Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Rain]

What are some good tips for teaching kindigarten in Korea? I don't mean the curriculum. I mean actually dealing with the children, i.e. not losing one's temper and classroom management.

[Paji eh Wong]

I find classroom management is mostly about effeciency. Move from task to task. Do things they find fun. Cater to their short attention spans. Sing lots of songs, play lots of games, do lots of arts and crafts. It's a lot of work on your part but it's worth it.

Also, have a clear reward and punishement system. Actions need to have consequences. Try to implement it from the start and be consistant.

yargh, must teach class.

[tomato]

Hello, Rain!

When I first started teaching the yoochiboo's, I didn't know which way was up.
But I gradually got the hang of it.
Here are a few ideas which worked:

start class with a rhythmic activity

Say something rhythmic while you slap your knees or clap your hands.
That will announce your presence with a grand fanfare.

be quiet when you want the students to be quiet

I realize it is tempting to yell,
"QUIET!"
but there are more effective ways.

When a faction is being rowdy, whisper "Suzy is being quiet. Karen is being quiet." The members of the faction want to be recognized too, so they will snap into attention.

If that doesn't work, hold a picture book or any other prop in front of the rowdy faction and speak in a quiet voice. They will have to become quiet in order to hear you.

repeat an utterance until everyone listens

"I am going to the market. I don't think Billy heard me. I am going to the market. Billy heard me that time, but I don't think Larry did. I am going to the market."

The class will get tired of hearing you "going to the market," so they will join you in pressuring the misbehaving students to behave.

If you can turn the classroom clowns from heroes into villains, you will be in a very good position.

positive reinforcement

It's hard to think about being nice when you're under the gun, but it works.

When most of the students are misbehaving, look around the room and identify the students who are behaving. "Thank you, Rodney. Thank you, Stephen."

Keep a list so that you can identify the students who behave for the entire class period. These students deserve a special reward. When some teachers hear the words "reward" or "reinforcement," they think about passing out candy, but there are many ways you can reward children without committing dental abuse.

You could bring in a stack of picture books and allow each of those children to choose one picture book.

Or you could do push-ups, sit-ups, squats, and curls, using each of those students as a barbell. I call such exercises "up-downs."

Here are some earlier threads on curing kindergarten hysteria.
Read and enjoy:

http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/korea/viewtopic.php?t=16204&highlight=
http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/korea/viewtopic.php?t=14162&highlight=
http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/korea/viewtopic.php?t=11817&highlight=
http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/korea/viewtopic.php?t=5804&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15

Also, I hope you will take a look at my Website.

[discostar23]

I operate my kindergarten class on an/the "X" system. In the corner of the board I put a box and depending on how charitable I am being I put 3-5 X's underneath. Now if a child acts up they get an X. Instead of them having an individual X each one counts toward the whole class. So when there is no more X's the class doesn't get to play the game or do the fun activity at the end of class. Once you get them to understand the system they pretty much govern themselves. Also you can mark off all the X's except one and leaving them hanging on the last X for quite a while. It seems to work pretty well.

[ajuma]

It's best to have some kind of structure to your class. Same start every day. Class starts, everyone does X. Next, a song. Next, review. Next, somthing new. Next integrate old and new. Next body activity (Head, Shoulders....Farmer in the Dell...whatever). Next ... Next...

[waterbaby]

I taught my kids to settle down, sit down & be quiet when I held five fingers up and started counting down from five.

For each class, I had a laminated A3 poster that I made with all of their names on it and the promise of pizza party once they reached a certain number of stickers as a group. (I just used to give out cheap orange dots).

If they would settle down and be ready to work when I counted down from five, I'd give them five stickers. If someone was still being noisy or didn't get their books out, I'd only give them four stickers, or none at all.

If they were good during class, answered tough questions etc. I'd give out stickers either individually or to the group as a whole. If they were naughty, much to their horror, I'd take stickers away. What I liked about this method is that it very much became peer pressure to behave well. The good kids would harrass the kids who were playing up.

Six months after I stopped giving out stickers for this, they would still quickly run to their seats, settle down and get their books out when I held my hand up and called "five... four..." etc.

For my most unruly class (who weren't kindy kids - they were about 8/9 yrs) I played a game with them at the start of each class. Rather than place emphasis on a game at the end of class if they were good, I decided to play an educational game with them during the first 5~10 mins of class.

I used simple games, like using a fly swatter to hit the word (or picture) of whatever I called out, chanting numbers, the days of the week or months of the year until someone mixed up or forgot which day they had to say - lots of team games. This seemed to work a treat with them and they soon became my best and most fun class and they really started to pay attention and their English rapidly improved

Every class will have a key, you just need to try lots of different things to find what works.

There's a great book called "Teaching English to Children in Asia" by David Paul which was an absolute joy to read and I wished I'd found it much earlier in my short teaching career. It helped me so much. See if you can get your hands on it. I bought my copy from Bandi & Lunis at Coex.

It helps you understand the "politics" of the classroom and how getting angry and showing it is like you losing your power/authority and that annoying brat gaining it. Interesting stuff. The book also focuses on developing child centred lesson plans.

Good luck!

[lookingtoteach]

When I taught kindy, I usually started off classes with something that they already knew and were good at like saying the alphabet or counting to ten (a big accomplishment for a bunch of 4 year olds), especially if I was doing something that I knew would be challenging for them. That way, they started the class with confidence.

What I found really important was having a simple, and constant, method of discipline in the class. I used Xs and smiley faces. It was simple and worked well.

I found the kindy classes I had the most rewarding, but also the most work. They learn so quickly at that age. Within three weeks, my baby kindy class knew several songs, the alphabet, several conversational phrases ("Thank you", "I'm fine", "How are you?", etc.), and almost all of them knew how to spell their new Engish names. COmpare that to some of the older classes that I have that after a month and a half in a writing class barely knew what a topic sentence was, and I definitely felt more like a teacher in the younger classes.