Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Yu_Bum_suk]

I have a motely array of material from various EFL books I can draw upon, but if anyone's done this sort of lesson before it would be really nice to know what's worked best and / or what hasn't worked so well (for academic high school with students at a wide range of levels).

Also, does anyone have any suggestions for links for downloadable travel video clips, preferably from English-speaking countries?

[Hanson]

This may sound corny, but with my freshmen, we do a crossword puzzle from our textbook which you could easily make at eclipsecrossword. The crossword clues are given for both countries and nationalities in a fun, trivial-pursuit kind of way. They liked doing it and made some mistakes, and so was challenging enough. To the clue "The Beatles were ___________", many put down 'England'. I'm guessing this would work well for high school as well.

[Ya-ta Boy]

I have one fun memory activity that is good for teaching pronunciation of nationalities and countries.

Day 1: Write: I went to a party last night. I met a/an ______ from ______.

Ask the class for names of countries that start with the letter A. (Austria, Australia, and the inevitable America: You can straighten out their confusion about Australia/Austria while doing this activity, and expain that the USA starts with a U.) Then ask what the people are called.

Fill in the blanks. Have the students read the sentence.

Then erase and ask for a B country.
Call on one student to repeat the sentence including Austria and Brazil.

Do one more with C.

Day 2: Write the form, have a student review ABC, then add D, E, F

Continue on through the alphabet as the week goes by.

It's good for pronunciation, especially paying attention to syllable stress and also for forming the adjective form for nationalities. Point out the limited ways we do it. It's confusing to them at first, because there doesn't seem to be a pattern.

For some reason, they love to say 'I met a hungry Hungarian from Hungary'.

[the_beaver]

[Scott in Incheon]

We did one where the students start by making groups and the group deciding where to go. Each student in the group starts by telling which place they want to go to. Then the group tries to come to a consensus.

I usually ask students to give opinions based on the idea of Idea Reason Example...I want to go to Italy because the food is so good. I really love spaghetti. Once they decided where to go...they need to get two or three other Reason and Examples.

Then they need to make up a packing list of X number of items they want to bring besides the clothes on their back. Again they try to work with the IRE thing with each item. When they are just about done...you tell them they have to reduced their lists by 5 or whatever.

Finally, they get to their destinationan and write postcards back to the friends telling them what they did in the country. Again, should use the IRE idea and can even recycle some of the things they did before.

Still have time left...each group can present their destination, their lists and their postcards.

Helpful enough....??

[Yu_Bum_suk]

Thanks for the suggestions - I think this will be another lesson where it's a questions of 'how can I do it all in just 50 minutes?'.

I'm in Seoul this weekend - does anyone have suggestions on where I could get a world map that's about 2-3' X 2-3'?

[buster brown]

A site I use to find info about the US is www.50states.com. It also has some good teaching links. Here's the link for a list of travel information sites: http://www.50states.com/tools/moreinfo.htm. You might find some videos in there if you look around a little.

Several years ago, before the Internet became so accessible, I made a list of addresses for each state's travel information bureau (you could do the same for your home country: Canadian provinces, etc.). Then we used it as a letter-writing and envelope-addressing exercise in which students requested free information. After a couple of months, when most of them had received info, we had a lesson where they made 'commercials' promoting tourism in their state. These were intermediate and advanced Chinese uni students, but I plan to do something similar with my intermediate and advanced conversation classes. I hope you can find something there for your high schoolers.

[ajgeddes]

[poof]

You could bring your students on a field trip to Itaewon. Ideal immersion into an 'authentic' environment...
For materials, you just need to whip up a checklist/survey for your kids to complete: 'Find someone who comes from Guinea Bissau' / 'Ask a shopkeeper if they have some handgrenades' / 'Try to haggle for an XXXL baseball vest'...
p.s. I did see someone seeling such maps on the Seoul Subway a couple of weeks ago. You never know, if you travel up and down the lines, you might encounter the bloke again!