Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Zulethe]

In three months, I'm gone from Korea. In my two years here, I've built the English program from scratch. The vast majority of students' English scores have gone up and might I say that I'm mighty proud of my accomplishment.

I was even formally recognized for this work.

Then yesterday, as I was coming to school with my creative juices flowing, I stopped for a moment and thought...I've done enough, it's time to go on cruise control.

The clown before me spent a full year playing games and the kids learned nothing.

I don't know, anyone else feel similarly. Do I owe it to the school to bust it till the end or have I done enough?

[Chucky]

[Welsh Canadian]

[lifeinkorea]

I have gone through several curriculum building stages. First, I looked at basic lessons. After that, I categorized them with each school I worked at. Eventually, this gave me a base to work around.

Two things missing from this are the books and other teachers' experiences. This could include looking at other lesson plans, teaching in a different order, and using different choices of words. It's easy to get into the routine of using the same words that you don't realize you are only emphasizing one part of the language.

Moving on could mean working at another school but continuing to work on anything mentioned above. It could also mean staying at the school and doing something completely new. Find it in yourself to step away from the hard work you have done over the years, clean out your teaching conditioning and look at it from scratch. Ask other teachers how to teach a lesson, even if you already have a method. You might find just one small thing to add to your lessons.

For example with me, I am not good with controlling large classes. I have a lesson plan all ready and things I want to teach, but getting students to pass each step is extremely difficult. I don't want to leave some students behind, but if I don't then other students who are up to speed won't learn. I observed one lesson with another teacher and noticed something I could do in class to better move them along as a group.

Usually, I don't like to reward students. I don't want them to learn English because they will get a reward, but because they want to learn English. I know this is an unrealistic dream. So, the end result is the students see me telling them what is wrong more often then praising them when they are correct. The teacher I observed would correct from the front of class and reward closer to them.

At least now I have a method to apply my current lessons and reward students. When I tried this, I found students wanting to continue an activity I planned. Now, my next thing is experiment with this to see how I can stop an activity without losing the momentum of the class. They tend to lose focus 60% into a class.

[Zulethe]