Korean Job Discussion Forums

[kat2]

I need some ideas for how to review the whole semester with my 4th and 5th grade students. We use the regular Minsu/Tony and Jinho/Ann texts. I want to do something fun with them, but also something that will take up the 40 minutes and not get too out of control. Also, only about 40-60% of the studetns can read well. Have any of you done anything good in the past for this? Thanks!

[seoulsteve]

In my fourth grade class, I spent the first 20 minutes of class reviewing the chants and songs from the first four lessons. After the first song, I'd pick which group was the best singer, then I'd pick one person from that group to be the judge for the next song.

For the last twenty minutes I played pictionary. When I play pictionary, I only let students draw on the board for about 10-15 seconds. This way students work quickly and it doesn't turn into art class, also, after 10 seconds it's often not very clear what the picture is, so students start guessing a lot of random vocabulary words.

Tomorrow I start reviewing with sixth graders. I'm going to try to play hangman with a wheel-of-fortune-final-round flavor. Each team gets a hangman puzzle, and then they pick ten letters. I fill in the letters that they picked, and then they try to guess what the word is. If they can't guess the puzzle, they have to come to the front of class and sing a song from one of the earlier lessons. If they get it right, they can pick which group they want to sing the song.

[kat2]

Thanks Steve!

Keep 'em coming people! My brain is not functioning today at all.

[Smee]

I spend the first few minutes doing a couple songs and chants. Then I move into an interview/scavenger hunt type game. I stole it from another textbook, but I customize it for each class. I just did it with 3rd graders and it worked pretty well. 5th and 6th graders liked it too, and most of my students aren't strong readers.

I made a worksheet with about 7 questions and a few different answers. For example (grade 6):
"What will you do this summer?"
"I will go camping." ____________
"I will play computer games." _________
"I will visit my uncle in Gwangju." _________ (and so on).
"What is your favorite color?"
"My favorite color is blue" _________
"My favorite color is purple" ________ (only give one or two options)
"When is your birthday?"
"My birthday is in January." ________
"My birthday is in July." ________ (only give one or two options)

Then the kids will walk around the room asking questiosn of their classmates. For example, "What will you do this summer?" and if the kid says "I will visit my uncle in Gwangju," then they'll sign on the line. If the kid says an option that's not on the list, they don't sign. And, surprisngly, the kids didn't cheat by modifying their answers based on the paper. I usually walk around the room first to demonstrate the game, as the kids probably won't follow at first (at least mine didn't). Since the kids are always asking me for my "sign," they're eager to ask questions.

You'll have to make a sheet based on the units in your book. Also, I added a few questions that I felt they should know, and I reviewed with them ahead of time (I can . . . I will . . . My favorite . . . ). For 3rd grade I put the Korean translations side-by-side, as the students have only been studying English for about 3 months.

Surprisingly it has worked so far in all my classes. It works best in a bigger class. The kids, for a change, actually spoke English through the entire exercise, and the better students helped those who struggled.

edit: It takes between 20 and 30 minutes. Then you can do whatever you'd like to fill in the rest of the time. After everybody finished their form, what I did was I changed the questions into "Who will visit their uncle in Gwangju" and had the kids give me the answers based on the signatures. It didn't work for 3rd grade, but 5th and 6th grade could do it after I modelled it for them. (Sorry, haven't done it for 4th grade yet).

[desertdaisy]

Hi

I arrived in Korea not too long ago so most of the semester's work was finished .

Now it is only revising the chapters so what we did was:


We have sort of test pages which are put in plastic sleeves.
On the page in the corner there is a block with about 15 small blocks


We do a classtest kinda thing where the learners use markers to write on it and they wipe it off afterwards.

so everyday we do a test on a different chapter.

and they get to write the answer to the Question the teacher gives on the page and then give them a minute or two to answer then count to five and they lift their pages up.

Then i write the correct answer on the board and they get to put a cross in block or a circle if it is right.

It is kinda fun and they like it .

It can take up to thirty five minutes and beforehand they get about ten minutes to revise the chapter before the test starts.

I hope it is of assistance .

[ddeubel]

Smee,

Excellent lesson and thanks for outlining and showing us how a teacher can adapt materials and make a class truly communicative.

DD

[Smee]

Thanks, ddeubel. Unfortunately it's about the only lesson that I made that's worked for them. It just bombed in a 3rd grade class this morning, so I was a little disappointed. It might have to be modified, for lower levels, to become an all-class activity first, where students answer the questions by raising their hands. Then, shift into the signature-gathering part.

I've still got a few classes left from now until the end of the year, so I'll keep an eye on this thread and on other ideas.