Korean Job Discussion Forums

alabamaman · Joined: 25 Apr 2006

Here's another approach I was thinking about. Pull all the desks out of class except for yours, and make the little twits stand the whole class. Eventually they will say something like teacher I want to sit down. That's a start!

alabamaman

jacl · Joined: 31 Oct 2005

bnrockin · Joined: 27 Feb 2006

Hey Q, allow me to offer two suggestions...dunno if they'll work or not. #1-maybe a small ice breaker at the beginning of class could help liven them up-totally off subject. Maybe something about pop-Korean culture or something

#2-do you think breaking them up into groups might help? Give each group a question that they must answer and then 1 person from each group will say it out loud. Maybe that would be some incentive to speak or at least the group might pressure one person to speak.

Good luck.

The Bobster · Joined: 15 Jan 2003

I thought I read in the OP that it is a listening class. This might be a reason why the students are confused that you want them to talk. I'm sure the text supplies other means for them to demonstrate if they understood what they heard besides talking about it ...

Listening classes are very boring to teach, and they do not require the skills of a native speaker of English. I can grok why you are dissatisfied. Not sure why you are being asked to teach this at all, as a Korean teacher could do it just as well, and a lot of your students probably signed up for it thinking they would not have to say anything. That might explain their silence.

Hope this helps.

kimchi_pizza · Posted: Wed Aug 02, 2006 1:29 pm Post subject:

I haven't read everyone's post, but based on personal experience, it isn't your fault and there's absolutely NOTHING you can do about it. There are now experiencing puberty, face (or loss of), boys and girls are actually different and their junior high school teachers are not fun and they are being taught to ONLY listen.

I taught Junior high level students in Japan, Taiwan and now I have a class exactly like yours. That is why I will never teach in a Junior High School. My hat's off to teacher's that do. They are the most difficult level to teach (for me at least).

Best you can do is keep a positive attitude and teach as if to a brick wall and hope for the best. Even games won't work unless it's sports related. Other than that, the only time you'll see any life in them is when they race to line up for class to be dismissed and then an all out assault for the bus! It's insane!!!

jinks · Joined: 27 Oct 2004 Location: Formerly: Lower North Island

Quinella
Last year I taught a listening class to middle schoolers in a hogwan, it was a lot like the class you describe. There were 3 foreign teachers at that school and I was the last one placed into that class in an effort to break through that icy wall of silence you talk about.
As other posters have pointed out (I actually did read every post before contributing):
Why bother with a foreign teacher in a listening class?
The students are geting mixed messages being expected to speak in a listening class
As I said, my experience in the stoney silence was last year, so I can't remember the details, but I do remember having a small degree of success. First off, I played hardball. A notoriously late arriver was not allowed into my class on my first day as their teacher. It caused a bit of a stir - I was seriously expecting a major bollocking, because the girl's mum was a church friend of the director - but it set the tone. Once I was known as hardball teacher I loosened up. It was the last class of the day, so I used my power to let them out early as a carot for participation.
When I asked a question to the class in general, if no response was forthcoming (and it usually wasn't), I would go around each student in random order, or in attendance sheet order, or in seating order, depending who I wanted my "victim" to be. I accepted "I don't know" as a valid answer from every student EXCEPT the last one. The last student had to try and formulate some kind of answer other than "I don't know". Being hardball teacher, I would not let the last student off the hook. The students caught on pretty quickly and sometimes a kid who knew the answer would say "I don't know" just to watch someone else squirm, sometimes a kid would make a stab at an answer to save his buddy from being the last one asked, and finally some students started to answer the questions just because they could. I actually became quite fond of this class; it was easy, press play and let them do the excercises in the book, but once they started to open up a bit the class became more fun for all of us. I also used to d1ck around with the volume on the cassette player, it made them mad and they would usually say something.
As far as letting them out early goes, I would stop the class 10-15 minutes early and give each student a marker and ask them each to write a sentence from their listening excercise on the whiteboard - they had to leave their books on their desks, of course - at first it was like trying to get blood out of a stone, but as soon as they realised they could go home once they had written a sentence it was all on.
Good luck with your class, I hope you can adapt some suggestions from my experiences to suit your quiet classroom. Please post your experience if you find some other way to break through.

Yu_Bum_suk · Joined: 25 Dec 2004

Have you tried starting off with a dialogue or a song just to get them saying something? What about bringing something like photos from America or your family to spark some personal interest? With a class like that I'd try bringing something new to start off every lesson.

Qinella · Joined: 25 Feb 2005 Location: the crib

Qinella · Joined: 25 Feb 2005 Location: the crib

Qinella · Joined: 25 Feb 2005 Location: the crib

Qinella · Joined: 25 Feb 2005 Location: the crib

Dan The Chainsawman · Joined: 05 May 2005

I bet if you get complaints it is mostly from that class also.

Teacher so boring.

Teacher is bad teacher.

blah blah blah.

Yu_Bum_suk · Joined: 25 Dec 2004

buster brown · Joined: 26 Aug 2005 Location: Seoul

Q,
When I first started at my unigwon, I got stuck with the silent middle school class. Most of my experience is with university and adult-level discussion classes and I didn't have much success drawing the kids out. About 5 or 6 weeks in, I spent 2 or 3 classes doing nothing but playing games. We didn't even open the textbooks during those classes. Afterwards, the kids were a little more open, smiled, answered when they were called on, etc. As a continuing reward for participating in the class, I usually play UNO with them during the final 5 or 10 minutes. To make it an English activity, they have to call out the color and number of the card as it's played. In the beginning I let them speak Korean during the games, but now there's a penalty if anyone does it...they're quite efficient at policing themselves too.

After the first term ended, I figured every student would be withdrawn and put in another school...but to my utter amazement, almost all of them returned. We also got a better series of books to use that was more age-appropriate, but the key for my class was the game times. Another good game that they really liked is called "Guess Who". Good luck...they'll come around eventually!

formerflautist · Joined: 30 May 2006

The human knot went really well with my high schoolers. My biggest problem was getting them to speak in English but they did have fun. Elementary kids weren't so hot at it because they had to hold the hand of the opposite sex. If there is a leader in that class it will work better because they'll be the one bossing everyone around. If no one steps up and takes charge then it doesn't work.