Korean Job Discussion Forums

mick · Joined: 04 Mar 2005

Hi,

I'd really appreciate any advice anyone can give me on making my classes more 'fun' for grade 1 - 6 children. Had a meeting yesterday with the Korean teachers at my hagwon and they told me that i've been following the book the school uses too much and as result the children are not enjoying the classes. Any websites, titles of books, advice would be a great help.

Cheers

Reena · Joined: 16 Nov 2004 Location: Ilsan

Some ideas I have used:

- If they are learning new vocabulary, have student spell the words on the board randomly. Divide them into two groups and then have one student from each team come to the board, but their hands behind them and count 1-2-3 and then say a word, whichever student puts their hand on the word first gets a point for their team and stays for another round. They call it the "Speed" game.

- Hangman is always a favorite.

- Play Unscramble, give teams a list of scrambled words or sentences and have them race to finish them the fastest. With the younger ones I let them look in their books or give each team one hint.

- For younger ones I bought a sticky suction cup ball from a 1000 won store and I draw a grid with the alaphabet on the board. They throw the ball and whatever letter it lands on they have 5 seconds to give me a word that starts with that letter. If their five seconds are up they go to the back of the line. I use "converstation cards" in my classes which I give out as points for answers etc and then keep track of them and then they get small prizes depending on how many they have at the end of the month.

- A book I recommend is called ESL Teachers Activity kit - it has lots of ideas.

- Use TPR - they love it, start with easy commands like sit down, sit on your desk, sit under, open the window and once they are comfortable with it make them harder.

- Do short roleplays. Write the converstation on the board and then have volunteers come up and practice.

- Make puppets and have a them learn a short skit and perform for the class.

- Make them do booklets about what they have learned and then read it to the class. It can be as simple as: I can ____, I can't _______.

- I have the scrabble board game which I use with the grade 4-6 students.

www.bogglesworld.com is a great site as well as abcteach.com

Hope that helps.

Yu_Bum_suk · Joined: 25 Dec 2004

Get a few big nerfballs and play piggy in the middle and dodgeball. In about two weeks, expect a meeting about how your classes are supposed to be more serious.

Really, there's almost no way to make elementary lessons fun *and* orderly *and* educational. Ask the Korean teachers to put on a demonstration lesson for you using only English and never speaking Korean and see what happens.

Qinella · Joined: 25 Feb 2005 Location: the crib

Flashcard games:

1. Hold the stack in your hands. Slowly reveal the card in the back, and whoever correctly calls it out first gets a point.

2. Lay out all the flashcards on a big table, gather the students around it. Whoever touches the card you call first gets a point.

Other games:

1. Monster game. Draw a grid (I use 7x7, A-G, 1-7) with each square containing a given number of points that you have written on a paper (which only you can see). When a team answers your question, any question you want, they get to choose a square and get points. Some squares should have MONSTER, which wipes out the opposing teams' points. All of my students are nuts about this game.

2. Make a bunch of squares with the letters of the alphabet, like scrabble, but bigger, and laminate them. Give the students a designated time frame and whoever can form the most words wins.

mick · Joined: 04 Mar 2005

Thanks for the advice guy's - i should be able to use a lot of it.

I also understand what your saying ya_bum_suk - if the Korean teachers were to teach a class using only English they would see it from my side.

Cheers

mercury · Joined: 05 Dec 2004 Location: Pusan

1. Hunting game

Give each student a pair of wooden chop sticks, and have them run outside and track down large roaches. The kid with the biggest roach wins, and each must name and describe his or her roach in front of the class.

2. Fishing

Write english words on small cards. Hide the cards in the bathroom trash cans. Line all the kids up, and when you shout GO have the kids fish using small pre contructed fishing poles made from wire hangers and fishing line with a hook on the end.

3. Old Man

Bring an old drunk soju man into class, have the kids teach him english words they learned. Whenever he learns a word give him a shot of soju, and the kid who helped him a small shot of soju.

4. DIAMOND
Have the children secretly bring in gold or diamonds from their mothers jewelry box. The biggest diamond wins a piece of candy. The diamonds are yours to do with as you please.

