Korean Job Discussion Forums

DWAEJIMORIGUKBAP · Joined: 28 May 2009 Location: Electron cloud

What with EPIK training coming up this weekend I know from past experience that I'll be spending hours listening to useless info that shouldv'e only taken 10 minutes to deliver....

Here's a nice lame article that's supposed to help teachers in Korea and give training tips (complete witht he stereotypes of the super education conscious K parent and the boozing ESL teacher bragging of weekend conquests... Very Happy

) but is of course utterly poorly thought out and useless.

http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/NEWKHSITE/data/html_dir/2009/10/14/200910140062.asp

some waygug-in · Joined: 25 Jan 2003

Making pictionary more useful.

Everyone knows pictionary, but often don't know how to make it more useful to their teaching situation.

On the board, write a column of 5 adjectives on the left side and a column of common nouns on the right side.

You can also write the word "a" or "the" before the left hand column.

Ex:

A/an fat farmer

big elephant
tall mouse
ugly teacher
angry lion

The students must choose one word from each column and draw their picture, the rest of the class tries to guess what is being drawn.
You have to divide classes into teams, first team to guess correctly gets a point.

As they get into the game, you can increase the difficulty level by adding more words to each column.

You can also add a third column of adjectives so that they have to have two adjectives for each picture.

Ex: A big, dirty dog.

This game can be altered to practice other grammar structures as well, even full sentences (for higher level classes)

EX: A/ big / fat / student / ate my sandwich.

A/ tall/ young/ woman / said hello to me.

A/ noisy/ rude / boy/ stole my lunch.

etc.

Use your imagination and go for it.

Juregen · Joined: 30 May 2006

Most people are quit protective of the useful information that they had to learn by DOING.

Most will stick to theoretical explanations, but never talk to what works effectively in class.

Effectiveness also depends on teachers, some teachers are good with one system and others with other systems. You should just find your ability.

That is why strict curriculum with little space for creative solutions just don't work very well.

mua'dib · Joined: 29 Sep 2009 Location: sweating pure pocari

yeah, it's like they are guarding their secret recipes or something.

Isn't the whole purpose of being an educator to make it easier for those who come after us? Students and teachers alike? making sure everyone out there doesn't have to learn from scratch? with the mentality that holds on to lesson plans like state secrets you may as well tell your students to ignore their classes, complete immersion is the only way!

It would be nice to hear what works for others (not just theoretical explanations) so that I (we) could try out different things and see what style works best for us.

When I started hanging out on the "cafe" looking for a job I figured most of the job related posts would be about work, what is useful, what strategies people are using, which websites are worthwhile etc. Sadly these types of posts seem to be the exception.

mua'dib · Joined: 29 Sep 2009 Location: sweating pure pocari

tanks thanks banks franks

iggyb · Joined: 29 Oct 2003

There is tons of material on TESOL online!!

Google Books itself is a treasury trove if you just know how to play around with Internet Explorer's cache. You can find a lot of specific TESOL stuff on Google Books even just with the Limited Previews, but playing around with the cache will let you read 80% of those books....some great material there...

There are also plenty of TESOL sites where working teachers post lessons and ideas and full units......

It is easy to find useful material if you try...

maryjanes · Joined: 22 Jul 2009 Location: Cheongju

iggyb · Joined: 29 Oct 2003

Draz · Joined: 27 Jun 2007 Location: Land of Morning Clam

Juregen · Joined: 30 May 2006

Hanson · Joined: 20 Oct 2004

The Gipkik · Joined: 30 Mar 2009

It is true that many of the things we learn by hard won experience can't be translated so easily through books and cyberspace, and each class has a unique personality which requires a live teacher's sensitivity and creativity. But in a way, this is probably an exaggeration. We've all experienced similar frustrations from classes that are unmotivated, undisciplined, filled with multilevel students with a particular set of learning difficulties AND disabilities.

With that in mind, I think the best way to really move forward here is for some enterprising teachers to film lots of lessons that show what SHOULDN'T be done in an EFL class. I don't know why this kind of reverse learning isn't being exploited. Not only would it be educational, but it would be funny. I often learn best by watching ill planned and inept classes taught by both new teachers and "veterans." It gets my creative juices humming looking for alternative ways to get the classes excited AND people just love criticizing classes that are clearly inferior or wanting--meaning that they are thinking about the class.

Probably another reason for the difficulty in finding good, solid translatable material for EFL classes is that a good portion of EFL is best viewed as a money making racket. Some of the websites that want my money should only offer this stuff to absolute beginners. One site that I find execrable is teachingenglishgames.com, a puzzling mix of interesting stuff and nonsense that is available for free on so many other websites.

iggyb · Joined: 29 Oct 2003

The vast amount of resources available online for teaching professionals isn't a problem. People coming to find them aren't a problem as a category. What individual people want out of the resources determines if the individual is lazy or not - and if they are, who cares?

The bottomline is - people who want to be real educators can find a ton of material online put up by other people just like them. And the line above about how these educators protect their precious material like Golem once he found the ring does not seem to hold much weight when you see how many educators are proud to display what they have found and developed that worked.

Lazy individuals will go looking for units and lesson plans complete with detailed instructions and handouts so they have to do nothing to prepare.

Others will find material and adapt it to their style and classrooms. What is best is that you often get inspirations from seeing what others have done.

One small example is a item I use I got from a long-time Spanish high school teacher: Take yellow and green construction paper. Cut them into squares with one side being yellow and the other green. Lamenate them.

Then have the students use them to show when they are getting confused or don't understand something. They can flash the yellow side briefly without standing out if they are too shy to let you know.

Or, when you ask if the class understands, those who aren't quiet sure can hold up the yellow while the others hold up the green....

You can also use it in other ways....

maryjanes · Joined: 22 Jul 2009 Location: Cheongju

@ iggyb: Please invite me over to piss on the peons - that sounds like fun.

DWAEJIMORIGUKBAP · Joined: 28 May 2009 Location: Electron cloud

FOr me (the op - who by the way has no problems finding, making, designin original material for class) the main issue and what I come accross over and over again is frustrated teachers who

a. Don't know how to maange a class (this can be taught EASILY)
b. Don't have any paedagogical understanding of kids, how their minds work, what gets them learning and gets their attentions, what the best kind of environment is etc

I always thought that a mere 2 or 3 day trainign course in the above would save a lot of stress for students, teachers, employers.

So many adults over here 'teaching' have no idea or memory what it is like to be a kid or any idea how confusing and difficult it is learning a foriegn language in a forieng language.

That's the real issue.