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Darkness
Joined: 12 Oct 2006
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 Posted: Mon Nov 20, 2006 4:34 am Post subject: New Teacher - I Need Help, I'm Lost!! |
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I need some help, I've never taught before and really have no idea what I'm doing. My school has basically introduced me to the kids for 2 days, then they told me which books were being taught in which class. Now I'm just basically reading out of the book everyday.
I have no idea what I'm doing, and I'm boring the kids and myself!!
Any suggestions on shit to keep the kids entertained, and learning would be so helpful!! |
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wylies99
Joined: 13 May 2006
Location: I'm one cool cat!
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| Posted: Mon Nov 20, 2006 4:39 am Post subject: |
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Yes- welcome to teaching in Korea. I've been there, and I'm sure many others have been there, too.
What has helped me is to think of myself as a standup comedian- at times. You have to find what works for you and your personality/appearance. |
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ChopChaeJoe
Joined: 05 Mar 2006
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Mon Nov 20, 2006 4:40 am Post subject: |
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Just bang on things like a gorilla, then sing in a falsetto at the top of your lungs.
Seriously though, you're going to have to provide some info about the ages, numbers, and abilities of your student, dontchathink? |
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Darkness
Joined: 12 Oct 2006
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| Posted: Mon Nov 20, 2006 4:43 am Post subject: |
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lol, I like the banging on things like a gorilla comment.
Sorry the kids are grade 3 to grade 8, I've got books like Hello America, and some other lame ass shit.
The kids for the most part can understand english, can read english, but couldnt form a sentence to save their parents lives.... |
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wylies99
Joined: 13 May 2006
Location: I'm one cool cat!
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| Posted: Mon Nov 20, 2006 4:44 am Post subject: |
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| Sounds like every hogwan in Korea. |
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sniperteam6
Joined: 08 Nov 2006
Location: Thailand, for now!
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| Posted: Mon Nov 20, 2006 5:00 am Post subject: Re: New Teacher - I Need Help, I'm Lost!! |
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Let me get this straight. You never taught before? They hired you without a tefl, tesol, celta, etc? What are you doing with the students? Why are you teaching?
The certificates mentioned do not make you a teacher, but it teaches basics on how to teach, lesson prep, realia, how to....
| Darkness wrote: |
I need some help, I've never taught before and really have no idea what I'm doing. My school has basically introduced me to the kids for 2 days, then they told me which books were being taught in which class. Now I'm just basically reading out of the book everyday.
I have no idea what I'm doing, and I'm boring the kids and myself!!
Any suggestions on *beep* to keep the kids entertained, and learning would be so helpful!! |
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Darkness
Joined: 12 Oct 2006
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| Posted: Mon Nov 20, 2006 5:02 am Post subject: |
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I never taught before, I have no certificate.
Why am I teaching? To be able to see this country, save some money, have an experience. Dont blame me, blame the system for hiring me. Anyway I didnt start this thread for you to pipe up and think you're all high and mighty. I started this thread for help, so if you arent going to help me STFU. |
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butlerian
Joined: 04 Sep 2006
Location: Korea
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| Posted: Mon Nov 20, 2006 6:17 am Post subject: Re: New Teacher - I Need Help, I'm Lost!! |
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| sniperteam6 wrote: |
Let me get this straight. You never taught before? They hired you without a tefl, tesol, celta, etc? What are you doing with the students? Why are you teaching?
The certificates mentioned do not make you a teacher, but it teaches basics on how to teach, lesson prep, realia, how to....
| Darkness wrote: |
I need some help, I've never taught before and really have no idea what I'm doing. My school has basically introduced me to the kids for 2 days, then they told me which books were being taught in which class. Now I'm just basically reading out of the book everyday.
I have no idea what I'm doing, and I'm boring the kids and myself!!
Any suggestions on *beep* to keep the kids entertained, and learning would be so helpful!! |
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Sniper, your comments are unacceptable. Chill, dude. A piece of paper does not make a teacher - natural ability and the determination to succeed does. |
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Woland
Joined: 10 May 2006
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Mon Nov 20, 2006 6:38 am Post subject: |
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| Darkness wrote: |
I never taught before, I have no certificate.
Why am I teaching? To be able to see this country, save some money, have an experience. Dont blame me, blame the system for hiring me. Anyway I didnt start this thread for you to pipe up and think you're all high and mighty. I started this thread for help, so if you arent going to help me STFU. |
Sigh. That's the attitude that encourages people to help. At the same time, you have asked, and that is a sign that you actually do care about doing a decent job. And doing a decent job will make your life easier.
Okay, I'll do what I can. First, you need to take some responsibility for improving the situation. No one here can give you enough advice to pull you through on that basis alone. You need to give yourself some bootstrap professional training. Are you in Seoul? If so, you may want to get to one of the bookstores and purchase some materials about teaching to get started on this. (If you are in Seoul, say so, and I'll offer up some suggestions about what to look for.)
