Korean Job Discussion Forums

[JacktheCat]

I've come to discover that teaching mainly upper middle-schoolers and high schoolers has one big drawback. Raging hormones.

Ah, summer is here. The weather is warm and a young man's fancy turns to thoughts of love.

Just why does it have to be in my classroom.

Lately I been having problems with my students being more interested in romantic entanglements than learning English. They are not being disruptive or insolent, just "preoccupied."

Wondering how others have delt with this problem. What did you do and how did it work?

[Clutch Cargo]

Teach them how to chat up the opposite sex in English.
Do dating role plays eg. eating out, buying movie tickets, getting a room...
Ask their date questions about themselves and family etc in English.
Could be a lot of fun if handled with tact and common sense.

[kangnamdragon]

[katydid]

A mixed high school? Fun!

I'd suggest maybe trying to find a way to work the gossip into the lesson. If you're doing superlatives or comparatives, ask about the boys and girls from the neighboring schools. If you are studying adjectives, ask your students what their ideal partner would be like. For hypothetical situations and giving advice, make up an advice to the lovelorn column. See what they have to say if they are in love with their brother or sister's best friend, their best friend's boyfriend or girlfriend, or they feel extremely lonely and want to date.

Any time I mention the word boyfriend, my girls' ears perk up*. It's hilarious. I now use it to get their attention. I guess you have to play into what they are interested in....

*Of course, with some classes, the word "Choco-Pie" works just as well, if not better.

[posco's trumpet]

Make them do readings from 'agony auntie' letters in womens' magazines Then have them role-play/act out the letters.

Works great, and with college students, you can use Penthouse letters.

[crazylemongirl]

my boys stink and alternate between tired and surly. We've been doing a lot of listening to music in class. One kid was doing his hogwon homework in my after school class today. I took it away and packed a sad and feel asleep. After unsucessfully trying to wake him up. I wrote 'please don't sleep in english class' on his cheek. His friends thought it rather amusing.

[PEIGUY]

[mindmetoo]

I've noticed the middle school boys have very bad strategies for winning the hearts and minds of the girls they're interested in. I think this is probably a function of the fact most of the kids go to all boys and all girls schools. Hagwon is the only time they associate with members of the opposite sex. They seem to pursue this "well she can't say she hasn't noticed me" strategy.

Like there's this one girl named Amy. Every time I call her name, this boy who likes her shouts out "HER NAME ISN'T AMY IT'S CRYING FACE!"

In another class when I call out this girl named Irene's name, this other boy shouts out "HER NAME ISN'T IRENE, IT'S CHICKEN HEAD!"

Boys boys. Calling the girls you like Crying face and Chicken Head gets you noticed, but it's not the right kind of notice.

[coolsage]

Good luck with that. I find that uni freshmen, having been gender-segregated since elementary school, have the approximate social skills of gerbils. Instead of the wooing and cooing one notices on a North American campus, there is punching and hair-pulling more characteristic of twelve-year-olds. Sad and pathetic. They never grow up; they just grow old.

[mindmetoo]

[crazylemongirl]