Korean Job Discussion Forums

[smilesalot]

Maggie, you're on Jeju correct? For the 1st and 2nd graders we're actually using a special Jeju Education Office books, not national (that would be nice, they have English guides for it). What pages are you doing this week? You can PM me or email me and I can send you my lesson plans from last week. I'll be writing mine for this week tonight. It sounds like you'll be doing it today, though, so...get some hand puppets, do the dialogue for the students twice with those. Have them repeat after you for a third and fourth time. Then, with the help of the Korean teacher, have them practice it using their names with their seatmates. I just looked at the game for grade 1, it looks like a meeting, matching game (the English part is confusing as usual). You could probably get away with just making up your own greeting game. As for the song, you can sing it to any beat you like, I do that for all the songs, and the kids love them. Teaching them the song and getting them to sing it can take up a ful 10-15 minutes of class and it's fun . Hope this helps!

[Countrygirl]

[Michelle]

Hi There,

I just get them to learn and read the words on one alphabet sheet, pick one youtube song for reinforcement and there you go.

Check this website out for your basic class materials, one letter each lesson. In grade two I have started them writing but I think some think this is too early. Grade ones could not really manage it. Once they are through the alphabet there are really only a few lessons to go for reinforcement.

http://www.kizclub.com/activities.htm

Have fun...For A you tube Alice the camel B: BINGO song C: C is for cookie, the cookie monster..

(I made the mistake of three blind mice but they were scared of knives)

It's a start.

have fun

[MissMaggie]

[RufusW]

[smilesalot]

I have the teacher's Guide, but it's a little different than the book (looks like they updated one, but not the other, go figure). I'm doing this lesson next week, so I haven't written the plan for it yet. The teacher's guide suggest asking the students what the picture shows, having them make up a story about it and then playing the CD. Since you don't have the CD (I don't know if any of us do, my friend had it, then he had his taken away from him), the book says something about "Hello, I'm _________." So use hand puppets and your coteacher to act out all the students in the picute greeting each other (I'm sorry I can't be more help, it's mostly in Korean in the teacher's book too, so it doesn't make much sense to me). The students can then roll-play the parts. Page 8 is pretty easy, just review everything, have them sing all the songs a few time and do one of the greeting games.

This book is rather difficult for me, and I've been teaching for almost two years. Try to get as much help from the grade 1 teachers as possible. I'd much rather be singing ABC songs with them and playing phonics games (it would at least give them some useful vocabulary), but for some reason teacing them the same thing for three weeks in a row is more important. Hope this helps .

[tomato]

Hello, Miss Maggie!

I am working under similar expectations, but for me, it's not quite as bad, because all I do is use ideas which I used in kindergarten.

The first time I had to teach kindergarten, which was 9 years ago,
I felt the same way you do now.

Here is a list of kindergarten threads.
Most of my ideas are in these threads, as well as oodlums of other ideas submitted by other veterans of the battle.

Enjoy:

37 36 35 34 33 32 31
30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21
20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

[Robot_Teacher]

icnelly has it going on. Check out his Youtube. A tremendous contribution to those of us teaching the young um's. Thanks again icnelly. Man, you also gotta try, "Yellow Submarine," with 5th and 6th grade by using a Youtube vid with lyrics. Doesn't work well below grade 4.


Check out www.funfonix.com This is young beginners curriculum right there. There's an intro book and then books 1 through 3 you can download and print. I printed many copies for grades 1 through 3 and used a hole puncher and bound them with plastic binders. Plenty to last me the year.

That Hello Song is in chapter one of Let's Chant from Oxford University press. Another teacher shared that with me and I just love doing the, "Hello," song. I don't know how to file share on Daves or I'd post it.

Hello, hello, hello,
What's your name?
Hello, Hello, Hello,
My name is John.
My name is John!
Hello, John, Hello, John, Hello.

[tomato]

Does anyone on this thread have to teach two consecutive class periods to the first and second graders?
I do, and by that time, the kids get tired of hearing my head rattle, and to be truthful, I myself get tired of hearing my head rattle.
I don't see how the most creative teacher in the world could get kids that young to listen for that long.

So I am devising interest centers so that the kids can work independently for part of that time.
These interest centers will include:

■ two-piece jigsaw puzzles, matching word with pictures
At first, I thought I was going to have to make them, but then I remembered that I had several of such puzzles, published by Early Childhood Publications.

■ step-by-step drawing instructions
I found a few goodies through a Web search.

■ simple songs with matching illustrations
There are a few piano students in the class who can easily play these songs on my portable keyboard.
I hope that those who can read the notes will help those who can't.

■ origami--excuse me, chongicheopgi
I have a collection of illustrated paper-folding instructions which I have collected from Korean libraries and from the library in Fukuoka.
I shall copy some of these instructions, with the Korean names erased and replaced with the English names.
I never run out of square paper because I save scrap paper and slice it square with the paper cutter.

■ letter tiles with pictures
I have a set of laminated pictures with words underneath which I use in bingo games.
I also have a set of wooden tiles which I salvaged from a construction site and painted letters thereupon.
Each week, I shall make a selection of rhyming (BAT, CAT, HAT, RAT) or alliterating (CAB, CAN, CAP, CAT) words.
I shall see of the students can match the letters on the laminated cards with the letters on the wooden tiles.

Wish me luck.

