experienced teachers, the minority. At the very least, what gets covered in class can be a review/refresher for the more experienced teachers, practice never hurts.

[passport220]

[boss penguin]

[ddeubel]

Thanks for that article/site passport!

I have known about it but really didn't use it much previously. But recently I've been downloading into a text reader, BBC newscasts. Students listen and read the text on the karaoke. If you want, you can turn off the voice and students actually read as the text scrolls, like a newscaster with a prompter. Works well.

Anyways, this might have the same possibilities and I will see about using the sound files and putting in the text.

I'll be loading both types onto my site shortly. Perfecting the way I load the BBC 2 min newscasts, to make it easier on myself.

Another teacher has sent along a couple of books appropriate for teaching teachers. I've put them in my adobe file, click ACROBAT. Conversation Starters and Pros and Cons...


DD

[mikowee]

[boss penguin]

[passport220]

Hiya ddeubel:
The text reader sounds like a cool idea. You may also know about this BBC site. http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/index.shtml
I have used a couple of stories from the site. One nice thing is it gives definitions of key vocabulary in the story at the bottom of the article. It also offers a recorded reading of the article�..one problem�.it is SO VERY British. This could be a good thing if you want to talk about the differences between North American English and British English.

[ddeubel]

Thanks, I'll look at that BBC site. I am using their 2 min world newscast for audio presently. Mostly personal belief/like about what they chose as news. I have CNN but haven't figured a way to get an audio file from them...maybe at their learning site???

I've posted on my site, the karaoke as teleprompter of that article, $100 laptops . In both full and cloze version. If you have the karafun player , take a look through clicking the Book Nook link on my site. I'll do a few more, they would be good material for my high school teachers, to compliment the text.

Cheers,

DD

[butlerian]