5. SCAVENGER HUNT
Take the kids to Hooker hill and have them look for special items. Include a drawing of each item as well as the word written in Korean and English. Items could include.........well.......use your imagination.

mswiftansan · Joined: 01 Sep 2005

That's the best laugh I've had in a week.

zappadelta · Joined: 31 Aug 2004

Unless it states in your contract that you are supposed to provide fun classes, I would just say to the Korean teachers "Nice to meet you. Take care of your classes and I will take care of mine. I don't interfere or give you suggestions, so please do the same for me."

kermo · Posted: Thu Sep 15, 2005 10:03 pm Post subject:

Ya-ta Boy · Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Location: Established in 1994

There are literally hundreds of sites out there with activities for almost any teaching situation. google 'esl games' and/or 'ice breakers'. It takes time to sort through them to find the usable stuff but a lot of it is adaptable.

Here are a few.

http://www.sitesforteachers.com/index23.html

http://www.csun.edu/~hcedu013/eslplans.html

www.teacherplanet.com

www.usingenglish.com/handouts/

joe_doufu · Joined: 09 May 2005 Location: Elsewhere

Scrabble is incredibly popular with all levels in my school. With the better speakers we play it standard. With the younger kids they play in teams and I allow them 8 or 10 letters instead of seven. With the youngest I just put all the letters on the table and they take turns making whatever words they want.

What books are you using? You can make lots of fun things from books. If it has cartoon dialogues, photocopy them, white-out the dialogues, and give it to the kids to make their own cartoon. With young, creative kids, you can just give them a paper divided into six or eight squares and they can create an entire story from scratch. There are lots of sources of cartoons/comics to photocopy in Korea.

I learned a game from the Fifty-Fifty book series that I like. It's based on the "memory" card game. Basically I write a 5x5 grid on the board, and number each box. There are 12 questions, 12 answers, and a decoy question or answer. The first student calls two numbers. I read the sentence for each number. If it's a match, I erase those two numbers and give the student a point. A good game of this can last 30 or 40 minutes and the kids will concentrate intensely.

uberscheisse · Joined: 02 Dec 2003 Location: japan is better than korea.

a quick writing game i play fairly often - the kids have dubbed it 'crazycombinations'

get the kids in front of the board. it helps if they're at a level where they're writing well or just learning compound words.

firstly, get them to come up with a bunch of really short words, nouns, verbs, names, etc. (don't tell them that they're going to be put in compound words, just ask for random words).

write about 50 words on the board. then explain how some funny compound words like FACEPLANT make it into our vocabulary.

then, make a few examples from the 50 words you have.

some of my favorites have been "gruntbread", "toiletpunch", "lunchninja" and "meatgod".

you then get the kids to make a list of as many as they can. a 2nd grade class can usually get about a list of 15 in 5 minutes.

they then read the words out to the class - which is often very funny - and pick their favorite. it's best if you make a list of as many as you can and try to make them as silly and funny as possible.

their assignment after the game is to explain, in a page or so, what an "eggdragon" or a "koreablast" is.

granted, this is elaborate and takes 20 minutes even without the writing assignment but it's a great time killer.

joe_doufu · Joined: 09 May 2005 Location: Elsewhere

tomato · Posted: Fri Sep 16, 2005 8:13 pm Post subject:

tomato · Posted: Fri Sep 16, 2005 8:15 pm Post subject:

Hello again, Mick!

Some of these ideas I posted on previous threads, some of them are new.
I wanted to make sure you didn't miss any of them because I'm so egotistical--I mean helpful.

�� rhythmically greeting the children

If you are of musical bent, take a scrap piece of lumber, draw quarter notes, eighth note couplets, and a quarter rest. Then ask a carpenter to cut it out for you.

At the beginning of each class, greet each child in 4/4 rhythm. Say "Hello, Michael!" in even quarter notes.
Say "Hello, Jane, shh!" with a quarter rest at the end.
Say "Hello, Melanie!" with an eighth-note couplet on the third beat.

