Korean Job Discussion Forums

zappadelta · Joined: 31 Aug 2004

in your students? I don't.

some waygug-in · Joined: 25 Jan 2003

Yes, but the improvements are small and only in those few students who really try.

Most of the students I've taught in Korea get all stressed out that their English is not improving, but as soon as I ask them to do any work (grammar or writing) they immediately decide to do something else with their time.

Then there are those who rave about their TOEIC scores and explain to me why they don't have to study grammar, but at the same time, they can't make a sentence to save their own skin.

But they sure got good TOEIC grades. Laughing

eamo · Joined: 08 Mar 2003 Location: Shepherd's Bush, 1964.

I've personally brought kids from "I'm fine, how are you?", to "I'm okay, how are you doing".

Thats a big step in Korea.

zappadelta · Joined: 31 Aug 2004

I actually prefer "I'm fine"

turtlepi1 · Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Location: Abu Dhabi, UAE

Yes and no...their progress is so subtle that I often don't notice it...
especially with sentence formation.

The one place I do notice tremendous imporvement is with my storybook students. I will go back and read a story they did a few months ago and it makes me feel like I have accomplished something...sure maybe it is just memorization but it actually stuck and they can actually read...

I take pleasure in the small successes...

matthewwoodford · Joined: 01 Oct 2003 Location: Location, location, location.

A few have improved. The majority don't so as you'd notice. Depressingly.

bosintang · Posted: Thu Dec 09, 2004 8:14 am Post subject:

Depends on the age. My youngest students, I see vast improvement over a short time, however with my older students, I only see gradual progress (ie over months), and only in the most motivated students. However, considering they're studying English from not only me -- but also from a Korean teacher, from their public school teacher, and possibly even from private-tutoring or their parents -- it would be impossible to acknowledge how much of their improvement is actually contributable to me.

the_beaver · Joined: 15 Jan 2003

In ability, I don't see much improvement in a single semester. In attitude I do.

When I worked at SWELL I saw quite a bit of improvement as students moved through the levels.

sadsac · Joined: 22 Dec 2003 Location: Gwangwang

My younger students I see improvement, especially if I don't share a class with a Korean teacher. I find the biggest problem with my kids learning English, is my Korean co-teacher. They shouldn't be allowed to teach English, until they can at least speak it half decently. Smile

kprrok · Joined: 06 Apr 2004 Location: KC

I've been teaching this kindie class for over 5 months now. One girl couldn't, or maybe just wouldn't, read a word or sentence to save her life. Now, she volunteers to read and it all took place over about a month and a half period when I was doing some serious reading lessons with them. Plus, we had a new student in class, he couldn't read either. During those same lessons, he improved dramatically and now is the 3rd best in the class out of 10.

It's students like them and their improvements that make the teaching worthwhile.

KPRROK

nev · Joined: 04 Jan 2004 Location: ch7t

Day to day, week to week, usually not much. But after a year, when I think back, there's been a big improvement in most of my students. Last year all some classes could do was shout "monkey" or "ice cream". Now they're making sentences and answering questions. Some, of course, are lost causes but some have made delightfully rapid progress.

But improvement is a gradual progress. Like hair growth but slower. Don't expect to notice it, except in retrospect.

peemil · Joined: 09 Feb 2003 Location: Koowoompa

I've got four students who I am immensely proud of. Three girls and one boy.

I've had two of them since my first day in Korea. (I've been at the same school for over two years.)

Their English is coming along fantastic. All of them started with the same English as most Koreans. (Hi. My name is....) But now we can communicate quite well.

They're the only students who did what I first told them to do. Watch as much English television as possible. Listen to English music. Talk to me. Ask questions. Learn as many new words as possible.

The boy always comes out with obscure references to foreign movies.

marista99 · Joined: 05 Jun 2004 Location: Incheon

Like most of you, I see the most improvement in my little kids classes (kindy and 1st grade). In a few months they've gone from absolute zero English to pretty good handwriting, much bigger vocabulary, and being able to answer simple questions like "how old are you?" or "what school do you go to?" They can also follow commands like "jump" or "sit down" quite well (when they want to listen, that is Very Happy

)

I've also seen improvement in some of my adults, and you can tell those are the ones that study and really take it seriously. With adults and older kids it's really all up to them whether they learn what you are teaching. With little kids, if you make it fun and offer variety, most of them will probably pick it up relatively quickly, because little kids' brains are just sponges like that.

d503 · Joined: 16 Oct 2004 Location: Daecheong, Seoul

My improvements may seem kinda silly. But the books we use in our 7 and 6 year old kindie classes are either too easy (point and yell books). Or too hard, geared to kids of that age in a native speaking country. So I do my lessons but don't expect much from those book things. I see my improvements in that I have recently taught my kids to use full phrases for things.
Examples:
"Teacher, May I go to the bathroom, please?" replaced "Bathroom" w/ crotch grabbing

"What is it?" "It's a 00000" replaced desperate shoulder shrug followed by name shouting

"May I have some more 0000, please" replaced "more"

they also now say please and thank you. Also our follow the teacher's instructions games are getting more and more complex.

Zyzyfer · Posted: Fri Dec 10, 2004 9:07 pm Post subject:

I've only seen improvements recently, and it's only been with certain subjects. But, with writing in particular, I've seen students improve dramatically over a short time. I have one guy who couldn't even write a five-paragraph essay back in August not writing a full page of wordly business, which, aside from wrong word usage all over the place, is a very sensible essay and shows that he knows how to explain his opinions.

There's also the writing class that I have where the students have recently made massive improvements. They initially didn't put a lot of effort into their writing, but they've really turned around because I made it clear that they would continue rewriting their crap until it was decent. Now they don't bullshit around with it.

The TOEFL listening classes, on the other hand, are hard to gauge, and I've only been teaching it for six months, so there's still a lot for me to learn about teaching it. It's definitely not as simple as "play the tape and tell them the answers", nor does merely explaining each answer suffice to improve their listening ability. I've recently begun asking them critical thinking questions about each of the skills that they learn, and have started pointing out the general format of each type of short dialogue. It makes for some really slow classes now, and it may not even succeed since I just started doing this, but it's got them looking at these dialogues as more than just random words being thrown at them. Unfortunately, I haven't figured out much of a tactic to take on the longer talks, but I am chewing on it.

There's always room to improve as a teacher. If they're not picking up anything, there's only two possible problems: the students, or yourself. Either way, changing your own approach may help to solve the problem.