Thursday, February 25, 2010

Poor Students

One of my high-level English (as a foreign language) classes had a poem project at the end of class on Tuesday (2010.2.23). We didn't have a lot of time so I had them form one big group of seven students, and each student wrote one stanza. The topic was conflicts they have with their parents. I typed each stanza into the computer to make the finished poem, which makes it easy to put up here. It's kind of fun. It doesn't reflect their skill level very well really. They wrote their parts in under five minutes, totally unassisted, and it was also the last class of the term, last part of the class, and they don't really like poems. But anyway, here it is!

Poor Students

I want more money
I am so poor
Give me money

I want to buy more clothes
I don’t have enough clothes
But my mother doesn’t buy anything
I am sad

When the test scores came out
Mom called me and told me to hurry
But I want to tell her sorry
Because my score is a mess
And my mom is getting angry
Why do I have to have a good score?

I hate academies where I have to pay
[Academy name] is a place where I have to pay
So I hate [Academy name]

I am not a child
My parents interfere with my consumption
I can decide logically whether to buy something

My friend and I played at the theater
I spent the night at my friends house
We chatted all night while eating snacks
Someone’s talking outside
What are you thinking about? Study!

We are students
And we study most of the time
But parents sometimes seem to forget
Study study study
Maybe they want us to study our whole lives
We are students
And sometimes we need fun

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Things I say a lot.

My Korean friend, who also teaches English, asked me to make a list of 30 common classroom English expressions. So here I go, listing those things I keep saying and saying, all the time, during my classes:

1) Hello!
2) How are you? / How was your weekend? / What are you doing over the weekend? (Making weak conversation while checking homework.)
3) Sit down. / Don't do that. / Stop doing that. (Also used with "Why don't you ~" and "How about you ~".)
4) We're on page XX. / Let's go to page XX.
5) Let's ~ (read, look at the picture, grade the tests, etc.)
6) Get your X out. / Get out your X. (red pen, storybook, workbook)
7) What does X mean? (usually rhetorically, to introduce some vocabulary explanation)
8) Who/What is/are he/she/it/they (etc.)? (checking whether people know the pronoun referenece)
9) Why do you think [something]? (checking comprehension)
10) Okay, ~. (used to introduce pretty much everything I say)
11) Yes? / Yes, [name]? (calling on someone to answer/ask a question)
12) Any questions? (there usually aren't, even when there should be)
13) One, two, three! (Starting off some reading/repetition in unison.)
14) Break time! / Let's take a break. (At the start of break time.)
15) Let's come back. (at the end of break; this might not commonly used by others)
16) I'll be right back. (Leaving the room before class starts.)
17) Pretty good. (Of an answer, I guess; my student told me I say this a lot - probably when it isn't really.)
18) That isn't English. / People won't understand you if you say X. / Nobody says X. (Of some Konglish, like "PC room", "sharp" for pencil, etc.)
19) Hahaha! (Laughter; again, according to my students.)
20) Let's have class. (at the start of class; kind of weird, actually)
21) Shall we take a test? Yes we shall. (I was a little surprised to hear myself say this too. I think I say strange stuff sometimes because it's almost like talking to myself, when student listening comprehension is low.)
22) [name] is here. (While checking attendance.)
23) I need to check your homework. Please have your homework out so I can check it.
24) Good luck. Do your best. (At the beginning of a test.)
25) Not exactly. / Almost. (When an answer is wrong.)
26) Are you okay? (When a student is not working or whatever.)
27) [student name] (When calling on people to read or whatever.)
28) Who's got the first one? (first answer; etc.)
29) Thank you. / Thank you very much.
30) 바이!

Saturday, February 20, 2010

In which I compare my old job in New York with my current job in Korea

Teaching English in South Korea is so good compared to teaching math in New York! Even though I'm actually teaching more hours per day, with less break or prep time and less "professional development" etc... The curriculum is all provided. One of my main conclusions after all my teaching stuff in NY and now here is that teaching and curriculum development are two SEPARATE jobs. Asking one person to do both is ridiculous. There's NO WAY one person can do as good a job as a whole team of people working full time to make good materials. I also have my own classroom in Korea, which I never had in New York. In New York I had a cart. Also, in Korea there's a computer in my classroom, and it always works. There's a digital projector that is installed in the ceiling. Attendance and grades are all entered right into the computer, and the system JUST WORKS. Yet another major difference: class size. In New York I taught a class of 35 students. There were actually 36 on roster, even though 35 is the legal limit, as I understand it. Classes that big are preposterous. If you're going to have a class that big you might as well have one really good lecturer make a DVD and then just play the DVD for the kids. Here our biggest classes are 15 or 16 students; this term my smallest class is 5 students and my biggest is 10. I can keep track of that many kids. I can see what they're doing, I can help them individually, and they can ask any questions they have, pretty much any time. It's the right way to do it.

Of course, in New York I was in a public school, and here I'm in a private "academy" (no good English word really, a "hagwon" - after-school private school). Public schools here in Korea are not without problems, as I understand it, and they routinely have crazy big class sizes, as high as 40 I'm told. The criticism of schools like mine is that the kids are being worked too hard - they come after school, get a bunch more homework, lose their childhoods, blah blah blah. They learn a lot of English. It's crazy how good these kids are at a totally foreign language, at a crazy young age. We get some pretty smart kids, too. The other criticism is that only the rich can afford to send their kids to my school.