Korean Job Discussion Forums

[The Kung Fu Hustle]

Anyone familiar with this style of teaching? My boss wants me to recommend a story-telling book for the kids. The 2 K teachers and him throw the term around like its something I should be familiar with but am not. What does he mean? Anyone else teach their kids like this (age 7 - 14)? Do the kids just fall asleep?

[Bunnymonster]

Sounds like 'literacy place'. Horrid books with some of the most outstanding 'american' grammer in the stories. Even worse are the workbooks which due to being designed for the American elementary school sstem are completely unsuitable for ESL. How am I supposed to persuade a group of 9 year olds to explain to me how their 'feelings towards Mr Markus changed over the course of the story' ????????
Try and avoid it if you can if not the higher levels of "Moving into English" series are a little better but not by much................

[Lizara]

heh... I teach Literacy Place. I almost just did a big rant about it in my journal yesterday. just awful, and twice as bad in an ESL context.

anyway, the concept of "storytelling" at my previous school basically meant giving them a story of some sort, storybook or whatever, and having them learn it and work on their pronunciation and all that until they can recite it and maybe act it out pretty well. Sort of like drama. If this is what he means then the kids may or may not fall asleep depending on how much they're into drama. I could be really helpful and recommend stories but I can't remember the names of our series right now...

[ilovebdt]

Why not get some Penguin ESL readers? They are for all levels and have activities too.

[tomato]

My director used Literacy Place before.
(That was before she hopped on the Child U bandwagon.)

The best way I could teach them reading was to make each book into a bango game. That is, I took each sentence and made two cards out of them.

In class, I passed out one of each pair, keeping the other card in the pair for myself. Then I showed and read each card. The student holding the match for that card hands it in. The first student to run out of cards wins.

One of the books in the Literacy Place series contained the word "yum-yum!" The students liked that word. When I dealt out the cards, they turned their eyes heavenward and supplicated for the card which said "yum-yum." Hence, the students came to refer to the bango game as the yum-yum game.

[plattwaz]

A decent series for beginning young readers (ages 6, 7) is the Oxford Literacy Web.

The series is quite expensive, but it is pretty good. The director can choose which parts of it to purchase, which I suppose can be good or bad - depending on how cheap your school is. It's a series of about 30 books, each containing the same set of characters. It's broken down into groups - Starter, Level 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. In each Level there are 6-7 stories. Level one has no words, just pictures, and the teachers guide contains suggested "stories" for the teacher to tell. It helps kids get some vocab. There are cassettes that go with the stories that teach phonics songs, etc. There is a workbook full of photocopiable sheets for each story.

As you move through the levels the stories get increasingly more difficult, however they contain common "sight words" and easy sentences. Often the books will have a certain phonics focus. Again there are photcopiable worksheets for each story.

The classroom book is large, I think 11"x14" and the rep who sold us the package encouraged us to get a set for each student, although we didn't. The point is that the students can have a set at home and home work or activities can be assigned. We chose not to, and just do it in class.

Again though, it depends how much your director is willing to purchase. I think that my school spent about 2million on the cassettes, the Teacher's Guides, the Workbook for each level (one copy) and one copy of each story, in the small size book.

These are the links to the first three levels of the program:

http://www.oup.co.uk/oxed/primary/olw/fiction/duckgreen/

http://www.oup.co.uk/oxed/primary/olw/fiction/duckgreen/pack3/

http://www.oup.co.uk/oxed/primary/olw/fiction/duckgreen/pack4/

We purchased it all from a rep here in Seoul. I can find the business card and get a contact number if this sounds like something you are looking for.

[ddeubel]

Try Jokes!

They work wonders and usually involve a lot of repetition and simple language. I have a whole set, one pagers that I use......they memorize, practice, personalize and then perform. After , what is cool is that they retell the jokes to others and each new time, new students seem to "get it".

An example:

Once there was a widow. She inherited her husband's businesses and decided she would keep them and run them herself. She was successful and very rich.

One day she came back from a business trip. She got to the airport and waited for her driver Charles. Charles didn't come. she waited another 10 min. No Charles. So she called him on her cell phone. Charles didn't answer. She was furious!!!!

She took a taxi home and when she arrived at her mansion she went inside screaming "charles!" "Charles". He wasn't there. So she ran over to his apartment above the garage. She ran up the steps and burst into his apartment without knocking. There was Charles standing in the middle of the living room.

Calmly, she said, "Charles, take off my hat" Charles took off her hat
She said, "Charles take off my boots." Charles took off her boots.
She said, "Charles take off my coat." Charles took off her coat.
She said, "Charles take off my dress." Charles took off her dress.

Then she pointed at Charles and screamed, "Don't you ever ever wear my clothes again!!!"

[ddeubel]

Try Jokes!

They work wonders and usually involve a lot of repetition and simple language. I have a whole set, one pagers that I use......they memorize, practice, personalize and then perform. After , what is cool is that they retell the jokes to others and each new time, new students seem to "get it".

An example:

Once there was a widow. She inherited her husband's businesses and decided she would keep them and run them herself. She was successful and very rich.

One day she came back from a business trip. She got to the airport and waited for her driver Charles. Charles didn't come. she waited another 10 min. No Charles. So she called him on her cell phone. Charles didn't answer. She was furious!!!!

She took a taxi home and when she arrived at her mansion she went inside screaming "charles!" "Charles". He wasn't there. So she ran over to his apartment above the garage. She ran up the steps and burst into his apartment without knocking. There was Charles standing in the middle of the living room.

Calmly, she said, "Charles, take off my hat" Charles took off her hat
She said, "Charles take off my boots." Charles took off her boots.
She said, "Charles take off my coat." Charles took off her coat.
She said, "Charles take off my dress." Charles took off her dress.

Then she pointed at Charles and screamed, "Don't you ever ever wear my clothes again!!!"

[ddeubel]

Try Jokes!

They work wonders and usually involve a lot of repetition and simple language. I have a whole set, one pagers that I use......they memorize, practice, personalize and then perform. After , what is cool is that they retell the jokes to others and each new time, new students seem to "get it".

An example:

Once there was a widow. She inherited her husband's businesses and decided she would keep them and run them herself. She was successful and very rich.

One day she came back from a business trip. She got to the airport and waited for her driver Charles. Charles didn't come. she waited another 10 min. No Charles. So she called him on her cell phone. Charles didn't answer. She was furious!!!!

She took a taxi home and when she arrived at her mansion she went inside screaming "charles!" "Charles". He wasn't there. So she ran over to his apartment above the garage. She ran up the steps and burst into his apartment without knocking. There was Charles standing in the middle of the living room.

Calmly, she said, "Charles, take off my hat" Charles took off her hat
She said, "Charles take off my boots." Charles took off her boots.
She said, "Charles take off my coat." Charles took off her coat.
She said, "Charles take off my dress." Charles took off her dress.

Then she pointed at Charles and screamed, "Don't you ever ever wear my clothes again!!!"