Korean Job Discussion Forums

[iggyb]

My primary co-teacher told me today that we'd be switching up what we'd been doing.

She said that the primary goal in elementary school ESL is --- to make students really like English. It shouldn't be boring. We shouldn't worry about their English compentence level. We should play more games and make it fun.

This had to be coming from the VP and principle.

Because, last semester, the first this teacher had taught ESL, she recognized right away that the textbook was too inadequate, because it was too easy and too slow paced.

She said several times at the start that she wanted to give the students as much as possible before they went to middle school.

I liked that, because after teaching Korean ESL teachers for 1 1/2 years, I knew middle school teachers complain a lot that their first year students are overwhelmed, and they critize elementary school teachers.

I also liked it because the motivating factor for me as a teacher (for 8 years now) has always been preparing students for the outside world and trying my best to make sure every student in class is more advanced when they leave than when they arrived.

Now, we have to change.

We are to stick to the textbook. And my job is now to entertain the students with games.

I thought back to what the principle of the teacher's trainer academy I worked at last job said one meeting: That there is a Korean proverb that goes something like -- You can get away with being a bad teacher, but you can't get away with being a boring teacher.

Working with my other co-teacher last semester, and looking through the textbooks, I had already come to the tentative conclusion that (at least in elementary schools), ESL classes are a warmup for the hakwons most of the kids will go to after school where they will be pushed to learn English.

Now, it is a firm conclusion.

And I'm pretty sure it goes beyond elementary school.

High school ESL overwhelms the students, but it is almost exclusively taught in Korean. Students have to go to hakwons to get exposure to using the language functionally each class.

My anal retentive secondary co-teacher told me the public schools have to do this for the students who haven't been able to afford hakwons.

That doesn't work at all either, because students, especially elementary school students, can process MUCH more language learning than what the textbooks and we are giving them.

But now, my sole job is to play games with them - games based on the textbook material.

[Illysook]

Games using textbook material include

Board races vocabulary practice: you say the definition, students in 2 relay teams race to touch or erase the words that you have printed on the board.

Point to your friend game: Use any pair of phrases you like. Student says one phrase, the friend says the other, then repeats the first phrase and points to another friend.

Flashcard games: variations are as endless as your imagination.

Also try pairing your students up to practice discussing some easy topics. You can only spend a tiny bit of time speaking with each student, but they can spend a lot of time practicing English with each other. It's hard to trust that they will stay on topic and speak English but you must figure out how to motivate and to monitor them so that they will do this. Maybe a few minutes of paired practice and then some group practice using reported speech switching back and forth will work.

[DaHu]

Edutainment? That doesn't sound like the Korea I know! [/sarcasm]

[Jack_Sarang]

[iggyb]

I worked a couple of years in the hakwons.

They don't care about education. The teachers don't have experience. They are worked too much to allow for preparation time. And so on...

But...

The material we are teaching in public school via the textbook is obviously already known by the vast majority of the students. But we don't go beyond it.

In the hakwons, the students have access to English-only instruction time whereas in the public schools, Korean is used much of the time by the Korean teachers and access to the native speaker is much more limited than in 50-60 minutes in the hakwon.

In public school, most of the time is spent heavily focused on comprehension --- where students should understand and feel comfortable.

In hakwons, students spend all of their time struggling to understand and communicate - which is the communicative process - and thus learning much more than in public school classes.

[iggyb]

I don't think communicative activities are going to be what they want, because students don't generally consider it fun when they have to speak to each other in English.

The emphasis made today was on fun, fun, fun.

Our primary objective is to make students love English class.

Improving their compentence was said not to be a major concern if it interfered with having fun with them.

[Illysook]

I was in a public high school last year. They told me that my job was not to teach grammar but to provide the kids with a positive experience using English. I wasn't so successful at it but I took the CELTA this summer and landed a job at an adult hagwon. However, I miss working with kids and I would like to try teaching them again now that I'd know what I was doing. We could have fun and learn a lot.

If I were in your shoes, I would take a look at the textbook and make up some related powerpoint games. Bomb games were very popular. The teachers seemed to think I'd worked very hard on them, but I used templates and it was only a matter of making up questions. Sometimes, I would create a short presentation on a topic like "sports idioms" and give them a handout with some of the answers that they would need for the bomb game. Not all of the answers were on the handout, some would cover previous material or other things that they were expected to know already.

