Korean Job Discussion Forums

[jcmarsha]

Hi. New poster here.

So once a week I teach a group of roughly 12-15 teachers from my school. The level of English ability varies from beg/int to upper intermediate, which makes things more difficult. I started off by printing out articles from Heads Up English, with a bunch of discussion and follow-up questions. I would ideally break the teachers down into small groups of 2-4 and they would discuss the article using the many and easy prompts. However, the teachers are generally awkward and didn't really do what I asked them, and the only way it would work would be if I completely lead the class, which alienated about 2/3 of the teachers whose ability was a little low.

So apparently there were complaints, and now I need to change up my style. I really don't know how to approach this class and I'm having trouble finding sources online to help.

Has anyone taught a class like this? Any advice? Thank you very much in advance.

[withnail]

Hi there.

When you break up the class into small groups, I think it is best to make the groups of the same or similar level. Perhaps even just 2 groups - the higher and the lower.

Is there any reason why you have to do discussion exclusively? Certainly the lower level group will need scaffolding to be brave enough to speak out -- isn't it possible to ease them into it with some useful vocab/grammar structures first to help them? Give them the language they need to use.

Maybe you could start off each lesson with a function of discussion.

Giving an opinion,
responding to an opinion,
agreeing,
disagreeing,
interrupting,
persuading etc.

Start the lesson by teaching some phrases for these functions. Then make sure the reading text which introduces the topic is quite short.
Also you can introduce the topic by other means - a photo etc. Don't have tooo many questions.

Remember to keep a record of their errors and finish the lesson with language feedback. Often this protects you from criticism as everyone likes to see their mistakes and often this is what they remember of the lesson if it's done at the end. I recommend little individual sheets for each student divided in two with "You said" in the top half and "you should have said" in the bottom. The papers could be the largest size of post-its you can find. Alternatively you can make them with Word, print and chop up so you have hundreds. They'll love this!


The best book I think is Small Group Discussion Topics for Korean Students by Jack Martire. Korean students are surprisingly disinterested/unknowledgeable about non-Korean issues.

[loose_ends]

I concur with the above post. Sounds like a great lesson plan. Adults also love to be in control. Occasionally I will have "English Pet Peeve" days. Prior to the lesson their homework is to bring two troublesome English pet peeves. They don't need to know the correct expressions, etc; that is where you come into play.

You will get all kinds of questions and it is very likely that they will share these same problems. Turn it into a discussion and focus completely on them. Tangents will naturally arise and discussion will flow.

This works best form intermediate/advanced students, but certainly possible for novices given the right environment.

[Chamchiman]

This question comes up a lot. Taking a page from Tomato's book, I've compiled a few links on the subject:

Help with Teaching Adults (This is your recent post.)

Teacher's Class

Teaching adults� any advice??

What to teach for my Korean Teachers class?

Teaching my co-teachers who speak no English.

Teaching teachers.