With My first week of teaching over I decided to write a little bit about my first impressions of the children I have/ will be teaching. I'll start with the younger elementary kids. The first thing I want to point out is that while they may look very cute, every single one of them has the potential to utterly destroy you mentally whether they know it or not. Fact: there is nothing scarier to a young Korean boy than having to sit next to or work with a girl. On the first day of class I had assigned seating and one boy was supposed to sit next to a girl, he looked at her, than at me and simply said "girl" to which I replied, "yes that is a girl, now sit down please." And God forbid that you have to have only one boy work with two or three girls, the same kid simply turned his chair around and wouldn't look at me. All the children are expert not passers and will not hesitate to beg you to play a game when they're bored, which is all the time.
The older middle school kids are any or all of the following: apathetic, tired, mean, awkward, emotional, feel they're too cool for this, and very hard to motivate. I would say teaching English to them is like pulling teeth but I'd prefer to quote my old TEFL instructor in saying that it's more like trying to drag a dead water buffalo through a swamp. I could literally be shouting at these kids with enthusiasm trying to get to read the story about pirates, and ask the easiest questions I can to try and get some response out of them and more often than not I will be met with blank stares.
Don't get me wrong though, some of these kids are indeed darling little angels that will make you smile whenever they open their mouths, but a class with all good kids is a rarity.
I complain of course, but the fault is not all with the students. Your average Korean child is at some form of school from early in the morning, to very late at night. Some of these kids are a lot smart than I was at there age. And while I was busy stuffing my face with swiss cake rolls and playing video games after school still looking forward for the weekend, these kids were still in school until about 8 at night, only to go home and do homework, and than still have school on Saturday. Needless to say the average American kid would probably have literally died in a Korean school system.
Jason
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A thought: You say the younger kids want to play games all the time. Go with that. Make everything a game. It might be hard the first few weeks (how much English do they already know?) but as they know more and more English, you can "quiz" them using matching games (use notecards), or Jeopardy, or something really creative like a boardgame or around the world or something to get them moving. Or bingo. Or line them up and give them two cards, one says "indoor item" and the other says "animal." You say a word in English, and they either lift one or the other card or neither (if you say something like Boat or Thunder). If they get it wrong, they have to sit down.
ReplyDeleteTeaching little kids is tons of fun if you get into it - as long as you present something as a game, they will love it.
Teaching older kids is harder. I got nothing. Maybe in a few weeks you'll tune into what they like more and that will work.......
J, this is so funny. I was laughing out loud pretty much the entire time I read it. I am a little behind, but - way to go on passing your presentation and going to Korea (OK, way behind)!
ReplyDeleteMy only advice for middle schoolers is: get to know them as well as you can (spend time with them, talk about video games with them, tease them about korean pop music) - I think that helps a lot, and they're pretty great once you do!