Korean Job Discussion Forums

[timetotravel]

Starting this Thursday I will be teaching parents of students at my school twice a week.
There are 18 people signed up and I have NO idea what to teach.
Has anyone ever done a class like this? ANY ideas would be soooo appreciated!!!!

[farrepatt]

On Thursday, you can start with asking them to talk about themselves - hometown, hobbies, occupation, etc. Prepare a sheet with some promps on it so they won't be lost. Maybe you could even put them in groups of two, and have each person present information about their partner. From there, ask some questions just like a normal conversation. That way you'll be able to figure out their level. Likely, there will be a rather large range in ability. Get an idea of what/how they want to learn, if they want a book, etc. Then go from there.

[Surfer Rosa]

I'd get a feeling of what their skill levels are and also what they want to learn.

I teach a class for my middle school's parents and it's essentially just a conversation class where we discuss articles. Actually my favorite class to teach.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

Expect the numbers to dwindle down quite a bit after the first week. They will want some kind of text- / paper-based lesson, as they feel much more comfortable working off paper at that age. There will likely be one with much better English than the rest who will end up as translator for the group.

This is a great way to create a good impression with people. Try to say as many positive things about your students, school, and community as possible. Look well prepared and be smartly dressed. The ones who stick it out will likely bring you lots of gifts and take you out for dinner at the end of the course.

[Goku]

It's important to teach what they want to learn.

So parents of students usually want to cover the same materials as their kids to help pass it on,

Or

Learn English for traveling or academic purposes.

I would gear conversation classes with important key phrases and encompass worksheets like this

1. New Vocab of nouns- Present new vocab words with associated pictures, Korean translations, or physical objects

2. New vocab of abstract words- Present words of abstract ideas in Korean to your students, this is difficult but important. Words like extrodinary or extended, these words can't be easily expressed with sign langauge or pictures without confusing your students.

3. Grammar points. Give 1 (and I emphasize 1) grammar rule a class

4. Conversational phrases. Give a few phrases for them to work with.

Topic ideas. Keep in mind you are dealing with parents of students. If they are taking English Classes they will have very different intereactions with foreigners from your students. Teach them topics that will seem important and relevant. You MIGHT want to stray away from business though because if they have time to take your class, it's quite possible they are housewives and such topics would be droll or meaningless.

I find with women, topics about children, family, friends and social things works well. Women also enjoy "collecting" things so activities surrounding these ideas will be a hit. Women also like sharing things so emotions or drama will be important to incorporate to peak interest. I find good Drama situations to work well. Such as using dialogues like, Mingsu comes home late from work. He smells of Soju and Sam Gyup Sal. Mother has been working hard at home and she wants to share her feelings with her husband. He's too tired to listen to her so he turns on the TV and ignores her, etc... Also keep in my mind I'm only assuming you'll have housewives...

Men usually seem to like topics regarding business, traveling, "debate" or philosophical disscussions. Any debatable topic such as "what do you think hapiness is" are good grounds to build English. They also enjoy clear thinking objectives such as "find 5 english words that are anagrams" but they DON'T like meaningless activities such as "Find 3 people that also like golf". The objective is too create the illusion there is a point to the activity other than learning. Which is why games like scrabble works well for men.

If it were me, I'd create classes with a drama situation in English. and then see if the people can figure out a solution to it. Both men and women like to work on these kind of things. Using English as a backbone for both understanding and possible responses.

For example, A man is walking home and a stranger who looks crazy keeps bothering him, the man not speaking English wants to tell the crazy man to go away. How can he resolve this issue so that the stranger won't attack him?

[Darashii]

Mr. suk is right on the money. I had a class like that last semester and was totally lost. They wanted a text book, but the school didn't give me one. Then I decided to lay down the grammar on them. That was when it started to dwindle significantly. I was happy, though, because I really had no desire to teach that class. The ones who stuck it out ended up being the best speakers and even now, I'm thinking of recruiting one to start a mutiny and be my co-teacher for the core classes.