Korean Job Discussion Forums

[tombirner]

I haven't ever taught adults... I now have to teach the teachers in my school once a week for forty minutes.

Any advice?? I'm a little nervous. Kids I can kind of get away with anything, but I can't imagine acting the same way with a bunch of adults.

[Juregen]

There are different types of adult classes.

I roughly have 2 types.

One I call the Ladies. These are mothers who can spare a couple of hours every day improving their English.

The other you could call Business. They are mostly coming to class after work.

Then there are also teachers ...., but that is a very small group indeed.

Each group has a slightly different approach.

[Cougar]

Theres no doubt that the difference in teaching adults and children is night and day. Children you can get away with almost anything, cover up almost any mistake you might make but on the other hand you have to discipline them more. Adults are more invested in the class. They chose to be there whereas the children were told to be there by their parents. Typically adults will not be afraid to challenge you if they perceive you as doing the job carelessly which means you should be more prepared. However you also don't have to spend as much time trying to control their behavior, although I have seen some interesting things happen during business classes, ha.

[ttompatz]

[bardolf]

From your post I can easily guess that a) you are very young and inexperienced here in Korea and b) you wish very very much to do your best and make a good impression.

These two factors, taken together, practically guarantee that things will go well for you in the end, so try not to worry too much. Why? Because the Korean adults that you will be facing will be immediately impressed by your obvious motivation and good intentions; and your youth and inexperience will also impress them favorably. There will be no problem, barring the unlucky presence of some malcontented sourpuss, who may make more noise than the others, but, believe me, will neither be representative of, nor supported by, the rest.

Some practical advice: 1) Speak very slowly and as SIMPLY as you can, and 2) Learn from your mistakes. The second point is by far the most difficult. Few people actually take the trouble to learn from their mistakes, because it is very difficult and humbling to ADMIT to oneself that one has in fact MADE a mistake. Really; think about it; how do you feel when you are forced by circumstances to see that you have in fact cocked the whole thing up? It can be quite nasty, and it brings out all one's powers of denial and rationalization. I will say no more on this point other than to point out that an oft-mentioned virtue of great leaders, for example Julius Caesar, is that they were able to overcome the negative emotional experience of failure, analyze where they went wrong (certainly not without some strong emotions and feelings of humiliation, if you like), and LEARN FROM THEIR ERRORS. To compare small things with great, every teacher must constantly do this; make a mistake in front of students, be somehow reproached for it, and resolve to take a new approach the next time. You can do it too.

[cdninkorea]

If their speaking abilities are decent, here's what I would do:

Make it into a discussion class. Buy a conversation book filled with discussion activities. For each activity, they get into small groups, switching partners and groups frequently (but not too frequently because they hate moving too often).

Example: they pretend they are going to be on a desert island for one month and are allowed to take five things with them. Have them write what they would take. When that's done, they have to decide on five things as a group, not each. The activity is to debate what to bring.
You can print off short newspaper articles along with discussion questions and have them talk about that. Etcetera.

Doing this kind of thing may cause them to complain that you aren't doing much, but in fact you are: you're setting up activites and listening for mistakes, which you can take up as a class for the last ten minutes each day you meet. Emphasize that conversational fluency comes with practice, and listening to the native speaker is not the end all and be all; talking to other learners is good too, especially with you around listening.

Anyway, those are my ideas. Best of luck.

[ttompatz]

With all due respect to the previous posters (Your posts are great BTW) I think you made one incorrect assumption - that the teachers are coming to his class because they want to.

In an elementary PUBLIC school you will find, more often that not, that this is NOT the case and it is NOTHING like teaching adults in a hakwon (where they:
a: pay to be there and
b: are motivated to learn (or they wouldn't be there).

Most of the time, the teachers are in the English class because they were told to be (usually to fill in the FTs required 22 classes with SOMETHING other than chair warming and web surfing).

Take the coffee and tea in with you and ASK them what they want to do.

IF you get no real response you can try some of the above suggestions above but you will find that very soon your attendance will drop down to 1 or 2 because the others are "too busy" with something (anything else) rather than actually show up and work in the English class.

Tea break and fun conversations will most likely be the order of the day.

.

[el_magico]

Actually I'm in the same boat...

My plan is to either:
- print out a news story every week, spend some time on reading/vocab/idioms and then discuss it


- get a good conversation book and follow it


More tips are welcome!

[cdninkorea]

[ttompatz]

[ernie]

my advice is to relax, find out what they expect out of the class, and make a plan but don't worry about finishing x number of pages per class. make it more of a conversation class, with focus on comfort level and idioms rather than perfect grammar.

i know this sounds lazy, but 90% of the adults i've taught have day jobs and don't want to study in their free time (would you?). DON'T give homework. if some students want something to do during the week on their own, give them a preview of the next lesson.

homework is a sure fire way to kill a class because they will be too embarrassed to show up if they haven't finished their homework. also realize that adults have much more sensitive egos. don't correct individuals, correct the group. wait until a break in the action, and say something like: "a common mistake i hear is ______. you should say _____ instead."

[sheba]

Asking them what they want to do is a good idea. If they really want to learn, then you can prepare lessons accordingly... if they were forced there by the boss then something fun is usually the way to go.

I had to teach the teachers at my school for a while, they didnt want to go and neither did I but the boss made us... they had to report what they learned after each class so I gave out short articles, usually easy light-hearted ones (lifestyle etc not world politics), introduced vocab, answered questions and discussed it a bit, also taught common expressions... then we did some activities and played games for the rest of the lesson. Also tea and coffee is a good idea.

[PRagic]

1) The older the student, the more clout they carry.
2) The oldest male student will most probably go Alpha in a hurry.
3) Try not to concentrate you teaching efforts only on the hotties.
4) Don't try to be a hardass. It doesn't fly.

[jangsalgida]

[schwa]

Asking adult students what they want is a nice & necessary gesture but nine times out of ten they have no idea how to answer that question. They're conflicted with shoulds but generally just want a pleasant easy interaction.

The OP is unspecific about who his teacher-students will be.

Elementary & non-english teachers definitely respond best to friendly chats over coffee or tea. Get them talking about themselves, their families, & their daily doings, get to know them & establish a rapport, then you're sailing. Hard lessons, grammar drills, & corny games & roleplays will be really off-putting. Breakingnews.com is overrated. Dear Abby is a classroom cliche if they've studied with other foreigners before.

Learn their interests & present relevant themes & questions. Be humorous. Share simple personal information & information about your home culture but dont talk too much. Make sure you invite everyone to speak a roughly equal amount in class. Gently correct them. Thats what they really want.

If your teacher-students are secondary school english teachers, its a bit more complex. Some might enjoy the casual practice route suggested above but others might expect real teaching, especially higher-level vocab & evidence of thoughtful lesson prep. Again, dont overspeak & do coax the shy ones. If your teachers are this level, invite immediate feedback about the tone of your lessons & what they'd like -- they'll say.

Teaching teachers can be very satisfying. Best luck.