Korean Job Discussion Forums

[MollyBloom]

My school hasn't told me what the 2nd graders should be learning this year, and when I asked to speak to someone about it, I was told everyone is too busy. So....

I already taught 3 out of 6 classes: did introductions, name tags, rules, and the levels of every class are completely different from one another. Some classes speak well, but can't write the alphabet. Some don't know the alphabet. Some can hardly speak.

I'm thinking of getting the Let's Go 2 book and CD and doing that in class for 20 minutes then a supporting activity for the other 20 minutes. The other foreign teacher at my school suggested I do the book for half the class then let them color for the other half, or do an activity where they can draw or something like that.

I also have access to pre-school and kindy books from the US, and these have activities where they can color and draw, practice the alphabet, learn numbers, etc. So I am also thinking I can make a nice booklet with these materials and perhaps use these instead of buying a book.


My school did tell me last semester that they want more "materials" and less power points, which I think is ridiculous, especially for younger learners because video/fast-paced visuals capture attention.

I'm guessing I should be concentrating on speaking and listening, rather than writing and reading....is this correct?

But what should I be teaching them, and in what order? I am thinking these (but please feel free to add on to the list):

March: alphabet/animals
April: colors/shapes
May: family/adjectives of appearance
June: months/weather
July: body parts/clothing

Other: ?

[Robot_Teacher]

Since there's no support shown due to no one caring what you teach, just sing fun kids songs, teach basic phonics(http://www.funfonix.com/), and show treats like 11 minute episodes of Spongybobby Squarepants. You can start classes with basic introductions like, "How are you? How's the weather? What day is it? and other basics like numbers, colors, shapes, clothing, and body parts. And then do one of these karaoke videos, teach phonics, do another song or two, and then you're finished or almost finished depending on the time. Maybe do a game or other fun activity at the end. I'm not such a gamester, but I'll have a speaking ball to elicit participation such as speaking or answering a simple question. They go nutz over that one.

For childrens karaoke videos, search for the user, "icnelly," on Youtube.com who is a native teacher in Korea. This user has great vids the kids love such as BINGO, Apples and Bananas, and Do the Monkey. I downloaded the videos, put them on a USB flashdrive, play them on school computers, and even sing along. The youngsters love these.

[MollyBloom]

Thanks for the tips! I have used ICNELLY before for a new things, but I will check out that user's other videos.

[Thewhiteyalbum]

Idon't know if this was the right thing to do or not...but I had an alphabet phonics book and each lesson we spent time on one letter, working our way through. For example: the letter 'A'. We practiced pronunciation, then we learnt about 5 or 6 'A' words.

10 minutes singing/ warm up/ listening game/review
5 minutes phonics game (line jump or something)
10 minutes introducing and practicing the language
5 minutes writing the letter and the words
10 minutes game using the language
(this was sometimes played out differently!)

It was definitely not perfect, but it seemed to work. The kids knew what was expected of them as we got into a pattern of learning.

Every 5 or 6 letters we had a review lesson which was almost all singing and games.

Later on in the year we started on colours and body parts and weather and other simple stuff, as I tried to build up their sentences:

"How many arms does the monster have?"
"The monster has 3 green arms"

My kids are country kids and a little slow, but they had fun and picked things up really quickly!

[Draz]

[lowpo]

[Jeff's Cigarettes]

VDO"s for 2nd grade is no way to teach...you need more materials! You're kidding, right?

[nycgrl99]

double post

[nycgrl99]

[Perceptioncheck]

Oh, the joys of teaching second grade. I clearly remember the day when I was thrown headfirst and unwilling into my first class of those round-faced little noise machines. In fact, I just got back from my second grade class and it's going to take a little while for the sweating and the ringing in my head to stop.

I generally follow a similar scheme to Thewhiteyalbum. My lessons go a little something like this;

(5) Warm up; sing a song like head, shoulders, knees and toes. As long as it's one with plenty of gestures and is fairly repetitive, the kids like it.
(5) Review; quickly drill the language learnt from the last lesson with flashcards and play some kind of game, like hiding the flashcards around the classroom and getting the kids to touch them when I say the associated vocabulary. This invariably ends in tears.
(5) Introduce New Language; drill with flashcards.
(7) Practice Listening; play some kind of listening game. This can vary from bingo to the hammer slam game.
( Song/Story time; pretty much what it says it is
(10) Practice Speaking; do some kind of speaking activity. Question Bingo and simple surveys generally work pretty well for the second grade as they're still young enough to get excited over speaking to each other in English. Communicative board games are also pretty good for this age group and plenty can be found at http://www.barryfunenglish.com or http://www.mes-english.com .

However, towards the end of last year my lessons started looking a little bit more like this;

(5) Warm up; sing a song like head, shoulders, knees and toes. As long as it's one with plenty of gestures and is fairly repetitive, the kids like it.
(35) Craft; print a craft off http://www.kizclub.com and give it to the kids. Spend the remainder of the class wandering around making sure they don't greviously hurt each other with scissors.

SO as far as materials go I would suggest crafts, boardgames and worksheets. The worksheets don't have to be complicated; just a survey grid with some simple pictures tends to do the trick.

Other subjects I've taught them include; sports, food, toys, insects (which went surprisingly well) as well as the seasonal ones like halloween, easter and xmas.

[MollyBloom]

[MollyBloom]

Perception and Whitey:

Thanks for the ideas..I'll check the websites and books out. I'm going to Kim and Johnson's tomorrow to browse a bit and see what I can come up with.