Korean Job Discussion Forums

jennad · Joined: 02 Dec 2010 Location: San Diego

I'm a hagwon teacher applying for EPIK. The problem is, all of my classroom activities, discussion, games etc. are based on my experience of teaching no more than 10 students at a time.

I'm not a teacher by trade, and the teaching methods I've learned in the last year have all been centered around small classroom sizes.

Can anyone explain or give an example of how they teach the average English lesson to a classroom of 30-40 students?? How do you play games or have discussions without total mayhem? (Games often get out of control in my classes of just ten students!)

At my hagwon we use a sticker system to reward/motivate/bribe kids into doing what we want. Obviously this only works when you can keep track of every student and their behavior. How are kids disciplined or motivated in a public school classroom?

Thanks for your help. Oh, and I'm only looking for actual helpful information, not sarcastic/condescending/pretentious commentary. Thanks!

YTMND · Joined: 16 Jan 2012 Location: You're the man now dog!!

I have been doing this with high school students. I know this will be different than with 7th graders and younger. However, I think one basic concept to work with is to not address every student (obvious but overlooked by those who want to teach everyone).

I bought a set of colored markers. Then I handed out 6 different colors. Instead of calling on a student, I would call on a color. Break the class into 6 groups. They pass the colored marker within their group, allowing a different student to answer.

With younger kids, maybe you don't hand out markers, but the color idea is still good. Just tell different groups what color they are and write it on the board.

One teacher had colored butterflies over the tables the kids sat at. Then, she had a score chart at the front of the class. When the students did well, she would move a colored butterfly corresponding to that group up.

These are tactics I would experiment with if I were teaching younger students. Instead, I use good students now to police the other students. I don't know how the younger students would react to this though.

Another thing you can use is a regular deck of cards. I take the number cards up to 6, sometimes 7 and 8. Shuffle them up, and select 1 card. Start at the left or right of the classroom and go that many seats over. Then, take another card, go that many seats down the classroom. This randomly selects a student. Students then don't feel like the teacher or classmates are picking on them. If everything goes well, then you have them select the next student.

I have yet to get games into the classroom. Whenever I try, students just blurt out the answers regardless whose team they are on. So, it ends up more like an activity than a game. In this case, I get two students to come to the board to compete. The more they cooperate, the more they will adjust to new rules.

I have also been unable to teach some of my classes due to holidays or tests. I have noticed that when I don't teach some classes, they have a real hard time adjusting to my class while the other classes had no problem.

That's the last suggestion I have for this post. Schedule your classes so students know what to expect. When you teach different lessons, make sure they follow the same structure. Students will follow along more without you always stopping class to explain the procedure.

alistaircandlin · Joined: 24 Sep 2004 Location: Seoul

You need to make a seating plan. You can make this in advance, or use your first lesson with each class to go through the rules and make your seating plan.

It is important to use the students names, but near impossible to memorise them all if you have about 24 large classes - it adds up to around a thousand students in my case.

Think about it like this:how would you feel if you were studying Korean, but the teacher never remembered your name - instead he called you "green," or "blue," or worse still, gave you the name of a famous Korean actor. (I've met some people who do that.) To me this sort of thing just shows lack of respect for the students. I wouldn't like it, and neither, I think, would other people. It doesn't matter what age someone is; using their name is a basic matter of courtesy.

I think YTMND's idea of using colours is good as an organisational thing, as long as you also know the students' names too. It's a good way of organising resources as well - if you make vocab. cards or something lack that, you can colour them to match each group, so that the cards don't get mixed up.

It will take time to write up seating plans, but it's well worth it. Apart from the above point, it also lets you establish control from the outset. You are saying: this is my classroom, and I tell you where to sit. Many public school teachers have problems with behaviour management. they can't get students to be quiet. But if some foreign guy was shouting at me: "hey, you - red! Stop talking," then I probably wouldn't respond very well either.

There's no way I would teach without a seating plan. Not unless it was a very small class, of 12 or so, with whom I had already established a good relationship, and only if I already knew their names. If you don't use students' names you are setting yourself up for problems with behaviour. You might try asking your co-teachers to make the plans for you. Just explain that you think it's really important to use students' names. If they are halfway decent teachers they will like you for this.

My second suggestion is: don't dole out candy. You need to establish rules and expectations, and it's fine to have some kind of reward system, but I'd suggest simply giving points for effort. Record the points for each team every week, and keep a running total - I just store this on a powerpoint. I'd only do this for elementary, or the younger students at middle school. Not for grade 3 middle school, or high school. But that's a personal thing.

Try to get your co-teachers to record which students make contributions too and tie this in with their reports at the end of term. You might give out some small thing at the end of each term, or mid-term, but not every lesson - it turns it into a circus.

If you'd like any resources - templates for seating plans, or anything like that, please PM me.

