Teaching a Lesson in Korean Middle Schools

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We have received a lot of questions about teaching in public schools. If we don't speak Korean, how do we communicate with our students? What do we teach them? What do the classes look like?

We decided to start taping some of our classes to show everyone what they're like. This video here is of Simon's Middle School classes. Here you'll see the students come into class, sit down, Simon instruct for a bit, and then the students play the game. Finally, a lot of your questions will have been answered!

Simon's situation is a bit unique, though, so don't assume that all classes are this way. For starters, Simon teaches half of his class one week, and the other half the other week, meaning, out of a class of 40, he teaches 20 while his co-teacher deals with the other 20 in another class. As well, some schools expect their teachers to be teaching for the entire class. Simon's school - thankfully - believes that students should be given as much opportunity to speak in class. Less lecturing, more participation. And so, Simon usually explains the rules for some English speaking activity for the first few minutes of class and gives the remaining time for the students to partake in that activity. There's more facilitation than dictation.

So, without further ado, here is one day in Simon's classes. Click on the picture above to see the video, or click here to see a Korean Middle School Class. If you like the lesson, and want to teach it yourself, head over to the ESL Resources page to download the handouts and the presentations.