A big part of teaching is planning. You want to get ahead and not walk into any class unprepared. With twenty years experience, I can walk into a class unprepared and survive, but I also know that I don't do as good a job when that happens as when I prepare. You spend time planning outside of class so that you can do as little as possible in class. If you are doing the work in class, they aren't and they need to be to be learning.
Take a look at the materials you have for each class. They are your starting point. Think about how much time you have for each class. Look at each activity in the materials and think about how you are going to do it and how long it will take. (You will be wrong; beginning teachers don't have the same sense of class time that experienced teachers do. Don't worry about this, as long as you plan too much and not too little.) Make a plan of what you want to cover in each class in this way.
Of course, you need to think about how you are going to do it in order to estimate time. You say that you are now walking through the book and boring yourself and the students. You need to start seeing the book as a pedagogical skeleton on which you have to hang the meat. Again, you get better at this with more experience, but you have to start somewhere. Take one activity and think of what different ways you could do this - consider variables like: whether the work is done individually, in pairs, in groups, or as a whole class; whether students will work at their desks or at the white board; how the students will present their answers. Consider to the ways you can change the materials to better match your environment. All these things can result in changes in how the activity works. Variety is good for keeping learners motivated.
You may be saying that all this is pretty vague. And it is. I don't know you and the particulars of your situation, so I can't be more specific. Dig into the teaching suggestions here on Dave's and other websites and figure out which specific ones will work for you. Steal good teaching ideas freely. Ask others for specific help when you can. You'll make mistakes and have messy days, but with effort, you will steadily get better. Don't take the failure of an activity you plan to heart; it might have worked on another day in another class. Go forward.
You can have a good time in Korea, and in fact, doing a good job at your work, which occupies so much of your time, will help make that so. So, it's worth the time you spend on it. It will get easier as you learn more and gain more confidence.
Sorry this is so vague, but it is good advice. Specific solutions can be given only for specific problems. |
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Woland
Joined: 10 May 2006
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Mon Nov 20, 2006 6:46 am Post subject: Re: New Teacher - I Need Help, I'm Lost!! |
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| butlerian wrote: |
| A piece of paper does not make a teacher - natural ability and the determination to succeed does. |
Just to be clear - natural ability has little to do with it, but determination to succeed does. Great teachers are made, not born.
The piece of paper is generally a sign of that determination. It's not a guarantee, but if I had to choose between hiring someone with a qualification and someone who didn't, all other things being even, I would always take the person with the qualification. One of my mentors in graduate school explained it in terms of Damon Runyon's reading of Ecclesiastes: The race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong... but that's the way to bet. |
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butlerian
Joined: 04 Sep 2006
Location: Korea
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| Posted: Mon Nov 20, 2006 6:50 am Post subject: Re: New Teacher - I Need Help, I'm Lost!! |
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| Woland wrote: |
| butlerian wrote: |
| A piece of paper does not make a teacher - natural ability and the determination to succeed does. |
Just to be clear - natural ability has little to do with it, but determination to succeed does. Great teachers are made, not born.
The piece of paper is generally a sign of that determination. It's not a guarantee, but if I had to choose between hiring someone with a qualification and someone who didn't, all other things being even, I would always take the person with the qualification. One of my mentors in graduate school explained it in terms of Damon Runyon's reading of Ecclesiastes: The race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong... but that's the way to bet. |
Ceteris paribus, of course you would prefer the teacher with the piece of paper, but there is much to it than that. Some teachers are born teachers, not necessarily made. Wake up dudes, we humans don't make everything. Some people are natural teachers, some people are natural fighters etc. We can all benefit from practice and a piece of paper, but it is usually a bonus and not a necessity. That is reality. |
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Woland
Joined: 10 May 2006
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Mon Nov 20, 2006 7:20 am Post subject: Re: New Teacher - I Need Help, I'm Lost!! |
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| butlerian wrote: |
| Ceteris paribus, of course you would prefer the teacher with the piece of paper, but there is much to it than that. Some teachers are born teachers, not necessarily made. Wake up dudes, we humans don't make everything. Some people are natural teachers, some people are natural fighters etc. We can all benefit from practice and a piece of paper, but it is usually a bonus and not a necessity. That is reality. |
What is the "much more [sic]" and how am I supposed to recognize it in the inexperienced?
