Reflection #1 – My First Class...

March 12, 2014

I currently work at a hakwon and I’ve been teaching for about 1.5 years now.  Life as a teacher wasn’t planned.  I came to Korea originally on vacation.  Then what turned into a summer program, turned into a full time job.  I have been teaching mostly reading classes to grade 4-5 students.  I’ve had some writing classes in between but now they have given me speaking classes.  The issue is that these speaking classes are for 9-10 year old children.  They don’t speak English well and I am not allowed to speak Korean.  So I know it will be difficult to communicate with them.  Another issue is that because they are young, they need to have fun in learning something.   I personally have an introvert side as well as an extrovert side, but teaching actively and making it fun is quite of a challenge for me.  If they are not having fun, they could easily move onto a different hakwon.  One of my responsibilities in these speaking classes is for them just to have fun with English.  If they have fun, they will stay motivated and interested in learning from their other classes.

I started a 9-10 year old speaking class last week.  I was very nervous because I know how much effort I had to put into these classes and I had to have fun with them while speaking only in English.  This new class was formed by two other classes, so both classes didn’t know each other. 

WARM UP

For this class, I had to continue teaching from a book that the previous teacher had used.  The topic that I had to teach was the days of the week.  I taught them: a) days of the week b) Question: What day do you like? Answer: I like _______________  c) Weather: stormy, windy, rainy, and sunny – Today is _______.

My plan was to write the days of the week on the board and have them read the days out loud together.  I know if I had asked them individually, they would be more scared and shy of answering.  So I wanted them to read out loud, scream if they wanted to.  Then I would put them into 2 groups.  There are 6 kids so I put 3 in team A and 3 in team B. In teams, they would read the days of the week together.  I would have them read together, and then I would slowly erase some of the words (for example erase Mon in Monday).  They would still repeat the days from Monday to Sunday.  By the end, they would have memorized the days of the week by constant repetition.  To help them stay motivated, I would reward them with points (generously) in any way I can.

Next, I would ask them what day they like. I would ask them individually and then have them ask each other.  By now, I hope they would feel a little more comfortable with my and each other.  Then for the weather, I would show pictures of what stormy, windy, and rainy, and sunny looks like.  I would ask them what today’s weather is like and they would respond by saying “Today is _____________.”  All questions I would write on the board for them to read and guided answers would be written on the board.  I would ask them what each day is and if they like it or not. 

By the end of the class, for content, I hoped that the students learned the days of the week and the different types of weather.  But most importantly, I hoped that the students had fun. 

AFTER LESSON

After completing the lesson, the class went better than I thought.  They had more fun than I thought.  Teachers told me beforehand of what the students were like.  The plan with the days of the week went well.  They were actively participating and liked to scream out the answers.  They also memorized the days of the week well, whereas when we started the class, they had difficulty reading them. 

For the question of what day they liked, they couldn’t answer quickly.  They took a lot of time trying to figure out what day they actually liked.  I wanted to ask them individually and then have them ask each other, but because of the time constraint, I only had time for asking them individually.  They were very active and loud at the beginning, but I noticed that the energy was starting to slow down a little bit.  So then I taught them the different types of weather. 

I showed them the different pictures by posting them onto the board and write below what they are.  After several repetitions, I erased the words, and they were able to slowly memorize the words.  By this point, I was over my class period, so I couldn’t complete my lesson.  I just taught them what they were, had them memorize it, and asked some of them what today’s weather was like and if they liked the different types of weather.  I couldn’t ask them all individually. 

Although I couldn’t complete my lesson, I feel this class was successful because they seemed to have a lot of fun.  That is the most important thing for me with this class.  Next time, my plan is for more individual interaction between each other.