Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Mix1]

I work at a private language institute (hagwon) and I am the first and only native speaker of English at the school.

PROBLEM: The school has no idea how to setup a class for a native speaker, and the teaching guidelines and materials they give me are insufficient. This affects both student learning and satisfaction, and also my job performance and reputation as a teacher. To compound the problem, I am dependent on the Korean teachers for class guidelines and instruction, and they rarely provide me with anything meaningful, and that's if they provide anything at all.

SOLUTION: I would like to design some classes that are actually beneficial and meaningful towards students progress in English, based on some of the guidelines I list below (related to TOEFLibt testing). I don't know yet how much freedom I have over this process, but I would like some advice, ideas, or links to information on how to structure these classes.

CONTEXT: My situation now is this; I must teach what the Korean teachers give me to teach. Currently, it is the Korean teachers' job to submit the class guidelines, materials, and activities to me, and I teach the class using these materials. Unfortunatley, the material and instruction they give me is weak and unstructured at best, and this is starting to reflect badly on my classes. I do the best I can with what I am given, but it is all very unstructured, and in many cases they give me nothing at all and just say something like "teach them whatever you want today." This is of course usually 2 minutes before my class starts.

Quite often the Korean teachers give the students material to memorize, and I check their speech and presentation performance. The students rarely memorize or take this seriously, so often my class just consists of students reading the material.

My job is to evaluate the students on their memorization and speaking skills, and sometimes their writing skills also. But again, the problem seems to be that the Korean teachers just view my class as some kind of cheap add-on to the Korean teachers class and the students rarely take the work seriously. I'm not sure what to do at this point. I don't plan on being a teacher forever, but I would like to do a good job while working as one, especially since people are paying for my "services." I realize also that this is a business, and one of the main functions of a native speaker at these businesses is to have them just "for show" as it were, but that's hardly the best use the business can make of them. At some point there must be substance to the classes or the students and parents don't see any concrete benefits.

This institute touts itself as a high level school for students who want to score well on the TOEFLibt , enter foreign high schools, or eventually go abroad to study. They have classes divided on age and level, which concentrate on the areas of the test; listening, writing, reading comprehension, vocabulary, etc. My classes are an extension of the Korean teachers' classes, yet they treat the whole native speaker program like a joke. This of course reflects badly on my classes, which often lack structure, since I can rarely plan anything based on what they give me.

Often I just end up improvising or teaching "on the fly", where some classes must design or think up a good lesson or activity immediately, while other times I cannot do this. It has been good for my creativity, but also a bit stressful as I cannot always make every class meaningful and fun without any guidelines.

I must discuss these issues with the boss of the hagwon tomorrow. However, I would like to have some viable ideas to present to him for alternatives as well. If anyone could help out or point me in the right direction that would be great! Any comments appreciated also. Thanks!

[cbclark4]

I think your reading too much into it.

Determining the students level and abilities and start doing stuff that makes them speak.

Repetition.

Mostly get them to pronounce the "F" "V" and "Th" sounds.


Have them develop a self introduction and have them practice that.

More repetition.

Try some of the stuff at boggles or esl junction.

Teach them some English songs (take me Home Country Roads),
make them listen and figure out the words fill in the blanks.

Teach them a poem or nursery rhyme, use the vocabulary.

If your students are advanced, then move into topic discusions and debates.