Korean Job Discussion Forums

oldfatfarang · Joined: 19 May 2005 Location: On the road to somewhere.

I'd appreciate some help, please.

(1) I've been asked to take 'after school' classes for my middle school co-teachers. They will be a mixed group of old/young/ men/women/ and mixed abilities. I'm trying to convince them to keep the ages separate so the young teachers can talk - no luck so far.

(2) They also want an after hours class for middle school students. Mixed ages/abilities/gender.

Any ideas about a general conversation textbook for these classes. I don't want to do any preparation for it. Also - which bookstore stocks English conversation books in Seoul.
Cheers.

xCustomx · Joined: 06 Jan 2006

I'm using a combination of "Let's Talk!" by Duane Vorhees, "Small Group Discussion Topics for Korean Students" by Jack Martire and the infamous "Interchange" series.

I have to lead a discussion with the other English teachers, so I plan on using the Small Group book and mixing in news articles.

I also have to teach a group of 12 other teachers and will be spending maybe 1/2 the time with the Interchange book and then read an article together. Last week we just did introductions amongst ourselves after interviewing each other.

If you go to Gyobo Bookstore I'm sure you'll be able to find a book that will be suitable for both groups.

poet13 · Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2007 3:46 pm Post subject:

I will be starting both of those classes next week. We will be using side-by-side for the teachers. We do not separate by age. When we started this last year, in the first class I made it clear that for the next 45 minutes they were no longer teachers, vice-principal, and principal. One of the very first exercises I did was called interruption. It involves interrupting the other person and completing their sentence. "Yesterday afternoon I went.....shopping with my family." etc. I found it was good for breaking down some taboos when conversing with people senior because it was part of the exercise. I think though it might not have been as successful if the principal and vice-principal were not such big fans of mine.
For the kids, we will also use side-by-side, but with a different focus. We are working on their pronunciation, enunciation, confidence, and speaking rhythm. All of this is in prepartion for the various competitions during the school year.

passport220 · Joined: 14 Jun 2006 Location: Gyeongsangbuk-do province

From a previous post��..
http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com. You will find news articles prepared for teaching ESL. Many of the topics have the same article written twice one easy and one harder. I prepare a sheet with both versions on one page. The easy one allows more people to understand and be included in the discussion, and the harder one challenges the other students.

I cut out most of the tasks from http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com. I use the synonym match to talk about vocabulary and pick out the best �Student A� and �Student B� discussion questions. I have found the teachers want some time working on something challenging to them, but they also want some time just to kick back relax and have a discussion with a native speaker about general questions they have, and to talk about culture. I would recommend not getting too stressed about it. I am a new teacher and was very worried about the classes but they turned out to be the most enjoyable part of the job.

I used the �$100 laptop for world�s poor children� article and it went over well with a follow-up discussion on how technology can be used in teaching. Also talk about online education. �Would you trust an online master�s degree?��.things along those lines.

This is the article: http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/0510/051001-mit-e.html
This is a good picture to go with it: http://usera.imagecave.com/passport220/General_teaching/draftlaptopphoto.JPG

Yu_Bum_suk · Joined: 25 Dec 2004

If any teachers want lessons I give them a copy of my schedule and say 'feel free to come join any class'.

xox · Joined: 11 Jun 2006 Location: Bundang

Yu_Bum_suk · Joined: 25 Dec 2004

Oh, and as for an after-school class, try to make it more specific, so that it will cater to some students' interests but not to others (such as the dimmer ones). A writing class or an English drama class may be lots of fun. I'm doing one of each this year and so far really like them.

passport220 · Joined: 14 Jun 2006 Location: Gyeongsangbuk-do province

Yu_Bum_suk · Joined: 25 Dec 2004

duplicate - sorry

xox · Joined: 11 Jun 2006 Location: Bundang

thu_tinh · Joined: 27 Sep 2006

so no one really plays games in their extra classes do they?

Colorado · Posted: Tue Mar 20, 2007 8:09 pm Post subject:

I play lots of games in my extra classes, which are smaller than my regular classes and therefore more conducive to game playing. Why wouldn't you play games? I even bought some Scrabble boards in Thailand for my extra classes to use.

pkang0202 · Joined: 09 Mar 2007

So, how did you get to teach these extra classes? Were you approached by the school's faculty or did you suggest the idea yourself?

Yu_Bum_suk · Joined: 25 Dec 2004

butlerian · Joined: 04 Sep 2006 Location: Korea

I had a really bad class today. I made a lesson based around "the family", and I thought a good activity would be to use a role-play in the textbook "Tell Me More (available here: www.finchpark.com/books ). It involved giving each student a small piece of paper with a few lines of writing on it: eg. "My name is Peter. I live in London. My father's name is Simon." The idea was for the students to find their family by asking questions like "What's your name? Do you have a father? What's his name?" Well, this was totally over the heads of all my middle school students. I had ten minutes in the break between lessons to think of something else to do before the next class. Always bring a plan B!