Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Jizzo T. Clown]

[Cerebroden]

17 minutes?!?!?! I don't know if its just cuz I have smaller class sizes, but the kids know that once the doors close its class time. I'd be pissed if I was paying to send me kids to an English school and the teacher couldn't get the kids to focus until a third of the way through the class.

[postfundie]

then all of Korea should be pissed off because TONS of time is wasted every fricking day......(with kids its always part of the equation but with adults it pisses me off to no end....happens even more when Koreans are teaching us Korean though)

[ajgeddes]

Yeah, in my school, the Korean teachers will often go to their classes 5-10 minutes after class actually begins. Then there is actually getting the students into study mode. It's ridiculous. Half of my classes come at least 5 minutes late every single time.

[mrsquirrel]

I estimate conservatively.

10minutes at the start of each lesson.

10 minutes attempting to get students on task.

15 minutes of lesson actually trying to do some sort of input and get them to understand

5 minutes of successful output if I am lucky.

I try not to get disheartened. A few classes a week make it worth while.

I then have to factor in the co-teacher inconstant.
I have one very good co-teacher who loves her job most of her classes go well or are at least enjoyable. One who is a wet blanket and doesn't know her arse from her elbow (although she is really nice). One who is old, pretty refined and has good control of her classes but translates to much (every class with her is good). Then there is my handler/co-teacher. I'm convinced she tells the students to sit in silence in my lessons. She is a useless. Fantastic handler but shit teacher.

Classes with the good ones I can reduce input by 75% and raise outpute by 50%-100% at least.

Classes with the useless ones - The younger teacher I can still get a good amount of output. The handler though I'm lucky if I can get anything out.

So counting her into the equation I might as well not open the classroom doors.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

This is one area I've really worked at. Rarely do we waste more than two minutes and usually it's less than one. I have one MS class I teach right after they get back from PE and two I teach right after lunch and it can be a bit of a problem, especially when I'm herding everyone in while most of the KTs teaching that block are still down in the staff room. Most of my HS classes I'm able to start the moment the bell rings and I love it when KTs walk by my class three minutes late for theirs to see that my class has already been running in an efficient and orderly manner for three minutes.

[hubba bubba]

I've gotta say that, ideally, having a "bellwork" activity would be a great way to start class. But, this is the type of thing that will NEVER happen in Korea.

ALthough, maybe I could try to get my coeacher into it. She's never there for the first ten minutes, so why should she be against it?

So, what are some good bellwork activities for beginning elementary kids. I'm thinking writing practice. Maybe copy something from an overhead or soemthing. Or, put a question on the board, and tell their groups to come up with an answer. Or, something like, "Write the names of as many kinds of fruit that you can think of."

[SuperHero]

I lead by example. I'm always in the class 10 minutes early and I have stuff written up on the board so students can get prepared. Additionally they have all downloaded that days handouts for my web site.

Class starts exactly on the hour, I take attendance and then start teaching. There is very little wasted time in my classes.

[poet13]

We waste very little time in my classes. Yeah, the after lunch group can be lethargic, but the after gym boys are usually pretty good.
At the bell, the class captain calls the class to order, and we begin. Our class clocks are pretty consistent, so I can usually time my class to end at the bell.

[khyber]

For elementary school kids, it's ALWAYS great to sing a song with them at he beginning of class. You can do that as soon as the bell stops.


As for wasting time at the beginning of class?
I found it REALLY true that the first 10 minutes of class (conservatively) can dictate the path of the class. If you are already in the class taking attendance and talking to kids as they are walking in, you're engaging them and it'll be easier to get their attention in 1 minute when the bell rings. Also a litle talkin' is more stimulating than utter silence.

But you ask what I do?
Well, at my hagwon, I started out bursting into class singing phonics sounds. But by the time I left there permanenetly, i was sauntering in soon after the bell rung and then too about 3 minute to get ready (pass out papers, attendance, quieting down).
at my first elementary school class, there was no attendance. I started each class about 1 minute (though a couple times it was about 4 minutes) in and got right into it; sometimes with bellwork, sometimes game, sometimes lesson.
at thiselementary school, I'm doing almost nothing. Sometimes this teacher comes in 10 minutes late to class (and I didn't plan anything). A few times I've jumped up to take the reigns after a few minutes, but sometimes not; sometimes i just used out disciplan to keep in the kids moderately quiet and have them perfectly ready for class (sitting straight, books, pens, cards, etc).

[oneofthesarahs]

Assign a class leader. The class leader is responsible for drilling the other kids on vocabulary or kicking off a recitation of a dialogue from a previous class. They do this as kids filter in, so by the time you get into the classroom they'll be in English mode already and it will only take you a minute or two to take attendance/settle them down. And the class leaders tend to take their jobs pretty seriously if you treat it like a huge honor to be chosen. Rotate the class leader by month, or even biweekly if you have a big enough class.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

[Jizzo T. Clown]

All very thoughtful comments. I do think that as teachers, we should eventually have our classes at the point where we no longer have to "settle them down." In a perfect world, they would be so accustomed to the routine that discipline would be a problem of the past. But the world is far from perfect, isn't it?

I believe that students of all ages (though kindies more than others) can appreciate knowing what's coming, what's expected of them, and what's going to be done next.

Also, it seems that taking roll would be better done while the students are engaged in an activity (not necessarily part of the routine) in order to maximize effective use of time.

[SuperHero]

[Yu_Bum_suk]