Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Missile Command Kid]

So far, I've been teaching upper middle school and high school composition classes (hagwon) and have been loving it. This week, however, my school added a special "class" consisting of a brother and sister, 11 and 12, who are basically fluent in English. I have zero experience teaching this age level and need some ideas for what to do with them over the next few months. I've got them in a 1.5 hour block each week, and I'm supposed to be assisting with their spoken and written English. Just to give you an idea, this is what I did with my first class:

1) Introductions: Students wrote down ten questions for me, and I answered them. I then took their list and asked them their own questions. (45 minutes!)
2) Free writing: Students took what we talked about and wrote down a short introduction of themselves. (10 minutes)
3) Listening & speaking: I played a short story by Robert Munsch and talked about it afterwards. It was essentially listening comprehension but I wanted to see how much they could talk too. (10 minutes)
4) Dutch Blitz: a little bit of a break for them, but it drilled them with quick verbal usage of numbers and colors. Pretty unnecessary, as far as they were concerned, but I wanted to give them a bit of a break - 1.5 hours is a long time for a kid! (15 minutes)
5) Another listening & speaking session, close. (10 minutes)

My concern is two-fold: first, a 45-minute introduction session isn't sustainable throughout the semester, and second, there was very little writing in there. I have absolutely no problems with developing my own lesson plans or curricula, but as I said, I've never taught this age group before and am not sure what kind of activities they'd find interesting and what would be boring. Classical rhetoric isn't something they'll likely be interested in, so I'm a bit out of my comfort zone - which is great, because these kids are really fantastic and I want to help them the best that I can. Ideas?

[Missile Command Kid]

Ideas for textbooks, perhaps?

[Alyallen]

Maybe if you want more writing and such, you can give them a book report. Pick a book and read it with the students, have them take turns reading a passage outloud and then have them write a report about the book or about a particular passage. You can discuss what happpens in the book and the students can ask questons or state opinions sort of a "If I was in this situation, I'd do such and such..."

I mean, if they are that bright, I'm sure a bit of a challenge won't hurt and you have them for a good long time.

My sister is 12 years old and she LOVES to read, so that's why I have this suggestion.

You could also ask the students about their interests and build something around that since there are only 2 of them.

Good luck!