Korean Job Discussion Forums

[cdninkorea]

I'm teaching English to Korean students at a university in Seoul, and my department encourages us to teach content courses, i.e. non-ESL courses, in a subject of our choosing. I have an MA in applied linguistics, and I'm going to submit a proposal to teach a course in this field; probably second language acquisition (SLA) or, less likely, phonetics and phonology.

What I'm worried about is how to prepare and run a content course. I've never taught a non-ESL course before, and while I saw my professors lecture as an undergrad and graduate student lecture all the time, I've never before thought about how they prepared for them or was consciously aware of the techniques and whatnot they used.

So, if anyone reading this has experience lecturing in a non-ESL field, I'd greatly appreciate any tips, pointers, etc. that you can give me. This is new territory for me, and besides knowing that I'll have to prep like crazy, I'm stumbling in the dark regarding what to do.

[Wad]

[Draz]

[Swampfox10mm]

At most schools here, I imagine the students would not find that exciting. Maybe at a top school, but not most.

We have a guy at our school who teaches a very similar course, and it seems to be going well. Our English dept is (apparently, after recent gov. rankings) now near the top of the 2nd tier schools, based on staff degrees, courses offered etc. We are a smaller private school, but we have put a lot of money into hiring Ph.D's from good schools like USC, UCLA, and MIT, and offer a fully-staffed English lounge with additional classes in 4 to 5 person groups where students get extensive contact with foreigners. That and maybe 15 other foriegn teachers teaching freshman english and content courses. Many of us in that dept. have MA's that are in Education/TESOL/English related, although that was not considered in the rankings.

I hear the course, similar to what you describe, is going well mostly because the teacher (who is one of the Ph.D's I described) is very passionate and works hard to help the students. He did have to rearrange the entire syllabus after weeks 3 to dumb it down, though. I do not know how he keeps student interest in such a thing, but he does.

Student levels have improved quite a bit in recent years here, and it is interesting to see higher-level courses take root. It is not my bag, baby, but apparently it is for some!

[mmstyle]

I would love to do a course like this for art, or media (as in, use a tv show that I really enjoy). A recent discussion about this brought up the idea of doing very broad, basic philosophy.

If I had enough time to prep something like this, I would cry for joy to do something like an art class. It's very accessible, and there is plenty of material that the students would be familiar with, so it would be less intimidating for them.

But yeah, do a course on something you are passionate about.

[Draz]

[cdninkorea]

I've just submitted a proposal for an intro SLA course. The description I wrote is:

[Wad]

[cdninkorea]

The form I submitted was a very preliminary step. I have to submit a detailed syllabus early next week, and yes, I'm going to prep the hell out of it!

[PatrickGHBusan]

[quote="cdninkorea"]The form I submitted was a very preliminary step. I have to submit a detailed syllabus early next week, and yes, I'm going to prep the hell out of it![/quote]

As you should! lol

Good luck with the course and as a hint, why not check out other similar University level classes in other Universities. Check out these courses as they typically have some sort of online syllabi you can peruse. That could give you a broad template to work from.

[hubbahubba]

Google, it's what's for dinner

[zappadelta]

Is this class only open to English Education majors?

[SeoulMan6]

The biggest difference is talking time. In teaching EFL you should be minimizing teacher talk, but with a content course it tends to be far more teacher-centered. It's a tough adjustment.