Some assorted links and thoughts

Thoughts

"You don't need to use the book." 

Virtually every coteacher I've had has said some version of this sentence. In my experience, hearing "you don't need to use the book" usually gets followed with "You can play games." I heard it again today after a first grade middle school class. Perhaps my coteacher said so because I referenced a page in the textbook and had the students review it. I'd said, "Look at page 100. What are they talking about? What expressions do they use? We're going to use those expressions today." That part of the lesson was included for review.

Actually, I rarely follow the textbooks the students use, but I do reference them from time to time so to keep abreast of what they're studying. I've found that incorporating grammar points or vocabulary from the text into my "free" lessons has increased class participation and attention. 

And yet, why disregard the textbook? I understand that the Korean English teachers use the textbooks in their classes and wouldn't want the EPIK teachers to repeat the same material in their classes, yet the texts do have good content in them and they can provide useful supplementary material for classes. 

Finally, regardless of if I use the textbook's contents or not, in most classes the textbook is also the notebook. Most students don't carry notebooks around with them. They write in their textbooks. I should note that Korean students buy their textbooks and are free to write in them. Or rip them up. It happens.

Classroom etiquette 

I'm continually amazed at how many liberties some students will take with classroom etiquette: Turning around to talk to the people in the preceding row and nonchalantly walking in minutes late without materials are two sticking points with me. There's one more, and though I've said this before, it bears repeating: Materials in general, or lack thereof. How I'll see backpacks and pencil cases galore, but no notebooks or textbooks. I know this problem isn't limited to Korea or America, but I'm still amazed at how pervasive it is here.

Having a working bike again

The rear tire got punctured a few months ago and I got lazy about getting the bike fixed. I finally took care of it last weekend when I rode into Wasu, got the bike out of the old apartment, and took it back to Sincheorwon on the bus. The bike's fixed at last. It certainly makes getting around a little easier. And now I can resume the after-school rides around town. They were always good for unwinding. Woohoo.

"Is your beard real?"

It had to happen some time. I knew growing a beard while living here would prompt a few questions or provoke a few stares. For one, Koreans don't usually have facial hair, or, if they do, most Korean men are clean shaven. What's more, beards reside in the realm of older men, not those in their late 20s like me. This isn't so much the case in the USA, but the facial hair culture's different here.

And it shows, for two things have happened in the first two weeks: One was a boy who asked if he could touch my beard and another was a boy who actually went ahead and did it. The second boy took me by surprise. He quickly apologized for it. I said, "Okay, I know you're curious, but ask first." 

"Is your beard real?" was an actual question from a class.

Links

http://how-i-see-it-now.blogspot.kr/2014/09/do-i-teach-communicatively.html

A Czech EFL teacher reflects on a few questions about what communicative teaching really means. She posits her thoughts on some principles of Communicative Language Teaching. I'm linking it here because it's a good reflective piece about teaching and how a teacher's approach can shape a class.

http://how-i-see-it-now.blogspot.kr/2014/09/diversification-in-mixed-ability-class.html

She writes of how best to work with upper and lower level students here. I found this one especially relevant to EPIK teachers, for our classes have a wide range of students as well.

http://divyamadhavan.com/2014/09/14/the-parent-pedagogue/

A teacher in France writes about the tricky relationships between teachers and parents. She herself is a parent and has seen both sides of parent- teacher conferences. It also contains some bits about how conferences work in France.

Pictures of Sincheorwon, Cheorwon County, Gangwon-do, South Korea

Some pictures of the town I live in now. The time felt right to do a quick picture post. Sincheorwon's one of Cheorwon County's three main towns. Its name literally means "New Cheorwon" because the original Cheorwon got renamed Dongsong.

Sincheorwon's about 10 minutes from the Gyeonggi-do border.

A nice park that's on the way to the middle school and high school. It's on a street I'd never gone down prior to two weeks ago. The shade's nice.

On the left is my building. It's a change from all of the shade of the trees in front of the E3 building in Wasu. 

I walked a little further along the road and took this one because it shows how the farms abut the buildings here.

Little exercise areas among the walking paths.

Looking toward the E1 building I live in.

Looking out from the front doors of the middle school.

The front doors of Sincheorwon Middle School.

Bottom: The DC Mart. [DC = Discount]

Middle: Dirty Math and GnB English, two of the hagwons in town. The name Dirty Math intrigues me, for I wonder what's supposed to mean. Does it mean dirty, as in quick and dirty? Or does it literally mean math is a dirty subject? Or maybe it just sounded like a good name?

