Korean Job Discussion Forums

[BreakfastInBed]

I've been asked to begin a trial run teaching an extra class to some of the best and brightest upper level students at my elementary school. It's to be conducted in English, but it's not to be an English class. They requested I use an authentic American textbook. We decided something in the Social Studies/History/Geography realm might be the way to go. The students will be 5th and 6th graders, the textbook probably geared toward American students in 2nd or 3rd grade. I'm kind of excited about this.

My question is, can anyone help me narrow down my textbook search? I only began looking tonight, I've found a few books, but I haven't figured out a way to really preview them satisfactorily online to see if they're adequate for my needs. Any suggestions? Websites to check out? Favorite books? Places to order from? Anything really, I fancy myself a teacher but this will be the first time I've taught anything other than EFL.

[PRagic]

Question: Do you have degrees and certification in education and any other dicipline (e.g. math, history, geography...)?

If the answer is no, then you need to tell them to hire an experienced and qualified teacher. Refuse this opportunity if you are not qualified to undertake the responsiblity.

No offense, but things aren't going to get better here if people just 'take a stab at teaching' when asked.

[tob55]

PRagic , you comments are right on target. Somehow the Koreans have come to the conclusion that anyone can teach anything, and unfortunately that isn't an assumable fact. Having been in education for more than 27 years as a trained educator, it makes me cringe to think the educational directors are going to place the responsibility of handling subjects outside of English language teaching with people who are not trained or equipped to do the job adequately.

Of course, some will say "teaching is teaching," but sadly this isn't true when it comes to working in specialized areas of instruction. To give students a class on American History, Biology, Chemistry, or whatever from someone who has not been trained at a University to understand the teaching theory, philosophy, approach, and methodology of those subjects, is like telling someone to go and build a car from the ground up with nothing more than a few pages of directions on how to do it. In the end it may look like a car, but it probably won't run, and will have a myriad of other problems.

Maybe anyone can teach English, but to turn over other non-English subjects to untrained teachers is not only asking for trouble, but guaranteeing it.

[laogaiguk]

The two posts above this are correct, but not completely practical. Many teachers back home are teaching subjects they didn't study, especially in the non-tested subjects and the sciences. Unfortunately, there are not enough people entering BEd programs nowadays in several subjects, except for the ones with no where else to go (not everyone, but there are way too many English/Sociology/Psychology/etc majors going into BEds while the programs are begging for Math/Physics/Computer Science people). There are of course lots of Arts majors who chose teaching, but there are too many who didn't and see it as their only option (which is scary), but that is another subject.

Many schools would much rather have people qualified in the field they will teach. Usually though, especially for the subjects I talked about, they have to be practical and take what they can get.

Still, since the OP is all they have, instead of being self-righteous, you could actually help out (at least that is what a teacher should do, maybe you had forgotten). I'm not saying you can't say it's a bad situation or your thoughts, but just blasting the guy without helping leads me to think maybe certification doesn't make you a teacher.

[PRagic]

I understand your point, but while practical, it is only feeding a growing problem here.

So, fine. As long as the OP has a BEd and certification in anything, we should definitely lend a hand.

My point was simply that there are schools here hiring non-qualified native teachers to help out with their ESL programs, and then asking them to undertake teaching content! This should be stemmed before it gets out of hand.

[BreakfastInBed]

I appreciate the comments and I understand your concerns. I also regret writing that I 'fancy' myself a teacher.

I haven't been entirely clear though. I'm not replacing the Korean teacher of the additional subject I choose to teach, it is an extra class that amounts to another English class from a student learning perspective. Suppose I teach a math class. What, exactly, are upper level 5th/6th grade students going to learn from an American textbook designed for 2nd/3rd graders? The focus is not on their mastery of the material, but on their ability to understand it through a foreign language. Rather than math I would like to teach something that will present some material students might not be familiar with though, in order to make things more interesting I hope.