The claim that some people are born teachers is not particularly helpful to OP in this case. It may even be taken as a message to pack it in. If you can't do it at the start, you can't do it at all. I think this is just so not true. I'm good at teaching, but it was not through any natural ability; I worked a lot to know the things I know. Of course, you can't generalize from my case alone. But in 20+ years of experience, I've never seen anyone walk in and do a great job without training. It's been merely different levels of holding back the tide. Research backs up this observation. In many ways, novice teachers are demonstrably different from experienced teachers. Experienced teachers are better able to deal with the complexity of the classroom and the planning and decision making processes that it requires. It's the learning process that makes the difference. I stand by my postition - great teachers are made. I also hold that this position has to be more hopeful for people like the OP, in that it suggests that he can get better at his job and not have a year of living hell doing something he's not got the talent for.
Sorry for the hijack, darkness, but this is an argument worth having. (But since I have to get up in the morning, I'm going to bed now.) |
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Darkness
Joined: 12 Oct 2006
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| Posted: Mon Nov 20, 2006 7:36 am Post subject: |
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It's ok, I just get frustrated when it seemed like you were mad at me for doing this job cause I didnt have some piece of paper. I'm not giving up, I'm not going home, I want to learn how to teach, and I want to learn how to do it good. Not only for my sanity, but for my kids enjoyment. I have had close to 40jobs in my life, no word of a lie, and I'm mid-20's. I get bored easily with jobs, due to lack of passion, but I know I can really enjoy this, maybe not right now, but soon. Once I figure out how to entertain the kids and myself, it's all gravy after that......
I've only been here a week, and I'm ready to get out, but I'm not going too. I somewhat enjoy my job, I'm bored, and lonely as hell at night....but I'm not fucken going home, I stick this shit out.....51 more weeks, 51 more weeks..... |
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sheba
Joined: 16 May 2005
Location: Here there and everywhere!
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| Posted: Mon Nov 20, 2006 7:36 am Post subject: |
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Im on the OPs side here.... Theres nothing more frustrating than having a problem and asking for help and other posters decide to kick you while youre down.... sure some of us are insecure, inexperienced, naive or whatever, if we were perfect than we wouldnt be asking for help in the first place. And sure some people are just retarded, but that doesnt give any of us the right to attack those people. We all make mistakes and if one of those mistakes is coming to Korea, then its something we learn the hard way. Hopefully we can learn from those mistakes thats all.....
Anyways, to the op....
Yes, so many of us have been there. In fact I wasnt even introduced to the kids - I arrived on monday and was handed books on tuesday and told to go and teach - they didnt even show me which classroom. So I feel for you. My advice is to keep teaching from the book until you are comfortable with your students - hopefully that wont take too long. Throw in some hangman or pictionary in the last 10 mins of the class, or ask the students what games they like. most of them know and like bingo. That will liven it up a little until youre settled. It took me about 3 weeks to get the hang of teaching (I was terrified when I first arrived, I hate getting up infront of people and speaking!). You learn a lot as you go, and you can pick up a lot from other teachers on this board or by surfing teaching resources on the net. Give it some time and dont be too hard on yourself. The school knew you werent a qualified teacher and that you have no experience (right?) so they wont have huge expectations of you. Genereally when you first arrive they just want to make sure the kids like you. I found hanging out with them between classes helps a lot with that - they tend to be so much better behaved then and actualy strike up a conversation rather than it having to be forced.
Teaching has a lot to offer, it can be very rewarding once you get to know your students and figure out exactly how things work. Korea can be an amazing place too.
Good luck and I hope everything works out for ya!
PS: I came here for the same reasons as you and I love it here. Lonliness was the only real problem Ive had in Korea, I am very close to my family and missed them tremendously in the first month. I have plenty of friends but truth be told, not many I could call real friends - and thats kinda lonely too. It was hard experiencing all this new exciting stuff, and no one back home can relate to it, or they get sick of hearing the stories and lose interest fast - and that adds to it as well. But remember as time goes on and you adjust to your new life here, meet people, and experience the things you came here to see and do, it does get so much better. (Not to mention the second six months goes SOOO much quicker than the first!) |
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sniperteam6
Joined: 08 Nov 2006
Location: Thailand, for now!
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| Posted: Mon Nov 20, 2006 8:42 am Post subject: oh brother |
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First off, I was not flaming the OP. Re-read my post. I was asking a hard question.
As a parent spending ridiculous amounts of Won to send my kid to be taught by someone who has not taught before... humm, would I be happy?
The OP failed to do any research prior to starting in this adventure.
To help the OP, let me suggest he/she spend a huge amount of time going through online links to lesson plans, conversations, role playing. Yes, we all love roleplaying. Koreans like it and it creates huge laughs, breaks the ice (find ice breakers on davesesl) and TRY TO ENJOY IT. Sing cocaine by Eric Clapton. You would be surprised how students who has been stepforded all his or her life would enjoy a radical, rebelious song like that.
"Don't blame me, blame the system that hired me". Same as "Billy, why did you get run over? Don't blame me, blame the car that hit me cause I was reading while crossing the road". Sigh....
Now, at the OP's request, I will STFU  |
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