Korean Job Discussion Forums

[pandapanda]

I was wondering what peoples opinions were on the key to classroom management. I'm mainly talking about in a public school. Two main points.
1. What do you do in a class where some people just don't want to learn? Do you try to motivate them or just let them sit back? If you do try to motivate them, how do you do it?
2. How do you deal with a big imbalance in ability? There will always be the smarter students who fly through everything and the weaker ones who struggle no matter how easy you make the class. Of course grouping is important and the teacher can offer more assistance to the weaker students but what other options are there?

[Fishead soup]

Unless you're licenced to teach in Korea you must be accompanied by a Korean co-teacher. This is the law. Two adults in the room should ensure that the students behave.

Unless you're fluent in Korean or have excellent classroom management skills it not a good idea to go in the classroom alone. You may be asked to sometimes go in the classroom alone. Technically your coteacher is not allowed to do this. Although 90% of them will do this at one time in their career.

If you are stuck teaching the students alone its best to keep calm. Regardless of how coatic the class appears to be. Throwing temper tantrams or shouting at the top of your voice will only appear funny to the kids who might even mimic you. The roll book makes a nice loud thud when it hits the desk.

Eye contact is also a good way of maintaining order. Keep your eyes on all the students. Walking around the classroom is also good idea to.

You should never tolerate any vulgar language. If a student is really bad you can send him or her to the school staff room. Most students don't want to go. If you do send them to the school staff room they will be beaten.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

Re #1, it depends on the type of class. For middle school and academic high school I don't tolerate kids not doing their work, except in cases where it is just too difficult for the lowest-level students to understand. For vocational high school I'll sometimes let kids just sit back if they're not causing any trouble.

Re: #2 I try to plan one activity that will be aimed more at the higher-level students, one at the lower, and one to three aimed at the middle.

Re: co-teaching - it's a great idea for elementary and to a point for middle school, and pretty well necessary for vocational / technical high school classes to explain instructions if nothing else. But for higher level students it's generally a horrible idea as it will without doubt decrease the amount of English spoken in the classroom, especially if the KET usually talks to the students in Korean in his / her classes.

[jvalmer]

#1) Hate to say this, but you just can't help everyone. In the schools you well have up to 40 students in a class. Unless you go to a really really good school, there will always be a few students that won't or don't want to learn english. As long as they don't disrupt, I'd say let it go. Although, you can occasionally try to prod them into saying anything in english, even a simple no or yes.
#2) Aim for the middle. For higher end students, especially girls, they will probably come to your desk during breaks and try to chat it up with you. I think some of the best times to learn english is when the students are just milling around and they start testing their english with you one-on-one.

[jadarite]

And does this "two teacher" method apply to hagwons? I haven't found it impossible, but yes it is something I am trying to work with. I spent 4 years in Japan teaching mostly classes with only 1 or 2 adults (ok, that doesn't make a class, call it just a lesson). Now I am trying to get 6-13 kids working on the same page and doing exercises. Unless I am over them pointing to a number in the book, they just won't put pen to paper.

I try to bring up individual tasks I can do with each student and just let the rest talk until I get to them. There is no way I can talk over them, my vocal chords can't take it. So, this seems like the best method so far.

Also, I noticed students, especially in girl classes, like to give the same answer which invites copying. So, I do things like flip coins (heads or tails) or use a deck of cards so each student is presented with a unique situation and cannot copy or depend on others.

The director of the school sometimes comes in and explains vocabulary in Korean which helps them understand words, but grammar is still a tricky obstacle.

Should hagwons be required to have 2 teachers also (one that speaks Korean and another who is a native English speaker)?

[MarionG]

I work in a hogwon and I wouldn't work in Korea at all if I had to have a co-teacher. I hate it when my boss, who I like very much, even comes in the room, because she immediately starts translating everything I say, which defeats the purpose of English class and is one of the (many) reasons Koreans with 10 years of English classes can't speak English.

[jadarite]

Well, I am given 30 minutes per class. Which is better, to struggle for 15 minutes mimicking the action of an English word you want to teach or just have someone Korean say "This is cousin in English" in Korean. And how does one mimick cousin, lol

We are here to teach English, but I think pronunciation and stress (like sentence pauses) are more important to the class than vocabulary. Yet, the students still need to know the vocabulary to understand what we are saying. There should be a balance.

I wouldn't mind a Korean coming in, explain for 5-10 minutes the words we are going to use that day, and then hand it over to a native speaker. In this case, the classes would be 40 minutes instead of 30 if the school wanted the full 30 minutes from a teacher.

[normalcyispasse]

[BS.Dos.]

In terms of classroom management, I'd imagine that that's something that comes with experience and having confidence in knowing how to make your voice sound like the crack of a whip. I certainly haven't mastered it yet, but then again, my students don't run riot in my classes, just schoolboy banter really which (usually) runs straight off my back. I don't see how effective you'll be if you spend half the lesson running around telling them to shut up. Far better to try and understand what works best. It's a bit of a paradox though in trying to maintain their focus and at the same time not allowing the lessons to become too teacher centered, which is difficult, as from my experience, once you give them pair work etc you can pretty much guarantee that most of them will simply start chatting in Korean while you're monitoring.

