park at circle

Love Me Do

Finally, I'm back at work!  I can't believe I'm this happy to be saying this.

My students have done well and worked hard this semester so I decided to give them a little break this week and teach them a couple old Beatles songs.

I chose "Love Me Do" and "From Me To You" because they have minimal lyrics and a simple structure.

"Love Me Do" is the easier, and more enjoyable of the two.  It's a bit slower and has a narrower singing range.  An unexpected bonus was that the students naturally picked up the harmony... the boys went low and the girls went high.

I prepared lyric sheets with quite a few blanks, but 3rd grade and advanced 2nd grade doesn't get the sheets right away.  They must listen and write in their notebooks any words and phrases they recognize.  They call out their answers and I write them on the board and initiate a discussion.

Then, the sheets are handed out and, after another listen, the students fill in the blanks.

After checking the blanks, we just practice a  couple times (I help them with a couple tricky lines) and then have a 'singing test'.

1st grade and low 2nd grade skip the first notebook step, but follow the rest of the lesson as noted.

The kids have a lot of fun with it and feel good about speaking English.

Conversation Tests Are Over!!

Finally, the testing is over.  It was a good break from teaching, but I am so ready to get back to my regular school.

One of my questions the last couple days was a telephone conversation.  I make a call and when the students answers, I ask for either George Bush, No Mu hyun (President of Korea),  

or Jeon Ji hyun (a famous and beautiful actress).

I asked one student, "May I speak to George Bush please?"

I was not prepared for his reply-  "I'm sorry. He's dead."

That particular dialog ended right there.

A native speaker in every school?

I read this at the Chosun News website. 

Under a five-year plan to improve English education announced on Sunday, the ministry will drastically increase the number of native English-speaking teachers at middle schools from the current 221 to at least one for each of Korea’s 2,850 middle schools. It will also boost the number of native speakers at elementary and high schools -- currently totaling 236 and 244 respectively ? depending on local authorities’ budgets. The new English teachers will be taught Korean culture and basic Korean before being let loose on the students.

I'll believe it when I see it. 

Economics aside, I think it will be almost impossible to find enough qualified teachers and very challenging to develop and use an effective curriculum.

I was surprised to see that there are 2,850 middle schools... that seemed little low to me at first.  Personally, I've taught in 16 different ones and visited 10 or 11 others-  and that's just within Busan.

The article says that the plan is from the Ministry of Education.  I work for the Ministry of Education so I'm kind of wondering if my job will be changing or if the program is just expanding. 

In my free time (Ha!) I will have a chat with my supervisor about it.

Conversation Test

For the next 2 weeks, I will be traveling to other schools to adminster the still-experimental Conversation Test.

It's kind of a drag but it is a good break from regular classes and it's one of the few opportunities I have to talk to other teachers in my program (normally we each work independently in seperate schools).

It's interesting going to new schools and see new areas of the city, although some of these schools are impossible to get to!  That's part of the fun for me.

This test is in its third year and personally I think it's a waste of time and money.

The purpose is to evaluate the conversational skills of students.  The students get points towards high school acceptance, whatever that's worth.

The test itself is ok, but my problem is that not every student even has the opportunity to take the test and it is not adminstered consistantly.

It's also excrutiatingly boring asking the same 5 or 6 questions 600 times. 

"How long does it take to come to school?"

"If you meet your friend after not seeing him for a long time, what can you say?"

"Could you tell me how to get to the beach?"

Speaking of testing, I gotta be in Dae yeon Dong in 1 hour...  should make it.

Proficiency Test: update

My co-worker was just informed that she passed the test and is going to Canada for the seminar.  I congratulated her and, of course, took full credit for her success. 

I was knew yesterday that she'd made the cut, but I tortured her yesterday by saying, "Well, many of the applicants very excellent... Don't worry... you were pretty good... I guess we'll see..." and, "The most important thing is that you did your best."

It's good news for her and I am happy for her.

Proficiency test

Strictly speaking, this is not really about teaching but...

Yesterday, I was called in to evaluate the English proficiency of 42 public school teachers.  Myself and 7 other 'native speakers' interviewed teachers to determine who would attend a 4-week teachers' seminar in Canada this summer.

The questions were moderately challenging but fair and our scores were based on fluency and pronunciation but not actual content.  Basically, if the applicant could understand and be understood, they passed. 

It was a little strange for me because I knew several of the applicants.  In fact, I am currently working with one of them this semester and she gave me a ride to the test site.

I'd told my boss beforehand and he just chuckled and said, "Well, don't talk to her!"

uno!

My Tuesday private classs of four 5-graders and I have gotten into the habit of playing 'uno' in the last 10-12 minutes of our one-hour classes.  We've playing for almost a year and have become quite vicious.  We've also added several new rules to the game to make it more interesting and more vicious.

Just a sampling of new rules:

1. bombs are allowed- a player may play more than one card of the same rank at a time.  For example, instead of just playing 1 'four', a player may lay down 3 'fours', or how ever many they have.

2. a '0' card negates a 'draw 4' and a '0' of the same color reverses the 'draw 4' BACK.

3. whenever a '7' appears, all players must immediately place their left thumb on the edge of the table.  The last player to do so must draw a card.

4.  multiple skips, backs, and draws may be played.

5. acceptable card combinations are:  skip+draw 2, skip+draw 4, back+draw 2, back+draw 4.

Bad lesson

Today's lesson plan was not good at all.  The problem was that I'd forgotten to save the updated worksheet and had to use the original draft, which was confusing and featured a glaring error and a glaring omission.

I spent an hour or so after school trying to reconstruct the 'good' version to no avail.  I'll have to resort to my back-up back-up plan tomorrow.

Would you like to ....?

Had a good lesson this week for 2nd and 3rd grade.

There was a short 'lecture', a little role-playing, vocabulary practice, and speaking practice.

The students enjoyed the lesson and I'm sure will remember quite a bit of it. 

The assignment was to make appointments with 7 different students, with 7 different activities, using the example conversation.  Most students were able to complete the assignment.  There was very little cheating... they were all actually doing the assignment correctly and enthusiastically.

I hope I can design more lessons like this one.

Download would_you_like_to_see_a_movie_with_me.doc

I'm an idiot!

This is from American English Today! Book 4 Workbook...

It's a little crossword. Free advice:  Always try things BEFORE you give them to your students.

Anyhoo, long story short.  I was stuck on 7 Across and 7 Down for a long time, until a 10-year-old student said, "Ah, Teacher is Babo!  7-Across is 'butter'.  7-Down is 'bread'!  Ah, fool Teacher!"

My poor brain had been stuck in reverse... I'd been trying to force 'butter' into the 5-letter space for 7-Down and vice versa.

Yes, folks, I truly am babo.