Korean Job Discussion Forums

[khyber]

This is the second kid i've had who, doesn't refuse to speak, but looks lost when ask a question.
The KICKER is that this kid KNOWS the answer; he's a smart cracker but until he talks, you'd NEVER know it.

A different teacher managed to get the first kid out of this funk. When I asked her how, all i got was "I dunno, just talk to him and be patient"...etc,

Of course i'd tried everything i could have possibly tried in class (extending wait time, one on one, isolation, sensory bombardment...[for lack of a better way of putting it])...i was stuck. I mean, NO exaggeration, i tried everything i was taught and i could imagine

Now i have a NEW kid who seems very similar to the first.

My question:
Do you think it just takes certain personality match ups to unlock some of the overly quiet (but, i should note NOT shy...he NEVER shuts up with his friends) kids?


as a side note:
two things

1) I have been trying to figure out proper wait time with students/classes. Does anyone have any "max out" time?
2) i didn't notice this until it was a little too late. When i first came back, i started noticing my students would be SO slow to volunteer answers, or to read. So i started choosing them myself. Sadly, now i do it all the time.
The last few days, i've been trying to curb that and ask for volunteers but the class has become frozen in their tracks. If they don't hear their name, not a movement is made..
So basically, as a warning, don't do that!
Any suggestions?

[OiGirl]

Some kids just won't talk until they are sure they can get it right. It's an uncommon, but not unusual stage in learning a first language. I just wait, and usually after 5 months, a kid is ready to talk, but it may take some 2 or 3 years.

For wait time, if you can see the kids' faces clearly, I wait until I see their eyeballs roll up in their head...that shows me that they are indeed accessing their stored memory and not just waiting for me to give up and call on someone else. Then I make a slow count to 10 before I go on.

If you want to make sure you are calling on all kids, you can have a jar with popsicle sticks with their names on them and pull one and then call on that child. But I think you want them to volunteer after having used a system like this. You could give them each two tokens and when they answer a question they give it to you...or give them a sticker each time they answer.