Teaching: Seven Years of English

Teaching this week was a little hit-and-miss in terms of student interest/participation. The adult classes went fairly smoothly, though I was running out of steam by the end of the week, and I fear my adult beginners may have suffered for it. The high school classes required the most energy as it was hard to get the students excited about the activities I had planned for them. Here’s how the classes broke down:

Grade 1: I had planned on doing a straight TPR lesson with these students working various commands and classroom objects. My first class blew right through it. Luckily, the co-teacher was there and said, “Why don’t you talk about Dog Soup?” Ok. So we talked about Dog Soup. Why do Koreans drink it? Why don’t Americans? What do you think? Explain it to me. Etc., etc., etc. After this, I felt inspired to give them a talking to about how much English they could understand and communicate:

“When did you start taking English?” Third grade, elementary school. “How old were you?” 10 years old. “How old are you now?” 17 years old. “How many years have you been taking English?” 7 years. “Seven years?! SEVEN years? Seven YEARS?! Seven years is a long time. An obscenely long time. Do you understand what I’m saying?” Yes. “You know more English than you know. But you do not talk to me. I thought this commands lesson would be good for your level, but it’s too easy! You guys are geniuses! You can speak in English. You just can’t do it well, yet, but that’s ok. You just need to practice. Just speak English at me, and I’ll help you correct what you’re saying, but please speak English!”

I decided to do that with the rest of the first years, even my troublesome bottom tier class. Seven years is an obscenely long time. They should’ve been talking years ago. They can talk about Dog Soup, after all. It’s excruciatingly slow, but they can do it. I don’t think they need TPR anymore. They need to have someone who’ll make them talk back in English about subjects they might not thought of talking about before. We’ll help each other find the missing vocabulary when necessary.

So, we’ll talk about sports, and feelings, and movies, and girls, and guys, and Americans, and Koreans. At least, I hope we will. I just have to figure out what vocabulary they need to talk about this kind of stuff…

Grade 2: This week, I had the second graders recite “The Announcer’s Test,” a speaking test invented in the 1940s to audition prospective radio talent and made popular as a memory test by comedian Jerry Lewis on The Tonight Show later on. (It’s now a drinking game in a slightly modified version designed to be “funny”.) We used to do it at Arrowhead Lutheran Camp as a time killer before Sunday evening hamburgers. (Man, I could go for a hamburger right now. I mean a real one, not one from Lotteria.) The test utilizes every letter of the alphabet in a variety of ways and also contains all the sounds of the English language. Thus, if you can recite it, you can say pretty much anything in English.

It is, however, very long. This was highly frustrating for the students (something I’m trying to avoid like the plague). I’ve decided to give the students the script for “The Announcer’s Test”. If they can say it to me memorized by the last Friday in September, they can receive a prize. I don’t want this to be stressful for them, just a good way to practice speaking. Plus, if they actually figure out what the vocabulary is on the worksheet, they’re going to have stellar vocab words to pull from. How many Korean students do you know who can use the words “diabetic,” “apathetic,” and “sympathetic” in a sentence? (If you’re ate a language high school or science high school, don’t answer that.)

I think I’m going to try moving Grade 2 back onto the same lesson track as Grade 1. I’m just going to expect more advanced responses from them.

Advanced Adults: Day 1 talked about class sizes and why young people aren’t getting married. Day 2 talked about Better than Ezra’s “A Lifetime” and Norman Rockwell paintings. I love this class.

Beginning Adults: Day 1, more shopping and tongue twisters with the “th” sound. Went to the department store this time. Joy. Day 2, I told them about my foray with Dog Soup. They asked me about it. I told them about it. I asked them about it. Asked about what they all do with their free time. It was freeform discussion, and pretty decent for a beginning class. One of my ladies is also taking Japanese. Apparently she’s becoming quite the cosmopolitan in her old age. She wants to see the world. After the freeform discussion, which included discussion of a couple of proverbs—“Live and let live,” “When in Rome…” and “Less is more”—we worked on pronunciation of the “f/v” and “r/l” sounds.

Still no word on when I’m to begin the Teacher’s Conversation course. We’re still trying to find a time that would be amenable to the three interested parties and myself. They would like to meet on Monday during 7th Period. I’d prefer not to, as Monday is ostensibly my day off, even if I find myself in the 교무실 catching up on email most of the day anyway. I’m willing to work on this day, but I’d rather not, especially as I’m beginning to travel a bit more on the weekends and would appreciate the three-day weekends. Ideally, I’d like them to just come to the Beginning Adult classes when they can. They’d get about four possible hours a week that way anyway instead of the one hour a week they’d get from a separate class just for them. My co-teacher still has to talk things out with them, thus the delay in a schedule decision.

Next week, the advanced adult class will watch a movie, either “The Pursuit of Happyness” starring Will Smith or “The Prince and Pauper” starring Errol Flynn. Both have their strong points in terms of talking about America, though I think “Pursuit” is probably more accessible (“What do you think of homelessness?”) whereas “P and P” lends itself more to questions about American cultural norms (“How does this reflect a Horatio Alger mentality?”). I think all the rest of my classes will go through a lesson on expressing emotion using one of those emotion charts and different images designed to elicit different feelings. Still, I’ve promised the beginning adults something on the uses of “get” in English, so that will take a little extra preparation.