Korean Job Discussion Forums

[K-in-C]

Howdy,

Could someone please tell me what a typical work day is like for a middle school teacher? What components of the English language do you teach? What resources are there available in the schools and what texts are frequently used?

I appreciate your feedback. Thanks!

K

[K-in-C]

Gee, 57 views and no replies. Hmmm! I know most of you are a helpful bunch. I guess this must be the week EPIK gives off for vacation.

Peace and prayers,

K-in-C


BUMP

[CdnEducator]

Middle schools have English texts and specific English language structures to cover for regular tests. As a native speaker teacher in a middle school, you may be asked to enhance and reinforce the target language structures in a lesson from the English text. Or, you may be asked to create and present lessons which are separate from the text as the Korean English teacher may feel it has been covered and they want to give the students a break from the text. The school may not have many English resources there, but you can find things on the internet or go to the Kim and Johnson specialty store in Seoul (in Kangnam, near the subway exit) if you're building your resources.
If you work in a middle school, a good approach is to be helpful and low-key with your co-teachers, but also assess and stick to common sense lesson ideas which will help the students. Good luck.

[ucfvgirl]

I will explain to you how my middle school day works:

I work from 8:30 to 4:30. During this time, I usually teach 3-5 classes per day, no more than 22 classes per week. The classes are 45 min in length. I teach my own lessons: however some schools do not allow this. I try to develop lessons that are interesting as well as useful for the students. I find the textbooks that are used in the schools are boring and not good enough. Plus many of them have mistakes in them.

As for the content....

Well, we are hired as Native English Speakers so my classes are conversation classes. I am teaching first and second grade and I am finding my first graders are much more interested in learning English than my second graders. I don't just use dialogues as a guide, but rather look at every day issues like pollution, writing to penpals, health, pop culture, etc. I make up worksheets and we play games whenever there is time left over. I give out candy as an incentive and I have found this to work extremely well. (Hangman is very popular here).

My Korean teachers are in the classroom to help me keep the students under control. Many times they don't listen to me, but when the Korean teachers speak up, they listen. I am a certified teacher back in Canada, so I find it very difficult to share my classroom with another teacher.

I hope this information is helpful. If you want to ask anymore questions, feel free to PM me and I'll try to help you out.