Kay
- 2009-02-13
First, take a breath. I have been here almost a year in an elementary school and I've experienced many difficulties.
The majority of students are taking English due to their parents rather than their own desire and there are no consequnces for their disregard or misbehaviour even in the public school system because they can't fail; they don't get sent to the office or calls home.
Translation and memorization are still the standard ways of learning in Korea unfortunately; I have also wanted to do more than this, but had a coteacher who controlled everything.
Do you have computer and tv or screen in your room to use powerpoint? Bomb games and quiz games are great ways to get them repeating things in a more amusing fashion. Can you turn any of the material into little songs using familiar tunes? Do they have dictionaries or does your classroom? You could have word search races in teams.
How many students? Can you arrange them into groups to facilitate such activities, maybe to mix up their levels if there are some better than others?
If you can have rewards like certificates to give out to the top individuals in a variety of categories every month and make charts in the classroom so they can see progress (award stickers for different things you want to see in the classroom). Koreans, even kids, are big on winning and doing better than others. Life is about looking good. It might catch on...
Have you talked to the other teachers in your school about their experiences?
Good Luck
Yanni Zack
- 2009-02-11
Lindsay,
Please do not throw in the towel.
Here are some suggestions:
First, find out what the students interests are. Then, create activities around these interests.
Use lots and lots of visuals (pictures) for teaching vocabulary.
Do not let them use their L1. Constantly remind them to only use English- if they need help with a word or phrase, offer to help them. Have them create a dictionary of words and vocabulary they can use on their own.
Use hands-on learning, role play, and creative activities to get them involved.
Remember to create lessons that use all learning modalities- auditory, visual and kinesthetic.
When teaching, remember that students need to be active participants and not passive spectators in all lesson activities.
Hi there,
I have been teaching in Korea for about 4 months and I am really struggling with many issues.
I'm hoping someone out there has some tips that can make me feel more like a teacher than an incredible annoyance.
The academy where I am teaching allows its students to speak L1 freely, which is what they do for the majority of the class no matter what I do. They pretty much completely ignore me unless I am standing directly over them and forcing them to repeat some English words. The students at this academy have an extremely limited ability with the English language, which means any activities or games that are even slightly complicated are impossible to conduct without translation.
My job is to get students to memorize text out of some English books, which I feel also limits what I can do in class. I do not know how to mix up these memorization "lessons" or make them even a little bit interesting for the students. Also, they are strictly memorizing the sounds that are coming out of my mouth, and not the meaning or usage. I find I can't aid in their understanding, because most, if not all of the students don't even know the concepts of tenses, nor the meanings of nouns, verbs, adjectives and so on.
This is just the tip of the iceberg! If anyone out there has any advice for me I would really appreciate it!
I am approaching my wit's end, and I do not want to end my contract pre-maturely!
Thanks a lot for your time.