Korean Job Discussion Forums

[withnail]

Since there seem to be a lot of new teachers out there, here's a quick tip about something that's easily forgotten: grading your speech.

I've been a teacher/DoS for nearly 14 years now and when observing teachers old and new, some of the simplest things are the first forgotten.

When you speak to students, do you always remember to grade your speech to the level of the student? It's takes a while to get into the habit of not only speaking slowly and clearly, but also stripping idioms / idiomatic phrasal verbs and complex sentences out of your speech and instructions. This is a hard won skill and relatively few people manage to keep it up consistently.

Everyone knows the need to do this but it can be the first thing out the window as the weeks go by.

I remember back a few years ago when I was returning to class after a dental appointment, hearing the cover teacher speaking to my class of low elementary students. I was listening at the door for a good opportunity to enter and heard the following (at some speed):


"Right, what, I think, perhaps, the most logical thing for us to do now is go back to what we were doing earlier..."

Priceless!

[naturegirl321]

It can also backfire on you. After grading my speech for so many years, I find that my English vocab has lowered and I end up sounding like a high schooler, say, like and you know way too much.

[brier]

Sure I do. I took a Korean class at one of the University programs, and the Korean teacher did a great job at grading her speach, that really reminded me how important it is. It is great when your class is clicking over full gear, and having graded speach is one of the many things important to this.

[PRagic]

First thing they teach you in an international/cross-culture communications and management class. Great advice to put out there. Good on you, OP.

[DosEquisXX]

[ddeubel]

[frankly speaking]

Talk to your students not at them. I agree that it is important to use level/age appropriate word choices when communicating.

Talking clearly and enunciating to me is essential. I also don't think that talking slowly is the best thing for intermediate students, but I will slow down sometimes when it is clear that they don't understand (especially for beginners) and I make sure that I am not combining words and making sentence strings.

It is not necessarily the speed but the rhythm that we talk that can be confusing. did you, becomes didya. I went to, becomes iwento. Putting breaks between words is important for them to recognize new vocabulary. They are not native speakers and not in and ESL environment. They get limited access to clear sounding language. They can learn the slurring from movies and music.

I don't think that our goal should be trying to achieve native English speakers. MOre likely they will use English to speak to other non native English speakers. It is better for the students to be clear and enunciate rather than worry about how native speakers sound when talking to each other.

[nstick13]

I would say that word choice is more important than speed. Talk at a normal pace, just use words that aren't too complex or that it's unlikely they know. Also, mind your tenses. A brand-new elementary level class isn't going to know the future or the past (unlikely, anyway) so you have to stick to present simple. If you MUST slide into either of those, make sure you use gestures (as you should do frequently anyways) for the past or future versus now.

When I started my CELTA, I struggled with this A LOT. It was written and underlined on my first two evaluations, but I got the hang of it and actually view it as an interesting challenge now--communicating complex ideas with simple language.

[lifeinkorea]

Thanks for preaching to us OP.

[wesharris]

When speaking to students. I find it best to SLOW DOWN my speech, but NOT to strip away the idioms and patterns that are conducive to my personality.

[schwa]