Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Kid65]

So at my public school I have always had a forty minute (15:30-16:10) afterschool class, four times a week. It's always given me a little stress figuring out what to do as there's always been different numbers of children of wildly varying standards every day. Usually I'll do a little teaching, followed by a game or two, and sometimes a short English animated story.

Well now, the number of children has doubled, and their level of English varies wildly. I have:

1 Kindergarten.
4 1st graders.
3 2nd graders.
5 3rd graders.
3 4th graders.
1 5th grader.

I've asked my handler what she expects me to do with them, and she just smiled shyly and muttered (questioningly) "activities, teaching, games". Excellent. I have a co-teacher in there, but she speaks no English. She understands me a little, but seems too shy to speak.

So basically, i'm wondering what you would do with this class? Any advice/ideas are appreciated.

Thanks in advance...

[some waygug-in]

google up kr.kids yahoo.

I know the site looks all Korean, but there are quite a bit of useful English resources.

http://kr.infant.kids.yahoo.com/infantzone/index.html?service=english&mode=sublist&cate_no=145


and starting on about page 6 of the song collection....

http://kr.infant.kids.yahoo.com/infantzone/index.html?service=song&mode=sublist&cate_no=117&sort=latest&endpg=11&pg=6

[KYC]

1) You're very lucky to have a teacher with you for your afterschool classes. I am on my own and it's soooo hard with the younger ones. They have no attention span. I sing a lot with them...for about 20 minutes. Then I use starfall to teach a bit of phonics accompanied by 1 or 2 worksheets. Then I either have some sort of power point based games, craft making activities, wordsearch or hidden pictures.

2) That's one crazy mix of students. I would definitely say something about that. The levels are just off the charts and too hard to work with. When I first came, I had grades 4,5,6 for afterschool classes...and that was hard. They've split the grades up now so it's easier for me to plan the curriculum.

[Kid65]

waygug-in, thanks for those links, they'll certainly come in handy. I've never done songs with the afterschoolers before so that's a lot of material for me to work with. The actual resource zone is great too. I'll have to get the co-teacher to sign up (my hangul isn't good enough).

KYC, yeah, i'm certainly glad (and grateful) I've got a co-teacher in there with me. Singing is certainly a great thing to do with them, and works (to a degree) with all ages. I'm currently using starfall when i'm teaching the first graders, but yeah, there's some useful stories on there that I forgot about. What kind of craft activities do the kids enjoy?

As for the crazy mix, well yes I have mentioned it, but i'm basically just being lumped with the kids whose parents don't want them home too early. I don't think it's really about the English, more about making up my contractual hours.

Anyway, thanks for the advice, it's certainly given me something to work with.

[some waygug-in]

You don't have to sign up or anything, but a co-teachers help would be good.

The top link I posted has animated stories in English with sub-titles, so you can do stories, have the kids repeat line by line or just watch or both.

Just click on the picture for the story you want: Example:

"The ant and the grasshopper"

When the story screen loads, play with it a bit and figure out how to use the features, pretty simple mostly.

The songs are good for a warm up or for the last 10 mins of class, but you can use them any way you'd like.

There are also some other cartoon videos, but I can't remember how to find them.

Cheers

[cruisemonkey]

I wouldn't do it.

[KYC]

The songs that somewaygug-in posted are the sames one I used for my youngins. HOWEVER, singing for fun stops at 5th grade. My 5th graders will occasionally sing the song in the text but they do not do it for enjoyment. They sing because I ask...make them Songs only works for grades 1-3 in my opinion.

I googled alphabet activities. We have made alphabet snakes, alphabet apartments, alphabet trains, A-Z booklets, etc.

[Kid65]