[ddeubel]

You can get the new handbooks for elementary, all elementary grades, on EFL Classroom 2.0. I put them up there and there are a lot of good ideas there for each lesson. Go Here

Cheers,

DD
http://eflclassroom.com

[ESL Milk "Everyday]

In some ways, when they're that young a year can make a huge difference-- but I have a kindergarten class at a PS and also wasn't given any textbook at all. I ended up stopping by the local ESL bookstore and picked up a book of songs with a CD, and a book that I could photocopy coloring sheets from. The song book is great because it has a song called 'hello', which I play at the beginning of every class, and a song called 'goodbye', which I play at the end of every class... sort of like my theme music, and it signals the beginning and end of class. There are a few other songs in there as well that I use... and each one has its own routine I had to do to go along with it-- some of them work better than others.

Yes, I spent my own money... and no, it wasn't so cheap... but now my co-workers think I'm dedicated, and the way I see it, it's much better than suffering through a year of confusion and stupidity (My bitterness on the other hand is a completely different demon).

Some of my kindergarten students are very anxious to impress and they actually copy some of the letters in crayon when we're doing the coloring sheets-- something they are actually only expected to do when they finally hit Grade five.

Also, I'm really quite big on cut and paste type activities. One of my favorite things to do is to make a group collage with a theme. Some common themes are food, animals, transportation, weather, etc.

Before class begins, I do a Google image search, usually with the words '____ coloring sheets', and print out a bunch of images that fit my theme-- these serve both as flashcards and as coloring sheets, which we then cut out and put onto our collage-- a big poster-size piece of colored paper that I try to make resemble a suitable background. I make them say the name of the picture they want to color before I give it to them, and then we glue them all onto the same background.

Usually, the theme is just one word, and I make the first letter of that word the 'letter of the day', and show them a picture of it from my coloring book. I did a Spring theme, and a Jungle theme... I wouldn't say I'm as organized or consistent as I could be if I had enough time to do everything-- but I don't have any free periods at school, and I do enough after school already... so I'm roughly just going through the alphabet, with one or two letters per week, and a lesson built around that letter...

Some other things you can do with them: masks, puppets, origami, cut and paste... look on the Internet under 'preschool activities'-- don't worry about looking just at ESL. When it's their first experience with English, I don't think it necessarily matters what you're doing... you're not supposed to be testing them or challenging them too much at this stage, so mostly you just have to make sure they're having fun. Being consistent and repeating yourself helps a lot.

They say it's not always a good idea, but I do some competitive games like BINGO (with pictures or letters, not with full words)-- I just don't give out prizes, or if I do, I make sure everyone gets one. They really liked BINGO... and I made it three by three, so several people would win at the same time. They have a BINGO card generator at some site online.

I also bought a foam board with punch-out letters and sometimes I go into the room early and hide them... they have to find them and put them back in the right places-- it actually takes a while, depending on how well you hide the letters.

I got the board at the cheon-won store... yes, it was only 1000 won. I also picked up some magnetic letters for 1000 won/pack. They can spell simple words like 'cat' 'dog' 'bird' 'lion' with those... and all they have to do is rearrange them, so there's no writing involved-- because writing can be a little difficult as they can hardly hold a pencil. I got several packs of them, so there are more options. I just write the word, or give it to them on a card and they have to copy it using the letters.

Also, I took one of the K teachers' beating sticks and tied a shoelace around it, with a magnet taped onto the end of the shoelace. I then got a blue hula hoop, put it on the floor, and put the magnetic letters inside. I then call out a letter and they have to 'fish' it out of the 'lake'.

Let's see-- I also typed out the alphabet in plain old MS Word, printed it out so it's only one page, laminated the sheet and cut it up into a simple puzzle-- be careful of sharp edges, though. We did this in groups as sort of a race... again, no prizes, just applause... for both groups. They really got into it, and it lasted a while. You could probably do this for all kinds of different things...

At my school they also have storybooks and sometimes, when it's possible, we act them out, or make costumes then act them out... again, it depends more on the theme of the book than the actual text. They're mostly just looking at the pictures, anyway.

I'm not saying that it's been a breeze or that every idea/activity I've had has worked, but these are some of the ones that I feel have worked quite well... I'm sure I could have written a book or done a website and put all of this stuff up, but instead I'm giving it to you for free... because I'm awesome.

Enjoy!

[chris_J2]

Just subscribing to this thread, as some of the links looked great.

[hang10]

[tomato]

Here is something which I am trying with my first and second grade class:

Two class-periods of sitting and listening to the teacher is obviously too much for the kids, no matter how well I plan the lesson.
So, for the second class period, I made a notebook of step-by-step drawing instructions, a notebook of 종이접기 animals, and a notebook of simple songs to play on the piano keyboard.
For the first 10 minutes, I shall divide the class into three groups.
For the next 20 minutes, I shall supervise the piano keyboard group while the Korean teacher supervises the other two groups.
For the last 10 minutes, the class will meet as a whole again.
The piano keyboard group will share the songs which they had played, the drawing group will share the pictures which they had drawn, and the 종이접기 group will show the animals which they had made.

[D.D.]

I laugh when they say there is a curriculum for English. That curriculum is made for a Korean speaker to talk. talk , talk, talk, blah blah in Korean and that's why there is like 3 English words per lesson. Make up your own stuff to the level of the kids.