Korean Job Discussion Forums

[OiGirl]

Has anyone had any good experiences when YOU get to choose the books you bring into the classroom?

I like the Mr.Putter & Tabby series...I am not sure how Korean children would react the the cat-as-pet issue, but it would be a great way to model for them how we see cats as conpanion animals.

I have been lately reading the Unfortunate Series of Events series. Might be good for middle school kids. Has anyone ever tried it?

Does anyone have any good experiences at going to the ELT book store, finding a book you like, and having the hogwon buy and resell them?

[mithridates]

Thanks to my kindergarten classes in Japan I have the whole of The Cat In The Hat memorized (except for the last bit where he cleans up all the objects, I always get the order wrong). That book is perfect, not only for teaching how to read but also for teaching rythym and rhyming.

He should not be here,
He should not be about!
He should not be here when your mother is out!

Like this one - you emphasize the 'should' in the first line, the 'not' in the second, and then the 'should' once again on the third, otherwise the rythym goes out the window. It's a one-two-three one-two-three kind of rhythym, whereas Green Eggs and Ham is a straightforward 4/4.

[humanuspneumos]

Enough good can't be said about the net when it comes to interesting stories. I can't count how many times I've taught books that were sooooooooooo repetitive/boring- not to mention-grabbing one off the shelf and having kids scream- "Teacher- no- finished." Some other teacher already read that story.

Someone mentioned to me that kids love the Grandpa Tucker stories:

http://www.night.net/tucker/

Another teacher used to down-load stories from:

http://www.eslroad.com/Stories_files/index.htm

I find that the students like stories from the net, they don't bore me, and hey- they were never used before by another teacher before me- bonus!

[ryleeys]

Yesterday, the Korean teacher at my school hands me a book to read... it's called "The Mole Who Didn't Mind His Own Business" or something like that.

I'm not sure if any of you have ever read the story, but this is based on a book I read as a kid called, "Are You My Mommy?"
The book is about a lost bird that asks all the different animals if they're his mommy... very cute.


This Korean book is about a mole, that on the first page pokes his head out of his hole and some animal (he can't see.... he's a mole) poops on his head. He spends the rest of the book asking every animal, "Did you do this on my head?" to which they respond, "No, how could I? I do it like this." Then they demonstrate. Every page has a picture of some animal taking a dump and the mole with a turd on his head. The last page, he finds the dog that went on his head and he returns the favor...

Is this really the kind of book to be teaching these kids?

[mindmetoo]

Yeah some of that stuff is horrid. My classes are speaking classes. The text book breaks down into a reading passage, asking comprehension questions, and then asking opinion questions based on ideas raised in the passage. The reading passages are invariably about "my parents make me study!" or "My grandmother cooks good food but doesn't understand me!"

I've thrown the textbook out and I'm writing reading/comprehension/opinion lessons based on topics they students want to learn. At the end of each class I solicit a topic for next week. So far we've done video games (a history of Mario and Donkey Kong), pro wrestling, brit pop (I burned some cds of Duran Duran and New Romantics bands and drew names for them), donuts (I brought in donuts ��which prompted shouts of "I love you teacher" from my kids), The Simpsons/how it's animated in Korea/the rise of the Korean animation industry (I also showed them how to make a flip book cartoon with their textbook), paper airplanes (we made paper airplanes), and Oreo cookies (I brought in Oreo cookies and we went through the various ways of eating Oreo cookies).

Oh and I made them a Yu Gi Oh like card game that teaches them prepositions and articles.