Korean Job Discussion Forums

[canuck in Ansan]

Twice a week, I have two middle school students in class learning vocabulary words. Any other time, I don't think I would complain about a quiet class, but this must be sooo boring for them, and honestly, its pretty boring for me. #1. basket #2. clothesline...etc for 25 minutes can seem like an hour. Problem is, they barely speak a word of english, so if I spice it up a little, I'm afraid they won't understand me. I feel like I'm taking to a brick wall; the only response from them I ever get is repeating the vocab words back to me.
So I guess my question is, how can I make this class more interesting for all of us!? How can I make them speak, and actually laugh!? I'd play a game with the words, but can anyone think of a game to play with 2 fifteen(ish) year olds who don't speak any english??
Any ideas would be awesome =]

[blunder1983]

Matching pairs? Have one card with the word one with the picture and theygotta match em, drill em first and let em at it.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

Dialogues and song lyrics might help get them saying something.

[peppermint]

You've gotta teach them how to use the vocab words that they're learning, but something like pictionary might work well too. Put each word on a card and stack them up. Have one student pull a card and draw the vocab word, and you and the other student have to guess. It's fairly straight forward, and a good place to start from.

[some waygug-in]

Using the matching pairs thing you can play "Sorry"

They have to practice "Do you have a .................?"

and "Yes, I do." or "No, sorry."

If you make your own cards you can get them saying some fun vocabulary and if you can make some funny pictures they may even enjoy it.

Some examples I have used: "stinky socks"
"a big nose"
"ugly pants"
"a dirty shirt"
"hairy feet"

If you mix them up with some regular things like adjectives of appearance
then you can get them practicing some pretty useful vocabulary.

Ex: "blue eyes, a big smile, wavy hair etc.

If you add a few new cards now and then, the game stays interesting and you can use it many times.

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Map game: (really a fancy version of snakes and ladders)

Get a map that you can use as a game board.
(a world map or a country map - whatever you want them to practice)

Mark start: on the bottom- left of the map and use coins as game pieces. Mark finish at the top. They should have to move back and forth accross the map (the same as in snakes and ladders)

Make a die out of cardboard (or buy one).
Mark some squares on the map like "move ahead 3"
or "move back 5" etc.
Make some cards with things like "go to Moscow" or "go back 10"
"go to Bolivia" etc.
If they roll a 6 they have to take a card and do as it says.

They play it the same as snakes and ladders but on the map so they are learning geography at the same time.

There are lots more games and things in the idea cookbook of this site.

Best of luck.

[joe_doufu]

Did you hear the joke about the family with the house full of dirty dishes, the daughter's boyfriend, the motorcycle, and the Vaseline?

[canuck in Ansan]

huh?

uh.....no?

[ontheway]

Why do you have kids who speak little or no English memorizing vocabulary words? They won't remember them for any test. They won't learn to speak English. It's a waste of everyone's time. You need a whole new approach: reading, conversation, dictation, sentence writing and tests every week. New words introduced this way are reinforced by being used in a variety of ways. Further they should be related in some way, by category or topic, for example. Start at their level and gradually push the kids higher and higher. Try building a coordinated language learning system. Then use it, modified for level and class size, for all of your classes.

Of course, you probably work for a school that says: Just help them memorize these words. I've been there...aaaaaaaaaaahh!

[Ya-ta Boy]

All my experience with language teaching has been with adults who have a huge but passive vocabulary. Yesterday was my first class with small groups of real beginners. I had a set of cards with pix of clothes for teaching vocabulary and a game ready to play. The starting activity was for pairs to list as many items of clothing as possible in 3 minutes.

The observation: Out of three classes with 7 boys each, only one was able to list clothing names. Most of the rest could identify the clothing if shown a picture, but couldn't think 'clothes' and pull the words out of their brain file with no stimulus. They could name tie, shirt, pants, socks if I pointed to mine, but they couldn't sit there and look at each other and come up with these words. I thought that was interesting. They must have memorized the words in a way that is not connected with the concept of clothes. Or something.

(To me, it would be the natural thing to do to look at other people's clothes and start listing: shirt, tie, undershirt...? That didn't seem to occur to anyone.)

[canuck in Ansan]

yes, I know exactly what you mean. Clothes seem to be a hard concept, for some reason. I was doing a review class, and a girl and I were both wearing a gray T-shirt. She could point out that I was wearing a gray T-shirt (After much prompting: "what colour is it"....), but couldnt recognize that she was also wearing one when asked. I wonder what they're really thinking?

[some waygug-in]

It could be that they are just too shy to speak and thus their level seems far lower than it really is.

Of course you are the only one who is able to judge this so if I am way off, sorry.

But I have seen it a lot in Korea..........especially with middle school girls.

[sheba]

Same with me.... my middle school students are either super quiet and wont ask for help, or they just talk to eachother and wont do any work.... I actually prefer the quiet ones!

The matching words with pictures is a good idea. You could have little quizzes at the end of the lesson and give them a point for remembering the correct word and a point for pronunciation. Then at the end of the week/month reward them. A piece of candy for every 5 points....

Going over last lessons words are important also seeing as they are begginners. Spend the first 10mins going over previous vocab.

To get dialogue, you could start with "what is this?" "it is a candle", between you and them and then get the students asking eachother.

Also you could ask one of your Korean teachers to translate all the words into Korean, and give them little quizzes each week. It could also help in their learning the word if they know the exact translation.

Every now and then you could make them a wordfind puzzle www.discoveryschool.com is good for those. Or bring in a magazine and have them find words or pictures of the vocab theyve been learning.

Anything a little interesting or different will make for a better lesson.