Korean Job Discussion Forums

wylies99 · Joined: 13 May 2006 Location: I'm one cool cat!

"Just sing a song and the kids will be quiet"
"Just clap and they'll all want to clap"
WOW, great advice. Wish it would work in my "class" (aka, daycare hell).
I was given a class of 8 boys and 1 girl and 4 of the boys are terrors. The Korean teachers think it's HILARIOUS and won't help, at all. Other native speakers? Well, it's not their problem (they have classes of almost all girls).

Any REAL suggestions?

ttompatz · Joined: 05 Sep 2005 Location: Kwangju, South Korea

PRagic · Joined: 24 Feb 2006

Go Kindergarten Cop on them. See how much energy they have left after trying to do pushups, jumping jacks or hold a chair above their heads for the duration of the class. Run em! It's a power struggle, and you're getting your butt kicked!

pet lover · Joined: 02 Jan 2004 Location: not in Seoul

canuck in Ansan · Joined: 27 Jul 2005

I also do the clapping thing. It doesn't KEEP them quiet, but its a good way to get them all quiet at once, if only for a minute.
I just say "Let's clap one time" CLAP! (and its in a one beat=one word rhythm).
Then you can go on and say "Let's clap two times" *CLAP*CLAP*

And everyone has to clap at the same time. If a couple students don't clap with the rhythm, most of the other kids will get mad at them cause they messed it up. I think its funny

Hotpants · Joined: 27 Jan 2006

I can understand your feeling. When I had my first kindy class, at the time I thought it was a nightmare and I dreaded the whole week approaching their class. I just wanted to go into tears thinking about it. But, do you know what? From about 6 months later, this class paradoxically became the best class I had in my whole schedule, and I remember them ever since.

What happened? I think a few things:

> At first, I got really angry inside at the lack of response from the kids. Why aren't they following my instructions?
I came to realise that this was the only time in the week it seemed that they were out of watch of authoratitive native adults. They saw this class as the most exciting environment where they were free to do WHATEVER THEY WANTED - ie, mayhem.
I looked at the class from another viewpoint: The kids thought it was all one big game. Therefore, I also should see the fun side and look on everything as one big game. My anger should be just surface anger, and I needed to play at everything too.

> At first, I had no idea how to manage such young kids.
In hindsight, I should have spent my initial time working on the very basics. Just spend a lesson or two purely on trying to get the kids line up in orderly fashion. Work out some tricks that have an effect on them doing this effectively - stickers, awarding a special badge, a candy to take home after class. At first act tough. Physically lift and position kids into the position you want them to be in. Remember that kids of this age may not even have a concept of 'line up', so you should recognize that this will be no mean feat. Once you get kids obeying the simplest instructions, then you can move on to making a lesson plan and actually teaching things.

> The kids who act up the most are often bored.
You need to keep these kids engaged at all times. ACTION songs are great. Games are great. Stories with voice effects are great. If the kids are not following, it's important to stop and let the kids know that they are doing something wrong: hands on heads, stand by the door, pretend to telephone home...

With time, it WILL get better. Just don't get yourself so worked up in the process - they are just young kids.

More kindy resources below...

keithinkorea · Joined: 17 Mar 2004

Yeah well, you guys aren't real teachers than if you can't handle a few kids.

That's the problem here...none of you can teach effectively.

Juregen · Joined: 30 May 2006

PaperTiger · Joined: 31 May 2005 Location: Ulaanbataar

I'm pretty sure that guy doesn't even teach kindergarten, so don't let his trolling put you ill at ease. I'm betting he's never been in a situation where your Korean co-workers have abandoned all common sense and decided that an environment free of discipline or boundaries will generate the most profits without angering the throngs of parents who have raised their spoiled progeny to believe they are royalty and praise their brats even when they are ill-behaved.

Some people are fortunate enough to work in a supportive and structured envirnonment, since I am just an adjunct to my co-workers efforts, I can say I'm not among those fortunate few. The rest of this year will be an excercise in practiced silence and apathy...here's hopin I never work will anyone younger than 12 ever again...what a curse.

ChopChaeJoe · Joined: 05 Mar 2006 Location: Seoul

In my whopping 7 months of teaching experience, I've noticed a few things about the kids.

a. If it's their first time to learn English, or their first time to have regular lessons, it takes 30 class periods before they start to make progress. After that, it is slow but steady. Sometimes parents don't see any progress after a few weeks and withdraw their kids. Good riddance.

b. If the class is comprised of kids of all different levels, then make them into two teams and make them compete. Let the more advanced ones teach the less knowledgeable while you're speaking to the other team. Make every class a game show combined with lessons. Provide rewards on a weekly basis. Reward the losers as well, but make their reward much crappier. Take away points for bad behavior, not listening, and constantly interruping (and in my case, speaking Korean in class.) I use "good" points and "bad" points. If a team is negative by the end of class, add their negative points to the other team.

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

Teach for 5 mins and then it's color time. i had the kindy class from hell years ago. Smile

That's how I handeled them.

tomato · Posted: Tue Jun 13, 2006 1:06 pm Post subject:

Hyeon Een · Joined: 24 Jun 2005

I want to say two things:

(1) I hate kindergarten and I hope I never get tricked into teaching it again.

and

(2) Listen to Tomato. Read the threads he pointed you at, and listen to all the things he said in them. I only dealt with kindergarten children for a brief time but even in that short period his advice was awesome. A lot of it kinda went over my head actually because I don't know about those musical notes and keys and things when he got into his music thing, but apart from that his advice was very useful to me =) I have a suspicion that he is an awesome teacher for the young tackers.

Free World · Joined: 01 Apr 2005 Location: Drake Hotel

jacl · Joined: 31 Oct 2005

Give your notice and don't teach kindergarten ever again. That's a suggestion. What a nightmare.