Korean Job Discussion Forums

[AndrewL]

I have been working as an English teacher in Incheon for one month as of today. It has definitely been a fantastic experience all around, and not without its stories and challenges. The teaching has been going relatively smoothly considering I've never previously taught at the middle school level.

I was told at the beginning of the school year that I would need to teach about 20 afterschool classes every 2 months. They will need to be 80-90 minutes long apiece. I'm a little bit at a loss as to what I might want to prepare. It will end up being about 2 classes every week, most likely taught solo.

I have another 2 weeks to start preparing these classes, and would definitely appreciate any feedback that you have on the topic!

[LizMarsh242]

What are the levels of the students? Is your school a higher level (in english) type school, or lower level? And what grade?

[AndrewL]

This is middle school grades 1, 2 and 3. I think that approximates grades 7, 8, and 9 in an American school system.

The grade 3 students are pretty high level, and the grade 1 and 2 students are split into high and low level classes. Overall, I'd say our school is of the lower level in English. The thing I base that off is the fact that the Incheon MOE supposedly gave a ton of money to our school to invest in English education.

[thoreau]

I have to teach 2 90 minute after school classes per week. This week we are playing scrabble. The first class is to get them used to the game - the second class is to actually get into playing it.

Next week it's two classes of Apples to Apples.

I'm going to do board games for a bit then move to sport stuff when the weather improves.

[AndrewL]

So it's pretty much your discretion, huh? That's what it seems like they're giving me, but they've pushed the idea of really wanting results from my work here. I think that with games the language becomes secondary and it can be a really useful tool for facilitating language use in the classroom, but I'll need to make sure my supervisors understand it that way, too.

[tokkibunni8]

i have some really advanced 4th graders that I teach afterschool. playing games with the is a no no...doing grammar and writing is a yes, yes. We are talking about elementary school. Amazing English. Took me by surprised.

[jiberish]

I would go with grammar. Get a solid grammar book. Then just go over important grammar rules. I teach after school and no matter how many times over and over...and over and over, they make simple grammar mistakes. Yet it is mistakes with simple grammar that can cost you big points in exams.

[Senior]

I usually start with my intro class. Who I am, where I'm from, all that baloney. Then get the students to write questions on a piece of paper, (they are usually too shy to volunteer enough questions). This will also help give you some idea of their level.

Next class I do class room rules. I get them to write classroom rules eg -Students must do this, -Students can't do that...., -It is OK to do such and such. Then we vote on which rules to use. Pick 5 plus a rule for the teacher. There is a good activity on boggles world which I stole wholesale, but have modified over the past two years.

90 mins will be tough. You will have to break it up into smaller activities, though longer classes would be a good opportunity to make a larger project. Maybe do an hour of grammar, then they can work on the project for the second part. It's always nice to have something to show at the end of the classes.

Good luck.

[AndrewL]

Can I find something like that at WhatTheBook or do I need to do some finer searching? I wouldn't mind teaching grammar and games 50/50. Maybe some pop culture or TV shows (and extensive questioning thereabout).