Korean Job Discussion Forums

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

About an hour ago I was informed that my writing class (meets once a week for two hours) has spontaneously morphed into an English Club. I have no idea what an English Club is or what I'm supposed to do with it. I asked, and no one has talked to the boys (high school grades 1 & 2), so I don't know what they expect. The school's only direction is, "Teach comfortably". That 4-letter word 'game' did come up in there somewhere.

The only games I know are the ones I use in the regular classes with these same boys, so I can't use them again. And the only games I think are worthwhile are those that are tied to a lesson.

Questions:
a) Does anyone have an English club?
b) What do you do in it?

Any advice is welcome. I'm kind of in a brain freeze right now.

I'm going to wing it today, but I need some ideas for next week.

Pak Yu Man · Joined: 02 Jun 2005 Location: The Ida galaxy

I have an English club. I use it every day to smack naughty students around Smile

JacktheCat · Joined: 08 May 2004

I had an "English Club" at my universities in China.

Basically boiled down to showing English languages movies and tv shows and talking about them, as well as "free talking" about an assigned topic.

If I were you, I'd try to get away with that at your high school.

bellum99 · Joined: 23 Jan 2003 Location: don't need to know

Don't do book reading and discussion. I tried this many times and it always fails. It starts out good for two days and then ends up as a hell.

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

Just a note: My boys, even the best of them, would be at Level 1 at any self-respecting hakwon in the country.

Moldy Rutabaga · Joined: 01 Jul 2003 Location: Ansan, Korea

I do not know your situation, but as Koreans love to conform and be part of a 'club'-- all the t-shirts are [something] club-- your class might be exactly the same thing with a trendy new name, especially if your superiors are evasive on what you should be doing.

Ken:>

ajuma · Joined: 18 Feb 2003 Location: Anywere but Seoul!!

The only writing game-type thing that I know is this: Put your students in groups of 3 or 4 (depending on class size) and have them write the name of someone in the class on the top of the paper. Collect the papers and randomly distribute them. Have THAT group write one (or more) words that describe the person. Next, have them fold the paper so only the word that they wrote is showing. Collect the papers and randomly distribute them again. Have that group write a word that they associate with the word that they see. Fold the paper and continue for 4 or 5 more "rounds". Then read the papers...can be fun!!!

Another idea: Since it's a writing class, could you maybe make a newsletter in English?

Observation: Writing class to English Club....?? Why???? Rolling Eyes

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

fidel · Joined: 07 Feb 2003 Location: North Shore NZ

manlyboy · Posted: Wed Nov 30, 2005 4:15 pm Post subject:

I've been teaching an "English club" all year and I'm still not exactly sure what it is or what I'm supposed to be doing. They took one kid from every 4th, 5th and 6th grade class and told them to report to me once a week. I believe the class was just created to fill in a gap in my schedule to bring my teaching hours up to quota. No one has ever looked in on the class or even asked me what I'm teaching them. It started out as 40 minutes of games (educational, of course!), but the little bar-studs got out of control so now we're working through a text book because Englishee teachah needs quiet time.

Rteacher · Joined: 23 May 2005 Location: Western MA, USA

I don't really know what it is either, but my (technical high) English club always meets in the evenings - and either the school or their parents seem to provide some light snacks when the class is over. I've just been using "Side-by-Side" and "Oxford (Korean-English) Picture Dictionary" for conversation classes that only about half the students participate in. (It was easier to get everyone's attention when I had a room with an overhead projector and DVD player...) Although I tend to be a tyrannical control-freak (especially if I don't get my mantra meditation done in the morning) I reluctantly let disinterested "club" students nap or listen to their Mp3 players, and I give everyone at least a piece of candy during class. (Great teacher, huh ...?) One idea - which I began implementing when I had the English club in my regular (well-eqipped) classroom was to present a basic history of pop music, using CD's, DVDs and pictures of Elvis, the Beach Boys, the Beatles, Dylan, Springsteen, etc... Anyway, it's your call.

Yu_Bum_suk · Joined: 25 Dec 2004

You could try going over Manga comic books in English. Oxford Bookworms Starters series also has some books that are great in that they're very simple but written for teenagers, not little kids (I'm doing Sally's Phone with my vocational students but you might want a different title for boys). Scrabble works well if it's a pretty small class (or you can divide them into teams of 2-3). I think it's a great opportunity, though I'm sure you'll have to be careful to keep it as a real class and not make it look like 2 hours of free time for them.

bellum99 · Joined: 23 Jan 2003 Location: don't need to know

I have an idea. Try to turn it into a free talking class. The are many good books for this. (The idea sounds good until you try it ..... Twisted Evil

)

jacl · Joined: 31 Oct 2005

Play cards, teach card games and let them teach you card games. Until someone complains that you play too much cards. "English Club". Forbid speaking Korean.