Korean Job Discussion Forums

[rayjoy]

I'm new to teaching EFL to kids but so far my 3rd-5th graders have been pretty receptive and teachable. My 6th graders, not so much. Also, it doesn't help that the co-teacher for my 6th grade classes knows very little English and wants me to keep doing the same songs/activities over and over, when clearly, they weren't that great to begin with. It's difficult to communicate with him and get suggestions.

So what I need are some solid songs, stories, games, activities to do with the 6th graders. I have learned that when things involve movement, I will get stares that say "You are embarrassing me and yourself." I've been scouring ESL sites and found some semi-interesting things but I guess I'm looking for activities that take no more than 5 minutes and can involve most people. It seems many on ESL sites take the whole hour or involve just a few people.

Thanks in advance.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

Your experience sounds very, very typical. It's mid-September. You have about 8-12 lessons with each class left. Get some ppt games and videos for this year and next year learn how to be a hard-ass with your grade 6ers from day one.

It could be worse. I had a friend whose first ever teaching assignment was being a grade 6 homeroom teacher. If you think a few hours a week is tough try six every day.

[sojourner1]

I calculate that I have 30 to 45 more lessons of each of my classes as I have the same classes 2 to 3 times a week, but it would be about 12 to 15 if teaching each class only 1 time a week. I think my 6th graders will be seeing more movies and games too. They're at the point where they lose interest in childish style of things such as the alphabet song and Sesame Street so something else is needed such as Disney movies. Yes, I find 6th grade to be a bit challenging as they talk, talk, talk, and won't listen. Group/team based games work great, but are a real challenge to organize and they sure are LOUD. Teaching like you do with most other classes doesn't work since they will over power your voice from being heard in noise volume and not listen. One of my 6th grade classes is 35 students in size (LOUD!) I have for the 1st 2 hours on Thursday mornings and the other is 9 students (not loud, but rude and disobedient) that I have for 3 hours on Friday. They're at that stage where they think they are getting too cool for school where they need to be very physically active more so.

After my noisy 2 hour 6th grade class this morning, half of them got bent over on all 4's in the hall and spanked by their Korean homeroom teacher for being so unruly, loud, obnoxious, and incoherent. Unfortunately she doesn't provide support during the classes and just tells me since day one that they are noisy and unteachable. I still try, but I'm finding my 4th and 5th grade to be doing much better by leaps and bounds.

I remember when I was in 5th and 6th grade how hard it was for the teacher and how she'd get so upset with us. We got spanked a lot and this is when I got numerous spankings myself for refusing to listen, disobeying, and being rude.

I just don't want to be a hard ass, but I was hard on my new small 6th grade class I got last Friday for the 1st time. I expect they will learn something while the big class will play around. I'm not taking it to heart as I know they're not bad kids, they're just going through a confusing time in their lives so don't expect much out of 6th graders. The got to learn the basics before they get to that stage or it's a done deal that they're behind their peers who did receive English classes at a younger age and have a great 6th grade homeroom teacher.

[thatwhitegirl]

Do you want to play games with them? Work on vocabulary, pronunciation?

If you do want to play learning games with them, try spelling races, charades or pictionary (they must use a complete sentence).
Or try phonetic telephone, which is quite good and kids seem to like it. Or word association, or quiz games.

Tongue twister are good as well. Do them at the beginning of every class as a warm up. The routine is good for them, makes them feel safer or something like that.

Anyway, good luck. There are quite a few ideas on this board, and other websites, but it takes some searching.

[ESL Milk "Everyday]

I teach grade six for most of my week... I have good days and bad days. The biggest things are making everything a competition, and doing group work. Don't just do singing, make it a singing fight... don't just do a game, make sure it's a game for some kind of reward. Don't just do listen and repeat, take two students and get them to stand up and whoever can remember everything accurately will get a sticker or a point or whatever. Have lower students fighting lower students, higher students fighting higher students, and middle students fighting middle students... for everything. Always be testing them and they'll stay alert.

[D.D.]

I play Bugs Bunny for my 6th graders. I stop the video every minute and they need to make comments on what they are seeing. No comments and the video does not go on. This keeps them talking. "Bully for bugs" is a good video.

They like the Sasquatch video called "messin with sasquatch" . They make mind maps after the video for all the words they know about the video.

I believe conversation classes are about getting them to use they words they already know, so I don't bogg them down with too much new vocab.

See if the better students can write a sentence about the video using 7 words or more. "And " is a great word to teach them how to make their sentences longer.

The Elephant Song (youtube) is also very popoular with my 4-6th graders.

Get some easy songs on youtube that have the lyrics and get them to listen and sing along. If you can blank out the screen have them listen to the song one line at a time. Get them to write down what they just heard.

This will be tough but it teaches listening and most students need lots of work in this area.

Get them to start doing some basic writing as well. Again writing sentences with 7 words or more is a good idea.

Don't push all the kids to talk. Let them give feedback on what they see and hear openly to the class.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

[rayjoy]

Thanks for the tips so far! In our classes, we follow the elementary school textbook almost to a T (this is my co-teacher's first time teaching) and I'm usually in charge of warm-up activities and maybe a short game at the end. My co-teacher has a tough time "thinking outside of the box" and he saw me do a sing-along song with 5th graders and said, oh that's great, let's do that for 6th graders. Yeah, that was torture getting the 6th graders to go along with it. Today he said, "Yes, do your song again!"

Anyways, thanks for the ideas and if other people have more suggestions, please post them.

Also, I loathe the "too cool for school" attitude. I'd be a terrible middle/high school teacher.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

[pkang0202]

My 6th graders are a lost cause. I recorded on my cell phone today as a video. The quality came out bad since its a camera phone. I'll bring my digicam next week and record them in action.

I'll post it up on youtube and the world can see just how bad my 6th graders are.

I was thinking about visiting each of the student's houses one night and show the parents the video of their kids in my class.

[KYC]

The 6th graders at my previous PS were ANGELS. I rarely had to raise my voice at them. However, they were troublesome at first too. We got to know each other really well and they knew my expectations and toleration.

My new 6th graders...holy crap. My ct doesn't discipline them at all. She tries to motivate them with candy while I give them all dirty looks for misbehaving. I yelled at a student today and took his thigns away from him. She rubbed his head and smiled at him..

Everyone's surprised that i'm such a strict disciplinarian cuz I'm female..and so small. But I hate bad kids. I want to take the discipline into my own hands but it seems like I can't. It sucks.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

[D.D.]

Ray joy I suggest that you lay down the law and teach what you want to teach. If you know the most why sit back and let ignorant people run the show.

Most of the grade 6 teachers have no idea. Try to bully your way into a leadership role. Or you can sit with your tail between your legs for the rest of your career.

It is best to be yourself even if you get fired. Go where people can receive your gifts.

[Horangi Munshin]

[rayjoy]