Before coming to Korea I had basically no experience teaching children. When I arrived my co-teacher was great and really on-the-ball when it came to teaching. Unlike a lot of people, I wasn’t thrown into the classroom fresh off the plane and expected to teach. For the most part, I didn’t have create lesson plans at all for the first few months as she took care of that and let me focus on actually teaching the lessons. As time passed I eventually took on more responsibility (out of personal development and boredom). I recently took my TEFL certification and learned a bit more about the structure of lessons and how to effectively use the short 40-minute period that is provided.

Below is some advice for new teachers (and even seasoned veterans who aren’t fluent with technology). It’s what I’ve found works in my public school and in the various camps that I’ve taught. Feel free to add your own thoughts in the comments section below.

The First Day

You may or may not have an amazing co-teacher. You can make the best of this by preparing some photos from your hometown and about your life. Students love to see photos (and videos) about your life in your home country. Photos of your family, friends, birthdays, baby photos, your house and school are all good ideas. You could even use Google Maps and zoom in on your old house and school.

Intentionally speak slower than you’re accustomed to. Your native speech speed is probably much faster than what your new students are used to. Speak about 70% of your usual speed, speak clearly, and try not to use complex words.

You will probably be exhausted and confused after your first few days. It’ll pass. Take the weekend to relax, meet people, party it up in celebration of the completion of your first week. As weeks pass you’ll get into a routine and stop worrying about teaching and relax more. I remember that for the first few months I’d frequently have dreams about class and not being prepared and such. Fortunately, these go away.

Make It Interesting

As you get more comfortable teaching you’ll probably feel the desire to add your own materials and stray from the curriculum. The most important thing you can do to ensure students absorb the material and stay focused is to make your lessons interesting and engaging. Teaching by the book doesn’t work very effectively because it’s usually boring. And, unless you really stretch it out, the book doesn’t provide enough material to keep students engaged for the full 40- or 50-minute lesson. You must supplement the book materials and activities with your own. Do a quick warm-up games or activity (not necessarily related to English) to get them woken up and focused. Then teach the meat of the lesson. After that, close with a fun and interesting activity.

When teaching the meat of the lesson, use a loud voice, over-emphasize your actions, and try to be as visually interesting as possible. Move around the room. This creates a dynamic energy in the classroom (I hate this sentence but it’s the best way I can think to describe it).

Suggested sites for this:

• Waygook.org: plenty of downloadable PPT files, games and suggestions on how to make the book lessons more interesting.
• Barryfunenglish.com: Pay site, but worth every penny. It has tons of vocabulary sets and lots of fun games. Plus, it’s got a section specifically for Korean public school native teachers with vocabulary sets designed around each of our lessons.

Discipline

Discipline here is totally different than in Western countries. For the most part, your Korean co-teacher will be able to handle the kids extremely well, allowing you to simply teach your lesson. However, if discipline is a problem then there are a few things you can try. Unfortunately, bringing the students to their homeroom teacher causes that teacher to lose face and look bad. Also, bringing the students to the VP or Principal is a huge mistake as both your co-teacher and the homeroom teacher lose face, big time. The best way to deal with discipline is within the classroom itself.

• Near the beginning of the term, be strict. You’re not their friend so don’t act like it. If they see you as a friend they won’t respect you as a teacher and discipline will be difficult or impossible.
  Single out the worst students and be strict with them. Don’t give them any room to act up otherwise they will keep pushing you further.
• Punish the whole class for the actions of an individual. Count down from five and if students are talking past zero, deduct a minute from the class break time. After a couple of minutes are deducted because of one student the rest of the class will get pretty annoyed at that student.
• Unfortunately, purely verbal punishment doesn’t always work in Korea. Students are generally used to the idea that a Korean teacher can give them a good whack on the head. As a result, they don’t necessarily take verbal punishment seriously. To adapt to this difference, use some light physical punishment. Don’t hit them or touch them in any way. But, have them come to the front and hold their hands in the air. Or have them hold a heavy book in the air. Have them do push-up stance. Have them write out a sentence 20 or 30 times. Sometimes it’s the only way to really get students to listen.

Use Technology

Tying into my previous point (make it interesting) is the use of technology. Flash and PPT games can be used to spice up any lesson. Using picture slideshows instead of flash cards allows students to more clearly see the images, plus it’s less preparation time for you. Fill-in-the-blank worksheet answers can be done with PowerPoint. There are also plenty of games made by technologically-savvy Korean teachers that can be used as well. If you’ve got a Mac, Apple Keynote can make some dazzling presentations that students love. Just export them as a Quicktime movie so they can be played on your school’s Windows computer.

I hope these tips help to improve your teaching. I’ve been aided by the many blogs and forum posts by fellow native English teachers in the country over my years here. Just remember to keep calm, do your best, and relax after work!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 19th, 2010 at 07:36 and is filed under Teaching. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.