�� easy picture books

My favorite English bookstore is Kim and Johnson in Pusan.
Take the subway to Beomnaegol, which is station #18.
Walk out exit #1 and it's on the second floor in the building right in front of you.
They have a good selection of books published by Creative Teaching Press, which are adaptable for this purpose--or for almost any purpose.
Their phone number is 051/645-0515. Their e-mail address is:

[email protected]

But don't limit yourself to picture books written in English.
There is a wealth of picture books written in Korean which you can translate. There are oodlums of picture books with only one word or very few words on each page. If you know Korean, this will be good practice. If you don't know Korean, this will be a good place to start.
Here is a list of my favorites:

http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/korea/viewtopic.php?t=38947&highlight=

For that matter, the book doesn't have to be written in English or Korean. Keep an eye out the next time you go on a visa run.

As you read the book, elicit a response from the kids after every page.
After you show a picture of a dog, slap your knees while saying rhyhmically, "This is a dog. This is a dog."

�� give the children turns choosing

Lay down pictures of a dog, a cat, and a bird.
"Who can show me the bird?"
When someone chooses the correct item, take it up and say, "Who can show me the cat?"

Never mind that you will have only one item left at the end. The kids will raise their hands anyway.

�� give the children turns drawing

You say the children can't draw anything recognizable?
That's okay, have them draw lines, circles, or anything else simple.
Draw a line and then say, "Who else can draw a line?"
If every hand shoots up, and David is behaving exceptionally well,
choose David.

"Let's all say in a loud voice, 'David drew a line!'"
"Let's all whisper, 'David drew a line!'"
"Let's all say in a puzzled voice [scratching your head and frowning] 'David drew a line?'"
"Let's all cry [taking out your handkerchief and sobbing], 'David drew a line!'"
If David drew a circle when he was supposed to draw a line, that's okay too. Just substitute the word "circle" for "line."

�� spelling words with alphabet tiles

I once had the good luck of walking past a construction site which was throwing away small tiles of about the same size and shape. I took them home, painted letters on them, and have been putting them to good use ever since.

Lay down the letters for the word BLUE, fingerspell the word, and then take one letter out.
"Who can put the letter L back in?"
Sounds absurdly simple for us, but we're not four-year-olds!

�� rhythmically thanking each child who volunteers

There is just one disadvantage to asking for volunteers: it doesn't involve those class members who are not volunteers. You can minimize this evil by slapping your knees and saying, "Thank you, Kevin, thank you, Kevin" after each child gives a correct response.

�� making a song out of the word for the day

My kindergarten students seem to enjoy this song:

Repeat for each letter in the word.

�� gross motor activity

I try to time this activity for the halfway point in the class.
Jumping, marching, and stamping can be adapted for animals, colors, letters of the alphabet, or any other subject matter.

"What color is this? This is red. Let's march for the color red.
This is red! This is red!"
"What color is this? This is blue. Let's run for the color blue.
Thisisbluethisisbluethisisblue . . ."
"What color is this? This is green. Let's stamp for the color green.
THIS IS GREEN! THIS IS GREEN!"

I promise you they will giggle when you "run for the color blue."

In order to adjust to a more sedentary activity, it might help to make tiptoeing the last gross motor item.

�� sign language

Sounds complicated, but you will be surprised how easy it is to teach sign language.
Just make a simple pattern, such as "This is red, this is blue" or "This is a car, this is a truck."
You will only have to look up a few words each week.

My favorite sign language dictionary is:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0913580813/qid=1084934939/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/103-1658994-0003058?v=glance&s=books

�� monotone musical activities

You don't have to be Mozart to administer this activity.
"Red" has one syllable, so sing the word on G.
"Yellow" has two syllables, so sing the word on G-G.
Call on volunteers to play the appropriate number of G's on the xylophone.
Such a task may be an insult to you or me, but not to four-year-olds.

�� teaching the students to read each others' name tags

I hope your students will have English name tags. I've been in Korea studying Korean for 6 years and I still have the dangdest time remembering Korean names.

Ask three or four of the kids to take their name tags off. Then show each of those name tags to the class, identifying each letter.

Then lay the name tags on the floor and ask, "Who can show me Josh's name tag?"

Again, never mind the fact that you will have only one item left at the end.

�� saying goodby

You don't have to be Mozart for this activity, either.
All you have to do is call for a volunteer to play the xylophone, then
sing "Goodby" on E-G-E while pointing to the correct keys with your finger.

As a disciplinary measure, you can choose the three best-behaving students for this activity.

Then you will probably look at the clock and complain that your classtime was so limited.