Korean Job Discussion Forums

[cdninkorea]

I'm teaching a phonics class in an elementary school to grade one students and having a very hard time.

Here was yesterday and today: after a few weeks of teaching letters Aa-Jj (sound, letter name and letter sound), I introduced Nn and reviewed 'a' and 'n'. I moved on to the sound when combined, which is 'an'.

After this came adding letters to the front of this combination. For this I reviewed the sounds of B, C, D, F, H and J, then added them separately to the front of 'an'. I used diagrams, body actions, and lots of repetition.

Even on day two, they had alot of trouble with this, so I tried writing the letters in hangeul. My co-teacher taught for a few minutes at this point, which is when it came out: several students can't read hangeul.

Is this normal for a grade one student? I thought they would have learned the Korean alphabet in kindergarten. Also, does anyone have any helpful advice?

[Whistleblower]

I am surprised that Korean grade one students are unable to read Korean. My son who has just reached 4 years old is able to read 입니다, 엘이엇 (his name), 사과, and some very basic words. Ofcourse he speaks more than he reads with both English and Korean.

However, I used to teach 5-12 year old students and for 5 year olds could not read English (Korean okay) but 2 months afterwards they were able to make sentences write their name in English and make a story. All it takes is perseverance.

Kids love to colour, draw, cut and play games. Try to incorporate letters of the alphabet by letting them colour the letters in, cut them out and stick on the walls. The kids like to show off. Then once they are on the wall play a game whereby kids have to run to the correct letter you shout out. They love it.

Anymore questions, just ask. Good luck.

[cdninkorea]

[the foystein]

I have found the kids love the old song Swingin' the Alphabet".

[Atavistic]

If you have a few magenetic alphabet sets and a magnetic board of some sort (white board, black board, whatever) you can have races.

Have two kids face two alphabet strips and call out a letter. The fastest one to find the letter and pull it out of line gets a point for their team.

This can be made harder by putting lower and uppcase letter together and calling out one, mixing up the order of the letters, saying the letter sound instead of the letter name, turning it into a sight word spelling contest, etc.

I'm sure you could also do something with felt letters or foam letter or whatever. I just find it easiest with the magnets. My coteacher and I leave them up in our classroom and the kids love them. They spell things before and after class, they love the racing games, we have spelling contests with the older kids, etc.

[Temporary]

That doesn't work in a Public school classroom.

[Atavistic]