I also tried some arts and crafts type activities. One involved having them make nametags with a theme. They had to describe their theme to me. The teachers liked it and since most of their projects weren't going to hold up to the abuse that they would get as nametags, I hung them on the walls. It made me look really good the following week when there was some kind of Saturday teacher training held in my classroom, but unfortunately, it was a GEPIK school and I could not get renewed to save my life. I would have liked that. The job was a walk in the park and the apartment was incredible. My job this year is demanding and the apartment is tiny. Count your blessings.

[iggyb]

You know, this fun, fun, fun elementary school ideology could piss me off if I allowed myself to think about it...

What a terrible waste of the remaining prime-time language learning years for these kids.

The emphasis on "making the students love English" and not worrying about "increasing their competence" by having me take half the class to play games, games, games with them is such a waste of potential.

And it makes no sense given the rest of the Korean ESL educational system:

Why stress making the students have fun, fun, fun in elementary school when in high school, they are going to be taught English in Korean 90% of the time (with some middle schools doing the same) and made to hate English class?

When are students supposed to have the opportunity to learn and learn how to use the language?

(Well, as I noted in the title of this topic, the answer is: When those who can afford it go to the hakwons...)

[Skipperoo]

There's no reason at all why games can't be both fun and educational, especially at low/younger levels. In fact if correct me if I'm wrong but this is a teaching style prominently taught by CELTA courses.

There are also countless psychology papers that demonstrate how positive experiences and attitudes have a likewise effect on future learning outcomes.

[iggyb]

Yes, games can be both fun and educational - especially at the beginning level where vocabulary is more important to build a base knowledge.

But, they should be used along with communicative activities where students use what they have been memorizing by creating sentences of their own. The class should also included activities that cover all 4 language areas.

That isn't what we are being told to do.

Beyond vocabulary memorization games, the students feel more pressure when you ask them to produce language on their own and/or outside what they are already familiar with (-- have previously learned elsewhere -- ).

We were introducing outside material using a variety of activities that were fun but also pushed the students to do more than practice things they already knew.

Now, we are to stick to the textbook material and make sure it is fun, fun, fun.

[iggyb]

I taught Korean ESL teachers for a 1 1/2 years before this current position. I saw a whole lot of TEEs.

I thought the elementary teachers had a much better idea of how students learn and how to engage them with fun but educational activities.

But, one thing I kept repeating time and time again was that I wasn't seeing the next step: I wasn't seeing them go beyond memorization activities (with the occasional scripted, controlled use of formulaic sentence patterns) to activities that required the students to struggle with making their own sentences and communicating like they would in real-life situations.

Such activities tax the student brain more than memorization games, but they are vital to deepen the learning and preparing them to actually be able to use the language.

But, making the students think more and struggle in using the langauge is not as fun as the bomb games to these students...

[fustiancorduroy]

The main purpose of English classes in public schools is to enable the students to get a decent score on the English section of the 수능. Currently, this only includes reading and listening portions, meaning that speaking ability is not at all necessary. Even if this changes in the future, the vast majority of Koreans don't need to learn English anyway. Only Koreans who want to study or work abroad or those who will work regularly with non-Korean speakers will need any communicative English skills. In short, I wouldn't worry too much about not developing the students' English speaking skills, as they'll probably never use the language after they finish high school or college anyway.

[CPJ]

Kids don't really learn English in the public schools. The kids that do well, they already have the English ability and thus, score 100%. The kids that don't know much English have no interest in learning it.

Parents know this as well. That is why they send their kids to hagwons.

[sallymonster]

Welcome to public school, OP.

I had the same experience at public middle school. My co-teachers just wanted me to edutain all the time. If behavior was bad in a certain class, they would often tell me it was because I was too boring, even when all I did in that class was play games and show Mr. Bean videos.

Well, I quit that B.S. and now I'm at one of the few good hagwons. My current school and director actually take learning seriously. I now honestly feel like I'm making a difference in my students' English ability!

It's not that learning shouldn't be fun, it should be. I still play games with my hagwon students. It's that there needs to be a balance, between serious study and fun study. In my classes, I very briefly present the material, we spend some time practicing the material, and if the kids have been good (they usually are at my school), and there's time left, THEN we play educational games where the kids can further practice their speaking and writing skills.

Don't get me wrong, either, there are definitely lots of hagwons out there that are like my old public school and only care about edutainment. It's a problem in all kinds of poorly-run schools/programs.

[One Shot]