Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Morgen]

I've been told I have to teach remedial English for 4th, 5th and 6th grade elementary next term. It's just one hour a week (?) for each class, and I'll have my co-teacher there to crack the whip. I'll make use of icnelly's videos, but other than that I'm just not sure what to do, since what I'm already doing apparently isn't reaching them or they're not getting it. Maybe whack them with the lovestick every time they repeat a phrase until they get it right. Is that effective?

Does anyone have any advice? I'm told these students are at a very, very basic level. Challenged by "How are you?" that sort of thing.

[D.D.]

Kids really like Bugs Bunny for some reason and will talk a lot if you stop and start a Bugs Bunny youtube clip. I had a university English prof visiting my kids classes this week as her son was in my class. She was freaked out by how much 7-8 year old kids talked about Bug Bunny.

[iggyb]

Once a week is a nightmare...I haven't had to crack that nut yet.

What is the class size?

If their English is very basic, I'd try working on phonics. Something I did with younger Korean students, that would probably work with 4th-6th grade, is write consonant vowel combination on board and chant them -- Example:

Bo - Ba - Bu - Bi - Bet --- I'd sort of sing each out using the short vowel form --- (with Be I used Bet because I didn't want to confuse them concerning the actual word Be).

After we went over each one a few times, I'd do them all as chants using 2 or 3 or 4 at a time then have them instantly repeat the string.

Koreans like to sing. The kids liked it.

As they got better at making the sounds, I'd make games -- like - I'd have two kids come up and give each a fly swatter and stand in front of the board where I had each combination written. Then, I'd say one of them, and the student who hit the correct one on the board was the winner.

--- You can do all kinds of varieties with this and build on it as the students learn - working your way up to more complicated letter combination to full short common words.

--- This is also an activity that can be whipped out at any time for low level classes --- and it should work for a once-a-week class, though of course their retention of sounds and letters would weaken after so many days not doing such an exercise.

P.S.

Google Books is your friend. So is Google. Mine them. If you play around with deleting your browser's cache, you can figure out how to read the bulk of a Google Book limited preview book...

[Morgen]

Thanks for the advice, I'll try that. I don't know what they possibly expect me to do with just one class a week. I have a feeling my job might be open in a few months if anyone wants it.

[iggyb]

It sounds to me like schools are just doing the minimum to comply with a mandate handed down by the central government/Blue House.

A couple of years ago, the high levels of government started talking about a push to put a native English speaker into every school. It was in part a part of the desire to reform the educational system away from hakwons. But, it is up to each school to decide what to do with the native speaker, and it sounds like the local schools are not very interested in what the native speaker is going to do or in making effective use of him/her.

I'm not knocking the schools completely. Look at what they are faced with: they are given only 1 native speaking teacher - but - English language education is mandatory for all students. It isn't like picking Spanish, French, or German as a high school student back home. So, how is a school director supposed to divide the NET's time fairly to reach the most kids???

I also know in my home state, a county or two that has a new ESL program due to increase in immigrant population will hire one or two TESOLers and have them drive around to all the schools in the county. And that is just so they can point to the ESL program on paper and tell the state and federal government that they have a plan for helping the ESL special needs students...