Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Fishead soup]

Pairwork is a very effective way of increasing students speaking time.
Despite that few Korean teachers encourage it's use. Some of the common excuses cited for not using it range from its too noisy, hard to manage.

[harlowethrombey]

Remember, most Korean teaching focuses on lecturing which is (supposedly) the antithesis of western teaching which is more student-focused.

When students do pairwork we have the advantage of having 2 teachers in the room, roaming to check that the students are on task and offer help.

Of course, how much freedom your students have is directly proportional to how focused they are. Classes that have bad ADHD will just use pairwork as an excuse to talk (in Korean), giggle and punch each other out of their chairs.

I have a few classes that I cant trust with actual group activities, so I structure their class and activities more rigidly.

But, yes, pairwork is a must. The students need to practice speaking and that is one of the reasons we were brought to Korea.


If you want to help keep them on task, one thing I do is break their pair work down into smaller bits of time. If they know they only have 2 minutes to complete the dialogue, switch speaking roles and do it again, they will get right into it. Having a time limit is a great thing. After each bit of pair work I ask for volunteers or randomly call on groups to present to the whole class. Again, knowing they might be presenting soon will help them to at least attempt the work. (Usually )


If you want to keep going with the small group activities let the students design some posters (then present them to the class), or listen to excerpts fom 5 songs, discuss them, and pick their favorite for their group (and defend their position to the class).

Even good classes will have groups that meander off task, but you just have to try and reign them in. Speaking in pairs is often the only speaking practice they get at public schools. Encourage them to change the modeled text, too, and make it funnier/grosser/more applicable to their class.

hope some of that helps
good luck

[Yu_Bum_suk]

I use it frequently for things like dialogues and phonics work (especially for things like minimal pairs). I also encourage them to tackle problems and questions together. Since many Korean teachers seem to have a problem telling the difference between good noise and bad noise in the classroom this is another reason why it's often better not to have a co-teacher in the classroom.

[oldfatfarang]

I use closed pair speaking practice in nearly all my classes. The kids get at least 10 mins of pair speaking practice - with 2 teachers walking round and monitoring/helping - then I model/drill pronunciation problems - then at least 1 pair from each table does an up-front class presentation/role play.

My tiny classroom doesn't encourage students to walk around, but in large classrooms, I like students to walk around and use open pair speaking practice/role plays.

I find group work doesn't work with K students. Only 1 or 2 students do the activity - and the rest just goof off or sleep. Using pairs, you can manage their production more effectively.

[Cerriowen]

I split it usually between individual and pair work.

The only time it's chaotic is when I try to do small group work in the language lab... and that's because the tables are too large and spread out (encourages kids to talk loudly to their partners across the tables, and shout to kids at the next table, then go punch them for what they said... etc).