Korean Job Discussion Forums

blunder1983 · Joined: 12 Apr 2005

Hi guys,

I'm at a middle school and only teach grades 1 & 2. Grade 3 students are always so friendly to me and are pretty dissappointed that I never get to teach them, and so am I.

SO I've been thinking for a long time what might work as an extra class for the students in the third grade which would use minimal resources (i.e. co teachers) and be fun and helpful. This is what i've come up with...

In my primary school a few students set up a tuck shop, selling sweets and fizzy drinks every friday in lunch break. It was very successful and helped with basic maths. I'm looking to emulate that idea, but as students can just go out and buy candy and fizzy drinks we'll need to differentiate our products. So the third years who sign up for the idea, will form a commitee, and decide a few things:

1. What name should the company take?
2. What should they sell?
3. How much should they charge?
4. What day should they open?
5. How will they market the company?

This is going to be giving them a basic grounding in business english, something they'll undoubtedly appreciate as they get older. While its a hard topic to cover I think allowing some Korean is fair.

Then they sell their goods one lunchtime a week, and meet once a week to discuss what is selling well, what is selling poorly, profit, loss and other products to buy. All the profits are going to go towards English stories for the school library.

What do you guys think of the idea?

Also can people think of stuff to sell so far I've come up with

Tootsie pops - Carrefour
Kool Aid (sp?) - Carrefour
Haribo - Carrefour
Flumps (marshmallow) - Carrefour
English stickers
English badges
Foreign stamps
Foreign coins (pennies, dimes, nickles)
Random candy from Costco (no idea whats there)
Candy from england (still thinking about specifics)

Any additional suggestions would be GREATLY appreciated.

Comments and crit?

Zyzyfer

blunder1983 · Joined: 12 Apr 2005

Feel free to rip off/modify etc. etc.

I'm going to "invest" 20,000-40,000won (depending on my funds at the time Smile

) at the start of term, for the kids to set up with the only problem i forsee is excess stock at the end of term. :S

VanIslander · Posted: Fri Jul 29, 2005 8:11 am Post subject:

We have what we term at the hagwon as "a coupon party" once every few months in which games and food are accompanied by the selling of fun things with the purchase price being a number of coupons the students had collected over time (getting a coupon for good work in class on a given day).

Aside:

I've never heard of a "tuck shop". Where's it used?

Zyzyfer · Posted: Fri Jul 29, 2005 8:21 am Post subject:

ilovebdt · Joined: 03 Jun 2005 Location: Nr Seoul

VanIslander · Posted: Fri Jul 29, 2005 8:35 am Post subject:

blunder1983 · Joined: 12 Apr 2005

So whats the same concept known as across the big pond? I wanna edit the title to maximise the number of peeps contributing to ideas of what to stock.

Also the cash at the start is just for the goods, I'm hoping that school will provide paper for adverts a table to sell the stuff etc. etc.

Qinella · Joined: 25 Feb 2005 Location: the crib

I think that sounds like a great idea. Depending on how many students are involved, you could give everyone a job title (they elect/decide who becomes what), and then they could create business cards. Someone could be secretary and keep minutes at meetings, read them before the next meeting, etc. Sounds cool.

To answer your question, I'm from the US and I would call something like that a concession stand. I've seen the word "concession" at movie theaters, so some students may already be familiar with it.

Yu_Bum_suk · Joined: 25 Dec 2004

fidel · Joined: 07 Feb 2003 Location: North Shore NZ

matthews_world · Joined: 15 Feb 2003

I can just see the kiddies now, high on sugar, running wild around the school and out of control! You think this will be a good idea after a few days?

keithinkorea · Joined: 17 Mar 2004

The tuck shop is a great tradition.

My secondary school's one in England was rammed every time it was open.

They basically sold sweets(candy), sodas(pop), crisps (potato chips) and comics. Sounds like a great idea btw. Perhaps you could introduce comic sales there. I don't know anything about comics in Korea except they seem a very popular commodity here.

You could even think about selling English language comics but that might be too far out of the budget and too ambitious.

Good luck and hope the kids have fun. A great idea, good luck with it.

steroidmaximus · Joined: 27 Jan 2003 Location: GangWon-Do

there is one glaring flaw with your plan:

Most schools have a concession stand already, often run by a parent of one of the kids, and the money is sometimes collected for the benefit of the student association, sometimes run for a profit. If any money you make is designated for some student club or organization (your plan for English books is good), you might be able to get away with it, but if your school has a for profit concession stand, you're in for a battle.

blunder1983 · Joined: 12 Apr 2005

I've not seen one in my school, the only kids with ice lollies etc, are the ones who leave school at lunch and go to a nearby shop. I'm 90% sure we have nothing in place. Even if we do it only going to be run on one day a week, I'm sure the kids can eat enough candy for 2 shops to survive.

ANymore ideas on what to STOCK