Korean Job Discussion Forums

[inthewild]

Agh, can't think of anything to keep these kids occupied for an hour... all they know is phonics. Class in an hour... any ideas? Thanks.

[Grotto]

ages?

Alphabet games,

tell me a word starting with a,b,c,d,e,f,g....
ending with ...................

Spelling a word beginning with abcde.... start with 3 letter words and each time you go through the alphabet increase the length of a word. 3, 4, 5, 6.... once a letter is used erase it. Makes it much more difficult when nobody picks q or z until the length of a word is up to 6 or 7 letters.

Rhyming games. What rhymes with log? Cot? Van? Jar?....

Tongue twisters.

Ten toy tigers sat down to tea.
Ten tails tipped the table oh dear me!

[Bunnymonster]

Odd ones out (ie a bunch of 'a' words and a 'b' word, or rhyming words and one non rhymer).
Simple dictation, just enunciate the word very clearly and get them to guess each sound.
Have them practice silly voices ("who can read this in a *squeaky* voice", " who can read this in a quiet voice"," who can read this is a LOUD voice") . Find story books which focus on a particular sound.
Play I spy.
Play a matching game in teams with words on half the cards and corresponding pictures opn the other, shuffle face down pick two if they match you keep them, team with the most wins...
Letter Bingo

If you can talk your supervisor into shelling out for it I'd reccomend the Lippencott Phonics series too, it builds properly unlike sme other phonics sets which introduce random letters and use ones the kids have never seen before. Really drill the pronunciatin of the letters and sounds into them, try to get them to use the right parts of their mouths (look for elocution tips to help with this). If you give more details about what phonics they have done and what you are meant to be teaching them I'll give you more pointers but I hope that there is something to be going on there.....

[inthewild]

They're ages 8 through 11.

They've learned basic words that sound the same: kite, bite; bike, mike; mice, rice.

And there is nothing I am meant to be teaching them, they just need to have fun.

Thanks for the ideas so far.

[Bunnymonster]

heh, so you have a free reign. Try to teach them some basic questions and answers and then get them to chain them round the room "my name is____, what is your name?", "Its a ball, what is it (points to picture", "I like to run, what do you like to do?". Once you have them doing one set its easy to apply whatever new vocab/sentence you want to teach to the game and practice it (templating you see crops up verywhere). Armed with this game some flashcards and bunch of patience and energy you can start to drill some vocab into their little heads and then you can build from there. Without having met the kids in question I cannot really say wuite what they're ready for but frankly so long as they want to learn you should be fine. Really try to put a lot of energy into this class (and trust me I understand that its not always easy) and really ham it up I've found when new kids see you really being excited by doing the drill it makes them excitable too (sometimes a little too much so, but you can try to channel that and its better than silence). Use lots of visual props such as pictures and flash-cards to keep things moving. Just don't try to do too much too quickly and you'll be surprised.

[inthewild]

Things are going ten times better than a month ago, but I'm still stumbling a bit with the kids that are brand new to the language.

Letter Bingo? Just have the do 4x4 and write in the letters where they want to? Then I call out a letter? And they need to get 4 in a row or diagonal... sorry but I haven't played bingo in 15 years and didn't think I would be for another 50 (it's big back home with old people......)

They're not equipped with the vocab to do I Spy... songs aren't hitting it off too well.

Any more games someone can point me to... my bad but I've hunted around with no luck. Anything that involves more speaking than cards is cool.

[d503]

Since you have free reign, games like Simon Says or mother may I usually go over pretty well.

For Mother may I, You have the kids ask you if they can take so many steps. I have a repeating rule, that no one can ask the same question twice. I also encourage the creative questions like "Can I duck walk 4 steps." I don't have a huge classroom but it works okay. Ohh Yeah, I also have them say teacher may I instead--gets a few less giggles.

[teachingld2004]

How about playing "hot and cold". That is a game for all ages, and they have to use english. All my students love this game, no matter what ages they are.
Or how about, "i'm thinking of a word (for example) that is outside this room. They can guess by looking and you answer "yes" or "no". This may sound easy, but they still have to say, "is it a..."

[inthewild]

Bah, it's hard as *beep* to keep kids with next to no English skills occupied sometimes.

Ah well, they found Hot/Cold marginally interesting, they have a hard time pronouncing the words "hot" and "cold" but that's what I'm here for, right?

Sadly Mother May I and Simon Says don't work because they can't remember the alphabet on some days.

[Newt14]

If you have a computer in the clasroom you can make a slide show of the phonics words. My kids liked it, but they were a little younger. i hade the word appear first then the picture, i also did one with just the picture.

Print out the alphabet, have each one color one or two letters each day, then cut them out, glue on to color paper, i use the square paper. then I have them laminated and tape them on the classroom wall. Crayola or seasame street has some nice ones.

I have them write the words out, so they learn how to write correctly in english or at least so you can read it.

I teach them classroom words like desk, pencil and eraser.

also a game that i call abc writing game, there is a name for it in Korean. You start by writting a word and then they have to tell you a word that starts with the last letter of that word. aplle -- egg --grape. Be careful you will get alot of words ending in e so I sometime make them plural. I also get all ages and levels to write it themselves on the board and I spell it for them.

The biggest thing i found that helps is giving out stickers. I brought a lot from Canada and many of my relatives send them to me. Kids will so anything for "Canada Stickers". Stickers here suck for the most part. I even have some middle school students that like the stickers of cars and space ships.

[waterbaby]

Divide them into teams and give each team a deck of alphabet cards and ask them to spell some basic words... if they're not really up to that level, spread some letters out and give the kids fly swatters or the like and ask them to whack the sound/letter you call out. I used to know a tonne of these sort of games but I've forgotten a lot since I stopped teaching!