Once I get there, the real challenge starts
I'm trying to work out some basics for how I want to teach my classes, because it seems like too many post-college-'I-want-an-Asia-experience' kids go in and completely gyp the paying students. I've had good teachers and bad teachers, and while my personal experience with teaching is pretty much limited to substitute teaching, I want to be a good teacher.
In trying to dream up a possible syllabus I'm hampered by the fact that I don't know how many students I'll have, what ages they'll be, and what kind of teaching materials the school will put in my hands. I'm generating ideas based on teaching styles that appealed to me as a student (hopefully they will lend themselves to ESL teaching as well.) If I can stay away from using the provided books as a crutch instead of a guide I'll do well - or at least better.
Some general plans are as follows:
Daily Topic Journal -
Starting with 'why do I really want to learn English?'
That's about 5-10 minutes of a 50 minute class, and I want to be sure to do review at the end of class.
The funnest review I've ever done included each of us students having a paddle made of white board that we wrote on in dry erase markers. We were asked a question and we had to (silently) write out the answer and raise our paddles. After everyone had their paddle raised (we were allowed to help each other with hints, but no direct answers) we read off our answers. The person who got the correct answers the fastest got a prize - I'm thinking with little kids it can be stickers and such from the US, and with the bigger kids ?.
I'm thinking I'll do a game day every other week as a treat.
I've been checking several websites for lesson ideas, and so far I like using comics and editing (or erasing) the lines in the balloons so that the students can write in the dialog. It's fun for most people, and it's conducive to scenario-thinking
Also, an idea that I like from BigHominid is having the students work on something in the longterm - a storybook or magazine - that they write articles/pages for throughout the semester, which I'll put together and print for them on the last class.
I foresee one of my biggest problems being discipline. I'm a big softy, and my friends lovingly and exasperatedly tell me that I want to be everyone's friend. I'll have to toughen up, and fast.
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That's all for now - more when I find out when I'll actually be in Changwon.
~KK
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Hey Kat,
As a former HS English teacher, I'm pretty interested in supplementing/improving the ESL curriculum. However, when I got here, the materials I was given were really easy to use without a whole lot of extra planning. So for now, I'm going to learn the program, but keep my eyes out for ways to make it more fun. I had an idea about journaling similar to yours, but I found out some of my students' English skills are not up to that, so be ready to be flexible, especially since you said you don't know the classes/levels. Plus, I think most hakwons change schedules around a bit each month, especially at the start of new semesters. Good luck! I'll be curious to read your adventures!
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