Korean Job Discussion Forums

[pianowill]

So on Thursdays I will be teaching 5-10 other teachers at my school from 3:10-4:30. They are at extremely different levels of English from merely being able to say, "Hello. Good morning," to my co-teachers themselves. Some want to learn to write. Some to speak. Some to read.

Where the heck do I begin with this? Our first class is Thursday and I need to come up with something to do with that hour and 20 minutes. I was thinking 40 minutes of speaking, 40 of reading, and 40 of writing.

I have some books recommended by my co-teachers:
Get Ready to Write: A Beginning Writing Text by Karen Blanchard and Christine Root
First Steps in Academic Writing (Level 2) by Ann Hogue

I'm probably going to be teaching from these until I get a better understanding of how to teach these teachers. Their age range is 25-50. Has anyone done something like this before?

P.S. I can't speak Korean, and I am only beginning to learn Hangeul

[thoreau]

These are called workshops and a search will find lots of threads about how terrible they can be.

I think a good jumping off point might be a simple introduction of yourself. Make sure you highlight key words using PowerPoint. Your teachers need time to tune into your specific voice pattern and accent.

Maybe a second class could be on the culture of your hometown. They've probably had something like this before but you might have a different spin. You could also use role-plays in this workshop putting groups into common settings, have one group act out how Koreans would act, the other group how Americans (or whatever.)

Next week I'm doing Dear Abby columns. The teachers will read a Dear Abby letter and discuss how the issue would be dealt with in Korean culture. Then I whip out the published answer and hopefully discussion will follow.

[oskinny1]

There is a thread a page or two back that offers a lot of help.

I would strongly resist having to teach for so long. 120 minutes with a group like that would be miserable. The only plus is that they will hate it after the second class and all stop showing up.

[Rusty Shackleford]

Teaching teachers is murder. You won't have that many students by week 3. They are just curious of you, once that wanes it will probably just be your co-teachers. Even they will likely be "busy" some of the time. Just do what the above poster said. Lecture to them about yourself/hometown, then let them ask you questions. If they are too shy to ask you (which they probably will be) get them to write their questions on paper.

[DrugstoreCowgirl]

The teachers in my class are all demanding like 'we hope you have good lesson plans made and use good teaching methods' and told me certain topics they want to discuss, which makes it a lot harder since it has to be specific and I'm not able to find a lot of ESL resources online. They all said they were beginners, so I found a decent beginner dialogue and activity but then my co-teacher said it was too easy because they know a lot of English. It's one or the other, which is it?!

Anyway, just dive in there and do something and learn as you go.

[Rusty Shackleford]

[DrugstoreCowgirl]

[Fishead soup]

It's good that they are making specific requests. Get these in writing as down the road you might here about some complaints and you might need some evidence for some kind of defence. Korea school teachers are notorious for making complaints just to get out of something they have been ordered to do.