Korean Job Discussion Forums

[tanklor1]

Getting middle/high school kids to talk is hard; it's like pouring water over a rock eventually you'll wear them down. But you should mold yourself to how that school does things for example: I worked at a couple of hogwans that considered games to be the work of the devil and I worked at a public school where I was explicitly told to play games. Two different philosophies. I tried to mold myself into the frame as best as I could even when I didn't agree with it personally. So if your school wants the kids out on time; let them go barring something excessive.

As for your co-workers: I give just two letters as advice. : OK.

Say those two letters with a smile along with other variations of OK such as :

I understand.

Alright.

No problem

Use these and your worries shall wash away from you.

[Kaypea]

I've become a Korean teacher when it comes to getting kids to read in front of the class. I go through the class list and just say names. I go in order, but I might jazz it up by calling on students 2, 12, 22, etc if it's the 2nd, or 1, 5, 15, etc if it's the 15th...

I also call on more outgoing kids first to read, and if I know better, I try to never call on very shy, unpopular, or low level kids...

I like the idea of having volunteers, though. I don't think your way was too harsh, Nathan... Sounded like it was working, and hey... maybe I could try it.

[turtlepi1]

Is the Korean teacher also wasting her break time?

[Fishead soup]

[nathanrutledge]

Actually turtlepi, that's the problem. The kids didn't like that my co teacher was leaving when the bell rang (she's the head of the third grade students and has piles of work. she always shows up late, frequently leaves early) and they had to stay. She told me that the kids have to prepare for their next class (so do i) and they shouldn't be late to the next class (even though they are late to mine). :::face palm:::

Kaypea, I have cards with numbers written on them that I hold up sometimes (a card of prime numbers, a card of every 3rd number, etc). I used to have cards that had family names (kims, chois, lees, etc) or a combination of things (boys, heights, birth month) etc. My middle school co teacher thought those were pretty nifty, made the kids think in English about the words I was holding up.

I tried their "points that mean nothing" system today. My third class had 6 volunteers, but only because that particular coteacher forced them to do it. I told them this morning I would try their system, but if it didn't work, I was going to go back to the old way. They said that was fine with them.

I just hate how I started at this job about a month ago, the kids seem to have zero ability (heck, some of them can't even give me the standard "imfinethankyouandyou!" response), and the students didn't like that I wasn't "nice" like the last teacher. I told my coworkers to give me a month before criticizing my teaching methods. Sure enough, the next week the kids said my class was good. Here it is again, I'm doing something the last teacher didn't do, the kids don't like it, but I'm not being given the chance to prove that this works.

Those of you that suggested how to call on the students, thanks, but I was more interested in how you have dealt with coworkers that force you to change to a worse system than you have in place. Anyway, the weekend is here, midterms are next week, I can go with tanklors flow for the next ten days.

[Hotwire]

OP instead of having the points worth noting, make a sheet with 100 squares. Every 25 squarwes write a small prize - ie candy, sticker, sekkom dekkom, wang jirongi - whatever.

Split the class into teams. Wining team gets 2 stkrs, 2nd gets 1 sticker each.

Start of class give each team +100 to start with. Any queston answered (must raise hand first) gets that team 10 points. 1st team to complete a team activity = 10 pnts. 1st team where all the stdnts complete individual activity = 10 points. winner of games get points etc...

For shouting, bad behavior, rudeness etc you give -10 to the team.

So each class seems not a class to them but kind of a 50 inute mini olympics class, a comptition....

It works.

Anyone who plays up and gets their team minus points - the team will soon put them in line.....

[RMNC]