Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Hans Blix]

been told i'll be doing a conversation class with kids in the (western) age bracket of 6-8. pretty sure they wont be the high-flyers either, probably below average kids whose parents think this class will give them a leg-up.

what will i do? what will i talk about? hello kitty? mashi maro? i doubt they can even string a sentence.

and speaking of this, the boss said they should be able to spit out 'perfect sentences' by the end, which to her means memorising something crazy like 'ah but you must remember that rubies are the most precious of the precious stones' (actually read that in a phrasebook once). always accuracy above fluency at my school.

recommend a textbook? all advice welcome.

i aint signin songs.

[plattwaz]

I have one of those now, although the kids have fantastic English....
I bring in magazines, some sotry books, even American textbooks (like science or social studies) and we randomly flip open to a few pages and talk about the pictures, or read a few paragraphs and then talk about them. We talk randomly, not with structured question and answer about what we've read.

Sometimes in the middle of something from a book, a student will suddenly say something totally irrelevant, but it gets us chatting for a while. When we run out of something to say, I turn attention back to the photo or page at hand.

You could assign a weekly topic -- like one week, they should bring in photos of their family, and everyone can talk abouu them, ask questions about the people in the picture, etc.

I also used to have to do abotu 45 minutes of "circle time" with so-so 7 year olds every morning with my kindergarten, and have lots of ideas from that, too....depending on the level of your class.

Good luck. After the first few classes when you know their level a bit more, I'll see if I can help you some more.

[captain kirk]

Although it can sound free, when they say 'free talking' I get the impression what the boss really means is; 'I think you are a Native English speaker. Therefore teaching English is easy for you, as natural as speaking English is to you. You can 'just talk' with the kids and that will be a class'.

Well, that's not true. Young kids need a structure to follow, the pages and continuity of a book as it advances. You also need 'evidence' to show the parents that something is being accomplished. Often Mom quizzes her child by asking what they did in the book that day. A good hagwon manager sticks closely to a text to protect themselves with 'evidence' progress is being made.

Here your boss says the kids should be able to speak in sentences by the end. No room for evidence, and the structure the kids need as when following a book. One goes to the textbook to keep them focused and disciplined. Without a textbook it's more work for you and the risk you'll come up empty when asked for progress the mothers won't be able to guage.

[Hans Blix]

[bosintang]

Let me summarise this:

- It's a 'free-talking' class with young low-level learners
- The students won't have their own individual textbook
- Your boss wants 'perfect sentences'


I don't envy you. By the sounds of it, your boss is definitely overselling your role as a native teacher to naive parents. They pay hundreds, if not thousands of dollars every year to have access to a native speaker but won't shell out $15 for a course textbook. It's almost hilarious.

How much work are you willing to put into this?

One sugestion is to get a big picture book with large friendly pictures and supplement it with other pictures you can find in magazines and such. Get a few decks of flashcards and use them for games. Focus on vocabulary-building and simple questions and answers. Based on whatever pictures you can scrounge up, choose a theme every day and focus on that.

This doesn't sound easy. Good luck with it.

[Badmojo]

Start from English Time 1 and do that series. It sounds like you'll have to make your class oral based. The kids won't be able to make complicated sentences, but they will make complete ones if you teach the points properly. I mean, we're talking really basic constructions- "Is it a blue pen? Yes, it is." Things like that. What else can you do? They're only 6-8. That is young.

But heaven help you if they can't read. They must know how to read first. At my hagwon it took me over a week for "Yes, it is/ No it isn't" responses with students aged 6-8 because they couldn't read it in the book. For them, it all had to come from memory. No way, too hard.

Make sure these little ones can read first! Then you'll get them talking easier.

[Ya-ta Boy]

I agree that free talking = basic book. The kids need it. Not likely they will be able to read.

You might consider one of the Dr. Seuss books and use just a page or two a day. Ask lots of questions.

[Hans Blix]

thanks for the replies everyone

english time is one of the standard textbooks at my hagwon so they'll at least have done #1 and possibly #2. how much they've learned from this is what i'm worried about as i suspect the reason they've been put with me is because the answer is nothing.

there are some conversation books out there published by longman, i think, which have a picture of a scene and then some related vocabulary. these are for adults but i've been using them in my (other) conversation class with middle school kids. not great, but as they already have classes with storybooks and textbooks, they were all that were left open to me. are there any young kiddie equivalents?