Korean Job Discussion Forums

[davyteacher]

What I would say about giving the marbles or points to the students and the winning class get a party, try to keep the points as close as possible though, for example,

Class A 34p
Class B 29p
Class C 39p

Because if one class is clearly in the lead and will never be caught up, then the other classes will say, "bugger it, we`re not going to win, let`s riot anyway.

[JAMZ]

[Sage Monkey]

[inthewild]

So an update, all I need to do is have fun with the kids and do things remotely related to English.

I'm no entertainer. None of my teachers when I was in 4th through 6th grade were either. But I'll just see what kind of stuff I can do to mess around I guess.

edit: and I'm not complaining. This job is great and anyone who was a class clown when they were in school would love it. That's just not what I am, but that doesn't mean I cant adapt.

[harixseldon]

I feel for you, man. I have similar problems with my younger classes. I haven't been teaching very long also and I also didn't expect to "entertain" in my classes. I first tried being very serious but the kids got bored, then I tried to do all fun things but the director asked me to do more serious lessons. Right now I'm settling on a middle ground. I agree that hour classes (I teach hour classes also) are too long for 10 year olds. I give them a break or play an English based game during the last 10 minutes of class if they've been well behaved during class. It gives them something to look foward to.

I'm not sure what your co-worker/boss situation is like but my director and his wife (both of which teach English in my hagwon) have been really helpful when I came to them with my classroom problems.

I think I might start using the sticker cards also.

[Grotto]

do you have a computer in your classroom? any type of media?

One site I use often is stupidvideos.com there are thousands of videos on it, little clips and 90% of them are funny 10% a bit disturbing! But I sometimes choose one and play it once the main work has been done. If they dont work they dont watch....happytreefriends,com is another site that kids love.

Stickers not working? Tired of punishing and going crazy let them police the classroom for you. If half your students want to watch the video they will keep the other students in line.

Cartoons and comics from the web are also good incentives.

I recently photocopied an entire spider man comic book. When all the students have done their homework they get another page.....if one student didnt do their homework....sorry kids, no homework no page. I have gone from never getting homework to about 95% success rate.

[captain kirk]

'All they want to do is have fun and run around all the time'.
They shouldn't be doing that, they can want to run around and want to 'have fun all the time', but that's it.
Yeah, it's good to come up with innovative things and be like an uncle having fun with them, and learning English at the same time.
But in the long run, there's the long run. They don't want to be there. And they ought to know that it's a job they're doing, like you're doing a job teaching them. They're professional students. And if you get a friendly but strict mood going they can know, all the time, that they've put longings on hold and are doing their job. And you can joke 'on the side', and all the time in the course of going through the routine. Just like people joke around at work. Smiles, quips, laughter.
If kids are saying/sighing, 'oh, chemi opsa', I usually call them on it. It's unprofessional of them, they're pofessional students. It's not your problem as a teacher, they've been given too much slack/not enough encouragement/sense of a running class which values doing the work. Touching all the bases, getting done what has to be done.
About wanting to run around. They ought to be sitting in their chairs, book in front of them, and ready to respond, fire off responses. I have two teams and teams rack up points, ongoing through the class. At the end everybody gets a candy, with the winning team getting an extra, special candy. They like green grape ball hard candy, or 'Chang podo'. The special, winner candy these days are caramels from Homeplus which are cheap, and are from Brazil, if you can believe it.
If kids start rocking in their chairs I say, 'don't surf your chair!'. If I have to remind them too many times up they go, arms up, in the corner. Sounds like totalitarianism but that kind of unprofessional 'conduct' leads to more distracting behaviour. They have to be given a framework which will help them to concentrate, be on their toes and ready to respond.
The teacher has to have confidence in their rule, and follow through. This will be tested and there will be upstarts and attempts at rebellion. A good school will let the teacher teach their way, including class management, not interfere. They don't want to get involved in class management, because they're busy with the parents on the phone and heaps of other things. So consider yourself 'master and commander at the far side of the world', like in the movie
You're pretty much 'in your own world' respecting yourself in all this, and you have to be strong about it. That classroom is YOURS. Hell or high water

[d503]