Korean Job Discussion Forums

[summer33ny]

Most of my classes are hit or miss. Some run fantastically and others are complete disasters. What were some of your most successful lesson plans/activities with your high school students?


Here were some of my most successful activities:

1. I did a lesson on differences between high school in America and Korea with lots of photos to interest lower level students. I also showed clips of Twilight so that we could discuss some of the differences.

2. I did a lesson on cultural differences--with a quiz about western culture and showed some photos of things that I had never seen before coming to Korea (face masks, live octopus, squatter toilets, etc.) The students found this very interesting.

3. I did a lesson on spoken versus written (formal) English and taught students about the common sounds we make (Ouch! Huh? uh-huh!, etc) and what they mean. Students always mock me whenever they hear me make such sounds.. so it was fun for them to imitate this. We also talked about the common sounds used in Korean.

4. Anything about cultural differences that is surprising usually interests my students (i.e. we don't believe in fan death, and we don't have corn or potatoes on pizza in the US). I have used Korea and American checklists for students to check off which behaviors are acceptable/unacceptable or unusual in western culture.


5. I showed the brand new movie trailer for 'Twilight New Moon' and had the students work in small groups to put cut-outs of the dialogue in the proper order. This worked out well because the girls are obsessed with Twilight and wanted to know what they were saying... and the boys thought of it as a competition.

6. Games that were popular with my students: Truth and Lie: Students wrote 3 sentences about themselves on the board and the class had to guess which one was the lie. Celebrity Game: Students thought of a famous person and the class had to ask yes/no questions (in English only) to guess who it is..

[Rteacher]

I've gotten a lot of mileage out of Disney's High School Musical trilogy with my technical high students, who naturally relate to its high school themes, attractive characters, songs, dance numbers, etc.

I did an open class with low-level students unscrambling song lyrics , singing karaoke with the CD and DVD as a class, in groups, and in pairs (duets)

Also good for song clozes and various types of quizes.

Some of my students memorized "Start of Something New" and "Everyday" on their own.

[ChinaBoy]

Is there any way for you to share any PPTs or anything, Summer? Those sound like really nice ideas

[summer33ny]

Sure, what do you mean by PPT's?

I use a textbook from 1stopkorea called "Speaking for Everyday Life" and this book has given me lots of great ideas and materials for lessons.

I also use a website called "Breaking New English" to print out current newspaper articles that may be interesting. In the past, I had students read the articles in groups and discuss with the class what it was about. I then would show a video clip or website based on the article to interest the students and reinforce that the article they read is actually true (i.e. Burger King is truly selling a 'meat' perfume, the US has made the first flying car, etc)

I also discovered that a lot of my girls like doing 'personality quizzes'... I have found some in textbooks.


This week I may try madlibs with a website where you can create your own, so that I can add in student names and other things that may make it more fun for them.

As interesting as my lessons may sound (and I do try hard to make them interesting) they usually don't invoke the enthusiasm I hope for. Maybe it is the way I teach, but a lot of classes leave me feeling thoroughly frustrated and at loss for what to do next.

I would be interested in hearing similar lesson plans or activities that you thought worked out really well... it is hard to always come up with new ideas.

[Medic]

Mention was made about using common expressions like "Huh and Oh" etc. If you can find a small dialogue with "Oh do you" and "me too" and what a ya doing" and then act the dialogue out by putting emphasis on the "Oh" and so forth you will get a ressponse from your students. you have to be kinda dramatic with the expressions. then get them to do it in pairs while the rest of the class listens.

[agoodmouse]

[summer33ny]

Does anyone have any ideas? Help! Anything you can think of that really worked well with your students?

I teach at an academic and vocational high school--so I am always looking for suggestions of things to do/teach with either.

[ddeubel]

Try Lessons in a Can

DD
http://eflclassroom.com

[Insomnia]

You'll have to make your own powerpoint, but heres stuff for getting students to stop making bad English habits (by Korean people):

http://www.koreanwikiproject.com/misc/Words%20and%20Phrases%20to%20Avoid%20in%202009.pdf

Free to use it and modify it. Haven't gotten any feedback on it yet from here, so feel free to do so.