The experiment right now is not about whether I can teach a given subject as well as a certified teacher, but about whether the students can understand a class conducted in English that is not specifically designed to teach them English. I don't think I necessarily need to be certified to teach the subject at home to do this effectively. Sure, it would help, but oh well.

I'm sorry that the tone of my original post came across in that 'anyone can do it' kind of way that any trained, certified, professional teacher is justified in resenting.

[kimchi_pizza]

I'm rather partial to the Houghton Mifflin texts and anthologies. If they are fluent then I recommend a 3rd grade level for 5th graders and 4th grade level for 6th graders. The text books do come with a useful teacher's guide but it, like the actual books, is expensive. If I remember right, it's something like $100 U.S. for the guide and the text books are something like $50 and there are also the practice books that come with them.

On another point, I don't know if the Social Studies is a good idea because the students have no background knowledge of the U.S. and it may be slightly biased (U.S. point of view). I'm not sure since I never used it or taught Social Studies. Science I have taught and it may be a better route but it's challenging not only for the students, but teachers as well. You'll be lucky if you get through half the book in a full school year.

I think we'll see more of these type of questions in near future concerning EFL in Korea...

oh yea...here ya go... http://www.eduplace.com/

[Easter Clark]

CBI is nothing new, having been in place in university EAP programs for years, and is being implemented in public schools in the US more and more. ESL teachers are being expected to carry a bigger burden due to stricter standards set by state and national governments. While ESL teachers aren't necessarily trained to teach Social Studies or Math, they are expected (to a certain extent anyway) to be able to teach these subjects to newcomers and struggling ELLs.

That said, it looks like most schools have at least some collaboration between ESL teachers and content-area teachers when it comes to CBI in ESL.

Here are some links, OP, that may be useful to you!

http://iteslj.org/Articles/Davies-CBI.html

http://www.everythingesl.net/lessons/

http://www.everythingesl.net/inservices/internet_resources.php



EDIT: Why is "content" beeped?

[nicholas_chiasson]

My sister who has her MA in education, cause she needed a job admitted openly that teacher college in the US is the saddest stupidest most brain-dead excuse for intellect she had seen in her entire life. In other words, the truley lowest brains in the world become Psy. Ed. and don't mind reminding their class how dumb they are. For a girl who turned down stipends at SUNY and got a 3.999 GPA in history, I think her critique can be trusted. Look every public school teacher in my state was certified. And they should have been CERTIFIED insane for the test scores in my state. People in Delaware would do anything to put their kids in Private HIgh School. At the South East PA teacher training symposium, half of the 'certified' MATH AND SCIENCE teachers could not answer the questions how many degrees are in a Circle, Square and Triangle.
-I'm not saying anyone can teach, but why do so many homeschoolers have high test scores?

[laogaiguk]

[sunhelen]

Homeschooled children do not test better when compared to children who go to public schools. And many teacher education programs are excellent.

By the way, many of the public school teachers who do not have education degrees do have some form of teacher training as well as training in the subject areas that they teach. Schools can do very well with uncertified teachers if they do a good job of matching the training and experience that their teachers do have with students and classes.

As for the original question, there are US textbooks written specifically for second language learners, especially at the elementary school level. I believe that similar books are available in Great Britain as well. Where are you from? Would one of your old schools be able to help you pick books.

In the one school that I know that has many second language learners, many of subject classes do not use a textbook. They read a different short book for each topic, and do lots of activities.

[TheUrbanMyth]

[nicholas_chiasson]

they smoke the rocks at DE public schools. makes you dumb as s**********************************t boy!

[sunhelen]

The link that you provide does not lead to a government site, nor do any of the links on the site. It does not state how many students were in the study, their ages, or where they live. It does not say what tests these students took. It does not say if the government has conducted any other studies, and if so what they found. It does not compare this study to any university study.

Reports published by the US Department of Education are available though official US government repositories, usually located at large universities and public libraries. Some government buildings also have their own libraries. Some government studies are available online, but many are not. Reviewing current education research still involves going to a good library. Contact with professional researchers helps as well.

[TheUrbanMyth]