Julius · Joined: 27 Jul 2006

YTMND · Joined: 16 Jan 2012 Location: You're the man now dog!!

alistaircandlin · Joined: 24 Sep 2004 Location: Seoul

Using students' names is a basic principle of good teaching practice. With respect to YTMND, we are going to have to disagree on this. Any professional teacher will use students' names; when you train as a teacher (at least in the UK, but I assume everywhere) the importance of addressing students by name is drilled into you. If you do a quick search on google, you will see that any teaching professional knows you have to learn students' names. Firstly it's about respecting the individual. Secondly it's not a gimmick to impress people - it's basic classroom management.

If students do a test every two or three months, and move sets, rewrite the seating plans. If you have to move students, you make the change on your seating plan.

You don't need memory skills - that's why you have a seating plan. You always have it in front of you, so you can look down and use the students' names.

If, like YTMND, you teach the students in their regular classrooms, rather than a dedicated English room, it's easier - as s/he said the homeroom teachers will have seating plans already. I would just make sure I got a copy of those. You'll need to be able to read a bit of Korean though.

YTMND · Joined: 16 Jan 2012 Location: You're the man now dog!!

Modernist · Joined: 23 Mar 2011 Location: The 90s

You can avoid a lot of the issues by just giving them English names. First day have printouts of 50 or 100 most popular names [get 'em from the SSA Web site] and tell them to pick one. Then write those names on your chart. Much easier to remember, and certainly to pronounce. The good Christian girls will pick Grace, the smart ones Olivia or Lily, for example. It'll take a little while for them to memorize the spelling, and you'll need to put a cap on their deciding time, or they'll spend all day at it. You can read out the pronunciation to help them.

And yes, put them at tables. Group work will be much faster and simpler than having them in chair rows in their homeroom. Break up the worst pairs/packs by separating them from their friends/audiences. Balance the girls and boys at each because they usually resist working with opposite-sex partners. Have one leader or captain per table, a smart one who will be responsible for helping the slower ones. Let them pick names for their teams and reward the teams for good work. That way it's not only the smartest kids or the loudest ones who get positive reinforcement.

On rewards, I give them signature pages. The best team gets 2, the next best 1. After 7 or 8 signatures, they get candy [small ones, fruit chews or caramels or little chocolates like Kisses]. Giving it to them every day is obviously excessive, but I like it as motivation. Also try using whiteboards and markers for their activities. When they're finished, they read as a group. Work with their pack-mentality, don't fight it. Let them use partners and teams as much as you can.

Whitey Otez · Joined: 31 May 2003 Location: The suburbs of Seoul

Weigookin74 · Joined: 26 Oct 2009

go to waygook dot org and register, then you download power points and adapt them to your classes. your first year will be a b!tch but after that you will have your own materials and you'll find it easier.

RedKristin · Joined: 27 Jun 2010

+1 for Breaking into groups, peer-teaching/pairwork, lots of monitoring and seating charts. Also, guided discovery type work.

I found it just about impossible to get Ss to answer with 40 others being dead silent. But walking around addressing each group gets way more out of them. Activities like role playing, conversation board games, battleship, jigsaw reading and debates really work well with this method.

mzeno · Joined: 12 Oct 2008

30-40 students is not a class,...it's a mob....!....I was staring at one this morning...and with a mob you have to adopt mob management tactics & strategies...pepper spray is effective... although not advisable...humor works well...and music...get them to laugh and sing and they're yours.... be prepared to fail.... and fail.... again and again and again...but don't give up...
Keep at it... for as william blake once wrote.."....the fool who persists in his folly will become wise..." good luck!

wylies99 · Joined: 13 May 2006 Location: I'm one cool cat!

You need to choose simple subjects and create powerpoint lessons with pictures. Then, you need some worksheets based on the lessons. Hopefully your Korean teacher will help with discipline. Few will help with the lessons. Without their cooperation things will be very tough.

BTW, almost all of the "experts" who teach teachers have never taught in high schools. Most have taught in advanced schools with 4-8 students per class who are all excellent English speakers. So don't expect any of them to have any serious ideas to help you. Even when you attend orientation none of the speakers will have a clue about teaching in high school with the large classes. You will get better advice here and other sites. We have been there. Pick through the ideas and select what will work for you.

jennad · Joined: 02 Dec 2010 Location: San Diego

Thank you thank you thank you everyone!!

Great ideas and encouraging responses. Despite the large class sizes, public schools seem like a safer bet than hagwons.

luckylady · Joined: 30 Jan 2012 Location: u.s. of occupied territories

I also went from a hakwon to ps and was also overwhelmed at first with the difference in classes!

we had a large classroom and actually tables so it was easier to divide them into groups. when you do this, try and be conscious of their levels (this will take time) and make sure you have each group mixed so the higher level kids can help the lower levels. also is more encouraging for them to speak this way.

I also made a point of reading the roll aloud each class and insisting on a verbal response - due to the number of students, this could literally be the only time every student would have a chance to respond individually to me, the teacher, in English so it was important. I also sometimes took a moment then to acknowledge some of the students in different ways and of course mixed it up, not always the same students.

if you do the math, you'll see how little time you'll actually have with each student so no, there's not a lot of opportunity for one-on-one. you have to make the most of it. have them read alound from the screen, in groups, and work out of their books, in groups.

spelling bees are also fun tho with a large class, if you can keep them under control.