Korean Job Discussion Forums

Son Deureo! · Joined: 30 Apr 2003

I just found out that starting next month (that's two days from now), I'm going to be teaching almost entirely classes of advanced adults. I had the chance to observe them once before, and they are at a pretty high level. There is no textbook for this class.

They are capable of studying out of the newspaper with discussion questions, and that will probably be the mainstay of my class. Can anyone give me some suggestions on ideas for stimulating activities that will add some variety?

Harpeau · Joined: 01 Feb 2003 Location: Coquitlam, BC

This week, we're discussing the following scenario:

If you were a terrorist and wanted to attack Seoul~ why, how- what method and where would you do it to do the most damage? Interesting discussions.

Many were talking about taking out Yoido (do to the BS politics that they're sick of).
Another question: Is Korea ready for a terrorist attack? Yes or no? Explain.

Lots of fun talking about funky stuff. It's all brilliant.

God, I love my job!!

Crois · Posted: Tue Mar 30, 2004 6:06 am Post subject:

Using newspapers is a good idea. Try and get them to debate about the pros and cons. Maybe one lesson go over the vocab that they might need and then the next lesson go for the debate. Two teams.

The Bobster · Joined: 15 Jan 2003

If you can get them to overcome shyness, try role-playing in everyday situations, like

-- shopping for clothes
-- ordering meals from a restaurant (try to snag a menu in English from Bennigan's to TGIFriday)
-- calling someone for a date (bring a phone in the room as a prop, makes it more fun)
--giving street directions

Come up with more on your own, or better, enlist the class in a brainstorming session.

Later, you can make the situations more bizarre. Steal shamelessly from the plotlines of sitcoms like Friends and such ...

margaret · Joined: 14 Oct 2003

I used pictures in magazines or kids' books and asked them to describe what was happening and make up stories to go with the pictures. It was fun and seemed to bring up the conversational flaws readily.
Margaret Smile

Grotto · Joined: 21 Mar 2004

I like to download an item from the internet, news story, something quirky, ask what they would do with a million dollars if they had to spend it all in one week, what would they buy where would you go ....why?

I always ask them to come to class with at least one question of something they would like to discuss. Let them do the work for you.

Badmojo · Posted: Tue Mar 30, 2004 4:15 pm Post subject:

You have want everyone wants, a class high enough that it could do almost anything. Your class has no ceiling. With such classes, you should do an many different things as possible.

1. You have your creative classes. Get them to organize something. Make a business, make a new language. Make something.

2. You have your dramatic classes. Have them acting, doing mime, etc.

3. You have your serious discussion classes. Euthanasia, abortion, etc, which might not work as well here. I've found these people have never even considered such things. And if they have, they're not very good at disagreeing with each other. They can't fight like the Chinese and then smile about it later.

4. You have your not so serious discussion classes, which seem to work better.

5. You have your roleplays, which are absolutely endless.

6. You can add a liberal amount of speaking games, which these competitive Koreans get into.

7. You can have classes where you teach them something. Slang classes, body language classes, have them discuss Korean holidays then you can teach them all the Western ones. You can also do phrasal verbs, prepositional phrases, etc. Get into Western astrology, palmistry, etc.

8. Of course, you spice this all up with interesting intro activities, shorter bridge activities, and you'll have yourself one smoking, diversified oral class.

By the way, what is all this talk about teachers who use articles and newspapers? Can a class get much more boring than that? Maybe you can do it once or twice, but that's it. You need them to get up, use the space, use the classroom. Add activity. They can go home and read articles.

Juggertha · Joined: 27 May 2003 Location: Anyang, Korea

I teach advanced adults as well.

The newspaper will get dry after abit.

Try to use magazines fro back home.

Use videos if possible (teaching movies is cool but tedious).

I also "throw in" copies of text books. I may not use just one but occasionally a grammer review from one can be good or soem type of idion or slang book?

all in all... change it up ALOT. They'll get bored if you don't.