Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Taya]

Hey everyone. Starting next week I'll be teaching classes in a public middle school. The only classes I've observed are second-grade "intermediate" level. Some of the students have talked to me during lunch and breaks in fairly good English. We also have "basic" and "advanced" classes.

I don't follow a textbook so I have to make up my own lessons. For the first lesson I'm just going to introduce myself with a powerpoint and play a game or something.

I would really like to find out their English skill level so I can plan future lessons. What is a good game or activity that will help me figure out how well they speak English?

[Xylox]

Find a ball, and play the ball tossing game. Say something about yourself and toss it to a kid, then that kid has to do the same. You can tell them to make more complex or easier sentences, and everyone can participate.

[lovebug]

i use my intro ppt to evaluate. i'll show a slide of me eating ice cream and say, my favorite food is ice cream. what's your favorite food? you'll have the kids who don't say anything, the ones who will say, ''well, i prefer hambgurgers but i don't usually eat meat" (states studiers) and everything in between. i use their responses to level them.

another way to do it is to do lexical sets, ie: clothing, colors, emotions, sports, etc.

[grant gerstners]

I assume your classrooms are equipped with a computer with large-screen monitor, and internet connection.

Go to

http://eflclassroom.ning.com/

This is a free site, but you do have to register to log in. There are lots of resources there.
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Go to the main page, and from the menu at the top, move your mouse over Teach and select Listening from the drop-down menu.

The "listening quizzes" can be used to get an idea of your students' ability to connect 1) what they hear with 2) images they see on the screen. Start with easy ones like fruit and pets. I like the one with the man, the woman and the horse. And the guy whose car is broken down and he's stuck in the middle of nowhere. The listening quiz about jobs has parts that are a bit more difficult.
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To get an idea of your students' ability to connect 1) what they hear with 2) written text, pick a song (slow lyrics: Marbled Halls by Enya. faster: You've Got a Friend in Me from Toy Story).

Find the lyrics on the internet. Cut and paste into word processing. Print out the lyrics in large font and cut them up so each line in the song is on a separate piece of paper. I prepare a set for each group of 3 or 4. Mix each set up and have the students spread them out. Play the song through once. Then, play it again, stopping at the end of each line or two. See if your students can place the printed lyrics in order.

If you want to do this together with the entire class, print the lyrics in very large font and use magnets or tape to put the lines up in random order on the magnetic white board.
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From the Main Page of http://eflclassroom.ning.com move your mouse over the Play option at the top and select Games from the drop-down menu. At the games page, scroll down to the powerpoint section and have a look at the game called Top 5. Although presented as a game, you can just use it as a non-game group activity, to get an idea of the range of vocabulary your students have in different areas.

[erasmus]

Put the students into small groups and give each group a piece of paper. Have them write at least 5 questions about you (but encourage them to write as many as possible). Monitor as you do this to find out who the leaders are but best, I think, not to help them at this stage but fix the questions as a whole class.

If you're doing a PPT about your life, you could withhold the answers and see if they can answer the questions themselves using the information from your powerpoint.

Either way, you learn a lot about a class by hearing what kind of questions they ask and how able they are to form grammatically coherent questions.

[Fishead soup]

First you need to give them a needs assement. This is a form each student will fill out. This will give both you and the student what they can/can't do. You can find a good one in the online textbook "Tell Me More" by Andrew Finch. You can get most of his materials on the TESL journal. Just go into Things for teachers. There is also a finchpark.com website that has most of his books available.

[Taya]

Thanks for your suggestions everyone.

I decided to more or less spend the class talking about me. I made a ppt about myself and encouraged questions. Then I did a short activity where students have to answer questions about a photo onscreen. For the advanced classes, I asked them about the city and got them to tell me good places to shop and fun places to visit etc.

The second-year advanced class was great. One or two of the basic level classes did good as well. But some classes were completely silent. The co-teacher kept telling me "they don't understand" or "they are a low-level class" so I didn't do much more than have them repeat sentences.

Overall though I think I got a good feel for their skill levels. Next week I'll plan drawing and vocab lessons for the basic classes and full-sentence games for the higher classes.