Korean Job Discussion Forums

[deetah]

Please help me!!!
As of Monday I am starting to "teach" conversation classes with three middle school students. In my past experience, my middle school students don't talk and look like they are completely exhausted and or utterly bored.

Any suggestions for 45 minute conversation classes? Games, discussion topics, motivation tips?

HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!

[turtlepi1]

[Yu_Bum_suk]

[DavePuff]

I know where you're coming from. I have 6 middle school students 3 times a week for 50 minutes a class and I often run out of things to talk about.

I've used most of the subjects out of text books, all of which the students never really talk a great deal about. They don't want to write (its like squeezing water out of rocks) and they get sick of puzzles.

I've heard scrabble and boggle are two games they enjoy and with that in mind will invest in a scrabble board in a few days (it'll be worth forking the money out for it!).

Any other ideas would be much appreciated.

[Demophobe]

Music...pop songs.

[butter808fly]

I have a lot of material in my book to use for our middle school class, but getting them to willingly talk is a whole other issue! If I actually gave them a topic to discuss or when I ask them to do partner work, they dont use English they use Korean to discuss the answers! ahhhhhh! I think 50 mins is totally easy to fill (do you give a test a day, theres 5-10 mins right there) but getting them to converse with me, or each other (would be ideal) is a joke! Id love tips here as well.

op: do you use a book of some kind? Its a nice starting point to get ideas from.

Also, I brought it pictures from a american magazine last week and they are just thrilled with an American Ad So, creative fun things like that get them interested. We talked about the ADs a bit.

[Ody]

there are middle school students and there are middle school students. if they're interested (not entirely unheard of), they're cool.

it's difficult to advise on lesson plans without a clear idea of their level.

how 'bout an update? what's their level?

[crazylemongirl]

I'm a middle school teacher but I'm kind of lucky because I'm their regular day time teacher.

Most of the time my classes dove tail off of their regular classes but at the moment we are doing:

Drama. My friend found a parody on the movie titanic so we have been doing some acting.
Art. Don't forget that older kids also benefit from this. I got them to construct those name anagram things. Eg.

Cool
Really beautiful
Awesome Teacher from New
Zealand.
Yeah!

We've done a couple of hours on computers (I teach boys) Identifying parts, talking what makes a good computer. Also good for teaching compartives and superlatives as they to buy a fictional computer. They also have to make a homeshopping advertisement (using drama and art again)

They also love talking about food. Etc.

Also some good books to look at are the Gateway series plus american headway which have good topical stuff in there.

[Derrek]

[turtlepi1]

So once a week I teach a middle school class...it is very small and 90 minutes long. We always get through it but only because the couple of kids are pretty mature and take responsibilty for their learning...(a surprise for kids of any culture at that age not just Korean children)

Anyway I was told last week I would have to teach a combined class or 1st year middle school students thru 3rd year highschool students...(conversation class 90 minutes)

I was sort of dreading it. Not that I couldn't get through it, but I find it like pulling teeth. Well taught it last night and once again I was pleasently surprised. Even though their level wasn't quite high enough to, they managed to talk (in english) the entire time without much prompting from me to keep it moving. I think over time it would be a problem as we run out of things to talk about but it make a very good impression of the students.

As for the Middle school (public) teachers in the group. I found yet another reason why your kids fall asleep in class. Our hagwan is teaching a "special" camp over the holidays for grade 6 students going into first year middle school. Guess which text book they are using...yup you've got it...the national middle school textbooks.

And unlike middle school there aren't 30 of them in a class so they are "forced" to learn the material (by a Korean teacher that believes in achievement and discipline.)

[knee-highs]

[swetepete]

I play a good conversation game that can be adapted for virtually every level. It's called, in the form I learned it, 'say three things.' I call it 'the Dragon."
Draw a big old dragon or snake on the board, divided into about twenty segments. Each segment has a word or phrase on it, like "hate!" or "love!" or "hobbies" or "countries" or "languages." They go from the dragon's tail to the head, and everywhere they land, they have to say a few things about whatever that segment says. "Favourite movies," they tell you their fave and then tell you why, if they're on that level.
You can do a simple one for elementary, all the way up to fluent high school kids or even uni, except with the higher level students you'll have to give them tougher questions.
I'm teaching a bunch of TOEFL speaking and writing classes now, so on the dragon, every few spaces, I'll put "toefl question." I hit them with one of the independent speaking task questions. Works very well.
You can of course ask them lots of questions along the way as well, and cajole them into explaining more about their opinions.
I like to flip a coin to see how far they move; if they call heads or tails correctly, they move one space, and continue until they lose. Paper Rock Scissors would work well for this as well. Generally they'll not get to move more than three or four spaces at a time.
Game gets tougher if five kids all land on 'countries,' because while they all know Japan and America and New Zealand, once they get upwards of ten countries, you can actually teach them some new ones.
I have a trinket for the winner--a hand-phone doohickey, or a chocolate bar, or something like that.

[inverse_narcissus]

Thanks, swetepete, for the snake idea! I've also got a conversation class to teach, and I'm going to try it out tomorrow.

[The Soju Hoju]

I assume your a teacher....what a ridiculous post.............you need to ask what to teach for 3 students. That typifies what's wrong with this country and the people who ' supposedly ' come and ' teach ' here. Get a life.

[kiwiliz]