Korean Job Discussion Forums

ulsanchris · Joined: 19 Jun 2003 Location: take a wild guess

I have a class of grade six students that talk throughout the class and never listen to me. When i tried to make the class more fun, they just ignored me. When i was polite they ignored me. When I yelled and (unofrtunately) lost my temper they just kept talking.
Lately i have refused to talk whenever a student is talking. The results so far: first class i basically said nothing. I wrote on the board "if you talk, I won't talk." Second class; they started to catch on, i got to talk a couple of times, in the third class I got to speak a bit more, but (mostly the girls) kept on talking. I think this is slowly working. Each class is a bit better each time. Maybe in a couple of weeks i will get to talk the whole class through.
The good things now are that i don't get angry and i don't waste my voice trying to talk over them.

Blue Flower · Posted: Thu Jan 08, 2004 3:29 am Post subject:

Thats a good method, but be careful. the less you talk, the less they have to talk over you.

Make sure you evaluate it soon

also it takes balls to stand in front of a class for a full period, and say nothing!

ryleeys · Joined: 22 Dec 2003 Location: Columbia, MD

I had problems with a kid talking and I made him get up and sing "I'm a little teapot" (a middle school kid)... he told me no so I was like, allright, lemme go get my director and the big stick she carries around (never seen her hit a kid, I think it's an intimidation thing).

15 seconds later, singin' like a bird... never spoke out of turn again...

IconsFanatic · Joined: 19 Jan 2003

There's a pressure-point nerve on the trapezoid (shoulder) muscle.

When my kids are w*nkers, I pinch their pressure-point.

They squeal in playful agony, but eventually it irritates them enough that they learn to shut up.

Train them like the Pavlovian dogs that they are! Laughing

Oona · Joined: 05 Jan 2004 Location: Canada

I've never taught Korean children before so what I say may not apply here, but in my experience simply refusing to talk would not work. My kids would gladly talk among themselves for the entire class if I let them. Nor would management put up with it...as I am being paid to teach them something.

This is where having a toolkit of interesting activities comes in very handy. If you can successfully capture their interest, then they will be more engrossed with the task at hand than talking to their classmates. Pretty challenging, though. Remember, what may seem to be a great activity to you isn't necessarily interesting to them. Sometimes it is surprising what kids will be attracted to. I find it helps to keep a lot of activities in mind so I can quickly switch activities when one doesn't work, keep the activity to a reasonable time based on their age, and use a variety of activities to rouse or quiet the group as needed.

I think it's much more effective to prevent yourself from losing control of the situation, than trying to remedy it afterwards.

kiwiboy_nz_99 · Joined: 05 Jul 2003 Location: ...Enlightenment...

ulsanchris · Joined: 19 Jun 2003 Location: take a wild guess

AS I have said the class has gotten somewhat better over the last couple days and some students (mainly the boys) have quited down. They tell me to teach but i keep telling them that i won't talk if one of the students is talking. The girls in the class are mostly princesses and self absorbed.
It is a little strange not to talk or ask the children to be quiet. I usually just ask once or twice for them to be quiet and just wait. eventually they are quiet and i start to teach. If they start to talk while i am talking i stop.
AFter a few minutes of the students chatting they stop and i start again.
They are also noisy and not well behaved for the korean teacher as well, but she has told me that they are a lot better behaved the past few days. It seems like this might work. I hope it does.
I have tried to liven the class up with class activities, but they don't seem to work very well, and the students are generally noisier. Also they are talking before i get into the class and its hard for me to explain a class activity or get their attention if they are already wrapped up in their own little worlds.
As for punishment. I find punishment doesn't work very well. For one i have to stop the class and send the student out (during which progress she or he becomes a hero). This is disruptive in the class and its hard to get them back on track. If i send them out in the hall too often then they want to be sent out. They ask to be sent out of the class. I find in most cases punishment doesn't work. I also find the idea of positive reinforcement has its weaknesses. once the reward dissapears so does the students incentive to behave.
I will keep you guys posted if my experiment works.

Saxiif · Joined: 15 May 2003 Location: Seongnam

For older elementary students just threaten to make a boy sit in the middle of a group of girls or vice versa. It works wonders. If they refuse drag em out of the classroom.

ryleeys · Joined: 22 Dec 2003 Location: Columbia, MD

Actually, I call myself babo in front of my students... whenever I mess up an explanation in Korean or write one of their names wrong I look at them and say, "babo migook yin" and we laugh and move on.

I am curious about what other things I'm called... but I would never ban all Korean... in a way, I encourage them to use Korean 50% of the time and English 50% of the time. Anytime I have them write something, I have them write it in both Korean and English. Some of my kids are young enough that the concepts I'm explaining in English they don't even know in Korea (i.e. what time it is). I know this goes against alot of the teaching philosophies here, but for me it seems to be working well enough. Plus, that's how I was always taught to learn a foreign language...