I'm finding that variation helps keeps them attentive and I really try and mix things up - video, word games, dialogues, listening comprehension exercises, picture description work, spelling games, syllable work etc all standard classroom stuff but anything that'll arouse their curiosity should help in giving you a headstart. Furthermore, if you can do that and appeal to all the learning styles, then you'll probably get a higher percentage staying tuned in for longer. Stewarding your activity duration times effectively helps too. Seems that for a 50-minute lesson that you'll need at least 3 or 4 exercises up your sleeve. However, that's easier said than done and again, it's probably something that gets easier with experience as it's difficult and time consuming thinking up new ways to present the language. My own teaching bag of tricks isn't that deep, but I think by coming at them from all angles, it helps to keep them on their little Asian toes and not dozing at their desks on their elbows.

[Easter Clark]

I try really hard to engage every single one of my students but the fact is that you will never reach them all. Some of them really have no interest whatsoever in learning, period (much less learning a foreign language).

The best advice I can give is, Teach who you can. I'm not saying give up on those who seem completely uninterested, but don't go chasing rainbows and don't cut off your nose to spite your face.

If a student isn't working, I talk to them one-on-one in order to find out why. Is the material too difficult? Ok. We can change the way it's presented. Is it too easy? Then show me you can do it and I'll make it more challenging.

Is it not interesting? If that's the case, then you (the teacher) really need to get to know your students better--what things interest them? In my case, it's high school students, so they're interested in computer games, TV, and pop culture. That gives me a basis for a syllabus in itself. Now you have to figure out what kind of language points you can associate with their interests (and there are plenty of books out there, so no need to reinvent the wheel). Once you actively try to plan your lessons with your students' interests in mind (and not the target language), classroom management becomes less of an issue because you can get down to the brass tacks of communicating.

Of course, there will still be those who goof off or won't even try, but if you can create the right kind of classroom environment, they will be in the minority and can easily be made examples of.

[ajuma]

I can't believe it!! 9 posts and no flames yet!

I agree with all the above posters and would only add one more thing. Develop "the look". You know, the one a teacher gives that says "Do you REALLY want me to come over there or are you going to shut up now?"

[ddeubel]

I think what most people are alluding to, is the concept of "anticipation". A concept that is central to good teaching.

Anticipation is a theory of delivery that states that the teacher creates an environment which allows the students to be "reaching" and engrossed in the content but not so much that they are totally overwhelmed. I think BsDoc was talking about this when he/she mentioned "variety".

It is a concept central to human happiness, living in a state of the future with one foot on firm ground. It is why a movie is good - we don't know what is coming but we know enough already to believe it is good. If we can predict what is coming, we totally nod off.

I'm not arguing for Vgotsky or ZPD, this is knowledge based. Anticipation is environment based. Some students might understand very little, almost nothing of a song but if it is of interest and with some accessible content -- their attention and concentration will be held and they will learn something. I know it is a vague concept but I truly believe in this. It is why one performer holds our "rapt" attention while another skillful and all, doesn't .

About a law regarding a Korean or licensed teaching needing to be in the classroom at all times -- I think this only pertains to N.A. - the land of over bureaucratized education.

[Easter Clark]

Thanks for your insights, dd--appreciated as always! What I'm saying is that planning a lesson with only a grammatical point in mind is much less effective than planning a lesson which utilizes topics/vocabulary related to the interests of one's students--that structure should take a back seat to content.

I agree that being unpredictable has its merits, but I have found that students perform well if they know what to expect from each lesson. Each of my classes follows the same basic pattern--introduce vocabulary while finding out what they already know, converse with them and throw in some of the structure you plan to teach to give 'em a preview and find out how well they can already "do it," drills, pair work, maybe a listening activity, new stuff, drills, group work, review.

Knowing what to expect can allow the students to feel safe in that they feel they are one step ahead of the curve: "I know it's time to work with a partner now." "This is the time for learning the grammar we're going to use in the final application," and so on.

With this scaffolding in place, students will be less likely to act out because they are 1.) engaged by the topic and 2.) know where the teacher is going, if only on a subconscious level.

Creating a sense of anticipation is absolutely the hardest part of this job, but the most rewarding when you pull it off.

[BS.Dos.]

[ddeubel]

Easter,

I do think you are right that we must address motivation more than target language when planning and teaching lessons. So much of what is teaching is what happens through the backdoor. Every teacher who has been doing it awhile, realizes this. This is a basic feature of ESL/EFL where our curriculum is so large.....We aren't just building cars but also everything from the carpet, chassis to the transportation system and the need to drive.....

Still, I do think we also must focus on language, content, target language. We should plan with both in mind. I don't think either has to take preminence.

Also, I'm not talking about "unpredictability" -- that is just chaos. I really really believe in routine and having students create or the classroom create together, a comfortable and repeatable lesson structure. This helps so much. But within that kind skeleton and form, there is the "act" and it is within this nest egg where my "expectation" occurs. It is in the delivery , not the what is next? Always hard to describe but I'll try my best when I have some more time and want to definitely make a blog post about it.....

It is like music. We know what will come next otherwise it is just "unpredictable" babble. Still, good music contains something that wants to fly off the page, out of the headphones and into the unknown also.... we know and we don't know.....Good music is like good teaching and like good conversation. good conversation is not just about the content but the delivery.... I use this analogy because it echoes BS Dos and his comments of "rhythm and flow" .........what is good music? what is good teaching? structure but the semblance of no structure. A river that can't be stepped into twice....

DD