Korean Job Discussion Forums

[ilovebdt]

Due to the timetabling at my school, I seem to get a lot of students who have my class straight after their PE class.

As I teach high school, this makes them doubly tired and getting anything out of them is virtually impossible.

What do you do with your really tired students?

ilovebdt

[K-in-C]

Just a first thought during my morning coffee. I may have more when I am fully awake.

How about getting the students to talk about what they did in PE. Pair them together and get them to relay the details of the game/exercise. Do a verb assignment using words related to PE.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

I have two grade 3 classes I see at 4pm when they've already been in class since 7.30am. I've been pretty successful with them so far in terms of keeping everyone going. I usually have to start the class by waking up 5-10 students who are sound asleep and walking around the classroom physically waking kids up a few times during the lesson. What works best is doing the difficult activities first and saving group work, a game, or a song for the end. I've been quite pleasantly surprised how often I've had everyone alert and doing something productive or engaged in an activity atfer 50 minutes. Candy as a prize for games or the first group finished their group work also works just as well for 18-year-olds as it would for 8-year-olds.

I also confiscate pillows or jackets / teddy bears that could serve that purpose.

[VanIslander]

fifteen minutes nap time for everyone, heads down!

works wonders

[ilovebdt]

[Ekuboko]

For tired students, I have them do something low key, which also means I can conserve my energy.

Something simple like making a vocab quiz where I read out hints and they write down the answer, then we check the answers on the board together, then they get to do a wordfind I have made - the words they search for are the ones in the quiz.

[Dan The Chainsawman]

let them sleep.

[Qinella]

I'll bring in candy for the classes if they're too tired. Nothing like a little sugar rush. But, I have really tiny classes, so I can get away with it.

With bigger classes, a good thing is like what Yu Bum Suk said: have them stand up and walk around. Teach them what "take a few deep breaths" means. A brief, brisk walk is one of the best ways to get your energy levels back up.

[ilovebdt]

[Dan The Chainsawman]

Tell them to wake the kids up then.

[Lemonade]

Tired students? Sometimes I wake them up and give a warning. Second time around, I kick them out of class and mark them absent. Start that policy from day one and you won't have to wake up five students from each one of your classes. You work at a hagwon? You'll just have to be that super energetic entertainer that they pay you to be or you'll get complaints. It's that simple.

[Hotpants]

This is a hard one, as you have no control over the schedule - or do you?

I would agree that lowered blood sugar levels and increased body temperatures after sports class make concentration on detailed tasks drop. But, I don't like the idea of giving them candy or soft drinks.

Alternatively, incorporate a cooling down exercise into the beginning of your class - lots of TPR in there!

[jacl]

Tell them to wake the *beep* up, or else (so to speak). Or maybe one of us ESL teachers can go to this particular class with you and hold your hand (not me).

[Grotto]

cattle prod?
airhorn?
firecrackers?

TPR?
Game teacher game!

[Qinella]