Korean Job Discussion Forums

[HamuHamu]

Argh

In an oh-so-typical-in-Korea scenario, I have been informed TODAY (Friday) that next week, on FRIDAY, leaving the class and I FOUR days to prepare and rehearse, we will have a graduation ceremony.

In a long series of head teacher says supervisor was responsible for telling us, supervisor claims director said she would have a meeting to tell us, and director claims that head teacher DID tell us.....we've been blessed with this wonderful idea of performing a 2 hour show next week. Each teacher is responsible for performing for about 20 - 25 minutes with their students, and here's the clincher...no one can do anything REMOTELY like any other class.

So when the head teacher came around to the classes one-by-one to inform each of us, I was the last one to be informed. So a whole list of ideas have been written down.....I can't do any songs because we will do those together. Another teacher is having his students read 4 poems, so I'm not allowed to do poems. One teacher is doing a small skit. Another class is demonstrating things that they have learned this year.

HELP ME! Any ideas for what to perform with ok-level 7 year olds for 20 minutes in front of a huge crowd? I've been doing internet searches but lots of the things that work for a class of 25 American kids doesn't work for a group of 10 Korean kids of an almost the same age.

What kinds of things have you done or seen done at a grad ceremony for KG...that can be planned, and rehearsed in FOUR DAYS???????

Thanks more than anything in advance.

[FUBAR]

Haha... sounds like you are a bit up shitcreek.

We had a similiar thing occur at the end of our Winter camp last summer.
Some of them sang songs. With our class we played a game show. It is farely easy. You could have them do that. Make some hosts, contestants and then have some people who stand above them and drop things on the contestants when they get the wrong answer (Plastic bottles works ok)

The ones dropping the bottles are obviously the weakest students, while the hosts are the best. It worked easy enough for us and we had only 2 hours to prepare

[Demonicat]

Why is it that we are ALWAYS the last to know. I swear, I had one week to get 12 kindies tol memorize a play before graduation. I don't know how well it will work (its next week) but with some forewarnement it would have been awesome (theatre major/actor/drama queen/me). Ok, anyway, your post. The easienstr thing that I can think of is a mock class. Let your best sudent (the one that finishes the f'ing workbook in a week) be the teacher. The others just respond. Korean kids seem trained to memorize, so having one say:
"good morning class"
"How are you, betty" (insert names)
"What day is it?"
"What is todays date" (have them memorize the days of graduation, for this Q and the one before it)
"What colour is this?" They have various colours of construction paper that they hold up and ask about.
"What is this?" They hold up various classroom supplies
"Good Job class!"

The great thing about this is that there is very little work. The kids already know colours and classroom supplies. They can memorize a day and a date post haste, and this is REALLY impressive to parents. I'm currently hosting a play which required 10X the work that this does, but this still get umteen kudos frtom parents. do this.

[HamuHamu]

Unfortunately we do "Mock Class" 4 times a year for open house, when parents come to watch a class and we all pretend that it's not been scripted and practiced for a week already

But thanks for the ideas, PLEASE keep 'em coming...I'm stressing!

[T-dot]

See if you can do a skit. I remember that there is an english book that re-hashes a few korean folk-tales. It's short and there is also a tape that they can listen to in class.

Sorry, i don't have the name of the series off the top of my head.

[peppermint]

maybe some sort of educational game or two? Never taught kindy so I can't be more specific

[anae]

I was thinking of staging a quiz show. I have done that with kg kids before. I have also had them reciting or reading from a simple fairy tale like readers' theater. Puppet shows also work well.

Good luck.

[OiGirl]

Calisthenics? They can show how they count up and cout down, even count by fives if you want. Push-ups, jumping jacks, sit ups, jump squats.

[FUBAR]

A game of Simon Says?

[Banana Bender]

How about a martial art demonstration ? kindy I worked at one year did that , and the parents loved it. ( kids did too )

[gypsyfish]

If your class memorised a book or dialogs, maybe you can work that into a skit for them to perform.

Back when I taught kindy, my class had read a book about what's under my bed and different animals came out.

The girl on the bed would say, "Under my bed is a wolf."

The wolf would come out and say, "Hey, look at me, I'm a wolf, I'm a wolf, wuh, wuh, wuh ("w" sound) wolf. Grrr!"

The little girl would say. "I'm scared of wolves. Go away."

Other animals were used (including a monster - completely appropriate for the kid who played him) and finally a koala was under the bed. The little girl liked it and it climbed on the bed with her. Everyone took a bow.

Don't know if you have time to make costumes (maybe just masks), but we were a hit and the kids basically already knew the script.

Good luck.

[Koreabound2004]

At my high school festival, we had some kindy kids come over and perform for us....I know you said no songs...but what about having them dance-to a song...

They had the kindies...actually pre-school age I think, so it should work even better for older ones.

They played about 5 songs, and did 5 dances to them, pretty much all the same moves over and over, and that will take at least 20 minutes.

The K-teachers stood in front of the class and mocked the dance moves, to keep them going. It was the cutest thing ever.

Or...could you get them to make something simple, like a finger painting, and each hold it up and say a couple of words about their picture. That would be cute, and easy. Or like a show and tell, bring in their favourite thing from home, and talk about it. Most of the audience won't understand English, so it doesn't matter how good they can speak.

[casey's moon]

Lots of these ideas seem great to me, but you don't have enough time to get your class to memorize skits or unfamiliar songs (plus other classes are already doing similar things). I think that having a game show (FUBAR suggested this excellent idea) is the only real choice, since it is unique and doesn't require loads of memorization. Also, parents will be interested to see how well their kids do.

[kangnamdragon]

REMEMBER IN THE FUTURE: Graduation is in February. The parents want to see a performance.

[jjurabong]

How about Jazzchants fairytales? They're read rythmically so it's easy for the kids to remember, and sounds cool if you add some easy sound effects for the kids to do.