Korean Job Discussion Forums

[IncognitoHFX]

So I'm getting sick of my High School student's speaking abilities.

There are twenty-three English teachers at this High School. It's an academic, arts and sciences High School... not a special school, or a technical school. The students study grammar intensively and have been studying English for more than five years (in some cases, six... seven... eight years).

Yet, when I say: "How are you?"

They say: "I'M FINE THANK YOU AND YOU!?"

Which is acceptable, I suppose... but if I were to say: "How are you doing today?" I'd only be met with blank stares.

These kids know a couple sentences, some vocabularly and a little bit of grammar, but for five (or more) years of studying it sure seems like they haven't learned anything. I know more Korean than they do English and I've only been here a little more than a year.

Anyway, when I came here I was told not to teach grammar. It was for the Korean teachers. So I didn't. I'm not a grammar person anyway. Last week I decided to have my students write sentences, and they either couldn't or did so merely by stringing vocabulary together.

"I went at Olympics, the Park Tae Hwan is excellent." etc, etc.

So, out of frustration, I'm going to go back and teach basic grammar again including proper uses of the word "the".

Is this a good or a bad idea? Would it be like a slap in the face to my co-teachers / co-workers who teach them this exclusively in Korean?

...and lastly, if I am to proceed, how can I make it entertaining and not insulting?

[I_Am_The_Kiwi]

Good idea if you can do it.
Be careful, cos even though they cant write for shit they know the grammar very very well. As you say, its all theyve been studying.
Use of the word THE is a nightmare for these guys, ive taught articles a few times with my HS kids (very smart kids) and they still struggle with it. Teachers even do cos they're are so many rules for it and inconsistencies.

I think teaching grammar can be good, maybe see what the korean teachers are teaching them at the moment and build off it, or what they've done in the past.
Make sure to not make it boring or too easy. If you start giving them sheets to find mistakes and stuff they'll eat it up i assure you but theyll get bored of it pretty fast too.

have a look on about.com, their ESL section is pretty good and they have alot of ideas and materials you can adapt for these kinds of lessons.

[ytuque]

If you go off and start to teach grammar, be careful that you don't get in trouble with any Korean English teachers! The Korean teachers, that I work with, have the opinion that they are the grammar experts, and the FTs are only for speaking practice. BTW, the Korean teachers aren't very proficient at grammar.

[IncognitoHFX]

Thanks for the advice.

I just created a class using "at, in and on" for the lowest, beginner level class. It worked alright, but it put most of them to sleep and as you said, they found it way too easy.

When I had them write their own sentences they couldn't for the life of them get these words right, but when they're omitted from sentences in the PPT they can correct it in less than two seconds (well, the ones that are awake anyway).

I think I'll modify this lesson and use it only with beginner classes, and develop a different lesson plan for advanced classes.

Sheesh... it's so freaking impossibly hard to make a good, entertaining lesson plan. I can make a good lesson plan in that it has useful content, but then it's not entertaining... I can make a lesson plan that is entertaining too, but then the subject material is garbage...

Combining the two is impossible and I have absolutely no support from anywhere. I really want to get my head around this so I can be a productive teacher but I'm hitting major barriers.

[teachergirltoo]

I teach high school also. I often work article usage into my lessons, and I don't worry about stepping on the Korean teachers toes or insulting the students. I just tell them, "if you want other people to think you speak good English you must learn to use articles properly. This is a huge problem for Koreans. Let's work on it today again." ..... The Korean teachers generally recognize this is a shortcoming of their's also. Don't ever assume that the Korean teachers are teaching the students proper grammar. Daily, I walk down the hallways of my school and peer through glass to observe the teachers teaching. Almost EVERYtime I see something being written on the board, or being said to the students that is cringe-worthy. There is a lot taught in those classes that you have to undo in your own class to help these students. So, if you recognize a need for your students help them out by teaching it properly. I have had several of my boys thank me for doing so in my class.

[TeeBee]

I have found the same problem with my "high level" middle school students. Their productive skills are next to non-existent, but they can rattle off grammar rules like there is no tomorrow. Though I still need to teach them the English grammar terms so they can understand what I mean when I say "verb".

One possible way around teaching them straight grammar is to set simple writing tasks. For example, on my summer camp I gave my students workbooks to use as diaries. Every afternoon I'd hand out the "diaries" and get them to write something. I started off easy, by giving them the lead-in (for example "Today I...") and a list of activities that they did that day (elicited from the class). The students had to complete the sentences by thinking of the correct verb to use. This also gave me a chance to explain to them how to use the past simple tense.

The kids picked up on it really fast, and you wouldn't believe how many lightbulbs lit up. They know the rules, but no-one seems to explain how to use these rules to construct a sentence. I think often you don't need to explain the rule, rather the practical use of the rule.

As the camp went on I gave them slightly more complicated sentences to write, and I spent most of the lesson walking around and fixing mistakes with individual students. You also get a chance to see where they ALL go wrong. Articles (a/an, the) are a massive problem, as is the correct use of plural forms.

I don't know what your students are like, but most of mine seemed to enjoy the chance to write something. They never practice writing. And after a while I didn't need to do that much prompting, and some of the students went and wrote a whole bunch. And the students who couldn't be bothered tend to be quiet.

What's nice about this is that you aren't directly challenging the K teachers' expertise, and you get a chance to pick up on where the problem areas are.

[IncognitoHFX]

Thanks, TeeBee. I'm going to try the sentence / article thing today. I'm all out of ideas and I think that's a good one.

As for the diaries and things like that, however, I might run into the same barrier I did before. The kids don't bring paper to class, nor do they bring pens / writing materials, and if I were to ask a co-teacher to provide these things (for example: to budget for English notebooks) they'd probably just tell me that we don't need any.

I would do hand outs, but part of me feels guitly about making 400 sheets every week.

Also, I don't think my kids are as motivated as middle school kids. I'm really starting to sense that. They like to sit and stare at their paper, their feet or simply go to sleep. They're very unresponsive.

Either way, I really like the diary idea. If I could say "get out your diaries..." every week and go from there, we could have more consistency in class and eventually work up to writing short essays.

[Tobias]

After they learn the grammar rules, they need to practice, of course. But I've learned Koreans have an especially tough time with prepositions and determiners, especially articles. Koreans can't at first differentiate between singular and plural, count and non-count, single thing and collective.

My teaching prepositional units has helped my students. But I only started covering these after getting sick of seeing them make the same old mistakes over and over and over and over. It was this or get out the TASER or make them run laps when they screw up for the thirtieth time in a row.

Prepositional units are units containing a preposition and either a verb, adjective, or a noun. Example: angry with....on a train...jump on.

Of course, putting a list that's five or six pages, front and back, of prepositional units in front of students tends to thin out classes. It definitely weeds out the pretenders. And thanks to the reality of face, there are lots of pretenders here.

[TeeBee]

Sure, no problem.

I have the same issue with students not bringing pens/writing paper/common sense/brains to class. I have resorted to using handouts in every class, though it kills me using that much paper and then throwing it away.

Articles are a nightmare to teach. Good luck with the class!

Edit: If you can convince your school to fork out for workbooks, I'd suggest you hand these out and collect them again after every class. Otherwise these kids have a habit of losing and/or ruining their books. You can also then make them think it's for marks. Always gets my kids more motivated.