Korean Job Discussion Forums

[hugo_danner]

I was just hired at a very rural public Elementary School--with 120 students to be exact. It's nice, quiet and clean......a little boring but I'm busy studying, anyway.

But they want me to create an English Club that meets one hour a week. I have no idea what to do. Is anyone else in this kind of situation and what ideas have you used? Help PLEASE!!!

[Okibum]

How fun! I did the Spanish club in the school I taught in last year in the states.
I would assume you would do the same kinds of things.
-practice language but in a fun way
- culture lessons
-watch English shows/movies
-music (translating lyrics and trying to make our own songs), traditional dances. I don't know if you are American or not but you could teach Electric slide or some other line dancing thing. We had a performance/party at the end of the year.

Look online for "elementary Spanish clubs" or "elementary French clubs" and adapt it for you.

Good luck!

[passport220]

What age are your students? If age appropriate, print out a copy of Antoine de Saint-Exup�ry's �The Little Prince� (available free online) and read and discuss a chapter each week.

[cmr]

How many students will you have, out of the 120, for the English club? I guess it will be during lunch time or after regular classes, right? If so and if it's not mandatory, then don't expect too many kids to show up.

[hugo_danner]

We're not sure of the number, but it's "after school" but before my going home time of 4:30. Most will be Elementary 3-6 (that's what I'm told). I think maybe it will be on Wednesday sometime (before 4:30).

To be truthful, it's quite a ruckus right now being the first day and all. Total confusion...................... I'm sure this school isn't the Lone Ranger there, tho!

[Smee]

Yeah, I'm sort of in the same situation as you. Rural school, 100 students, English club. My coteacher organized everything since she got here a year before I did.

basically at my school it was frequently an afterthought. If anything came up, or if any teacher needed afternoon time to practice the other extracirricular stuff, English Club was cancelled. I think we only held 3 classes all semester.

Anyway, she printed stuff off the intereet or copied chapters from books. The class was split into "beginner" and "advanced," but honestly there was no appreciable difference. Normally each 40-minute class was organized like our normal classes, except, since we had fewer students, we spent more time practicing speaking.

There was frequently an interactive activity at the end of class, the culmination of the previous 30 minutes. One time we did a mock store, where students had a budget, fake money, etc., and a shopping list, and had to comparison shop between my coteacher and I to buy the best price. Keep in mind these kids are beginners, age 9-11, so the idea was just to reinforce the basic phrase "How much is it?"

In December the English Class was pawned off on me. I was then responsible for organizing everything, although we would only have 1 class because the students were using afternoon times to study for tests and to practice skits. But, I just spent the first half introducing real basic English phrases, then I spent the last 15-20 minutes doing a role play I had written. (I normally write my own role plays). The role plays are about a page long and normally incorporate 3 or 4 people, and usually involve some kind of physical activity to reinforce the language. My school wanted me to do "survival English," based on lessons like "at immigration," "at the restaurant," etc., but this was over their heads. I instead picked stuf like "What did you do yesterday?" or "How's the weather?" If you make it fun, with a type of punchline at the end, the kids really enjoy it. For the younger students, they'll learn basic phrases. For older students---some of the grade 6s are quite good---they have a chance to improvise lengthier lines in the dialogues.

Um . . . sorry this was such a rambling post, haha. Let me know if you want any other insight into what my club was like. As I said, though, the class rarely met b/c of cancellations.

[cmr]

It doesn't have much to do with what you asked, but I'm curious, where are you? In Gyeonggi province or a little further from Seoul?

We've got about 150 students at my school. I voluntarily tried some kind of English club during lunch time, but as the previous poster said it was often cancelled.

For the first time you'll meet students, I suggest that you have some basic stuff prepared. Have some questions about themselves and their family and then teach them from their mistakes. Koreans have a hard time with "I, me, my, mine", so just asking a few questions and teaching them that they have to say "I have ....", "My ... is/are...." could be more than enough for the first day. It will also give you a chance to know your students better. You can also ask them to ask you questions. That would probably be a bit harder since they are the ones who have to come up with questions, but if you get higher level kids, that could be useful.