Top: One more hagwon. Transliterated from the Korean: Je-il Hagwon. [#1 Hagwon]

View from my side window on an overcast day.

Stuff I did on the first days of classes (of year four)

The first week is over. I've begun my fourth contract for EPIK and have started teaching at two new schools: Sincheorwon Middle School and High School. Here are some things I did in my first week of classes:

• Greeted students with a smile and a hearty greeting. Some teachers have said "Never smile until after X time," but I disagree, simply because I am indeed happy to have the students in class and am happy to be their teacher. Also, Harry Wong strongly recommends this practice in  his book The First Days of School.
• Set an agenda and a dedicated place for it. In the middle school, the agenda's on the right-hand side of the whiteboard. It's separated from the "main" board by a nearly-invisible vertical line. The high school classes have the agenda written on a whiteboard next to the door. In every class, I wrote the agenda either in advance or in the first minute of class if there wasn't time to do it beforehand. I also took a minute to explain what an agenda is and how it shows what we'll do in class every day. In some classes I drilled pronunciation by clapping the syllables a-gen-da.
• Established one or two quiet signals: Clapping and flicking the lights on and off. Clapping came easily because the students have done it in their other classes. I often lighten the mood by clapping different rhythms for the students to copy. The light flicking is for the high school classes, for the students consider clapping too juvenile for their tastes.
• Used some Korean words and phrases while addressing the class. Some teachers have debated this practice, usually because the class is English and the focus should be on speaking English. As much as I agree that the focus should be on speaking English,  I did so for the following reasons: 

1. To catch their attention and show that I know or am learning some of the students' native tongue. 
2. To demonstrate that I make mistakes with pronunciation and syntax. As the students learn English, I too learn Korean. Experience has shown that (1) and (2) can be powerful motivators for the students. By speaking Korean and admitting to not being perfect at it, I'm demonstrating that mistakes are okay and that practice is the only way to get better.
1. I usually said, "We're both learning! I learn Korean, you learn English. 우리는 함께 배우자!" [Uri neun hamkke bae uja! = We learn together!]
3. For easier explanations or for showing that I might have idea of what the students are saying when they talk to each other.
4. My Korean is far from fluent. It's limited to words and phrases and thus doing an entire class in Korean is impossible.
5. Asking at intervals, "What's X in Korean?" has proven a good way of focusing students' attention and for learning new words myself.
• Furthermore, I do keep on the focus on speaking English. If students respond to a question in Korean in speech or writing, I always say, "English please" or "Use easy words." Sometimes I invite the class or group to help. If a student writes something in Korean, I usually say, "Okay, but what is it in English? Can you tell me?"

• Moved around the room as I talked or while the students were working. Teacher textbooks call this proximity control, but moving around is what it is.
• Held a questions and answers session. In some classes I called this KWL and in others it was simply Questions. As I'm a new teacher in a new school, but not new to Korea itself, the students had many questions to ask me. I either handed out Post-Its or asked the students to write questions in their textbooks. The students were free to discuss their questions and how to write them (in English, of course) in partners or with their neighbors. While they wrote and talked, my coteacher and I moved around the room monitoring students and assisting with questions. At times I stood back and watched. Moving around is fine and good to do, but sometimes its best to stand back and watch from a few feet away. The students should have some room to breathe at times.
• Doing so also established that the students are expected to write in class. Speaking, reading, writing, listening...it all goes together.
• In some classes, I wrote question stems on the board to give the students a starting point:
• Who/what/where/when/how/why...?
• What's your favorite...?
• Do you like...?
• Noted students' goals for the class and ways of learning English. This too was done in small groups. I had a little trouble here, for "Improving English" is too vague a goal; it lacks specifics like "Improve English by doing x." I usually gave students a hint by saying, "I'm learning Korean. One way I learn Korean is by listening to Korean rock songs and reading their lyrics." Saying so resulted in the following ways to learn English:
• Reading books
• Writing Kakao messages
• Listening to pop songs
• Watching movies in English
• Drama/dialogues/role plays
• Ended the class by asking for specific things the students remembered from our discussions.

Altogether, I'd say it was a good start. There's still room for improvement, but compared to my earlier "first days" this one established a few classroom routines and produced tangible products. I ditched my earlier introductory lecture and accompanying PowerPoint presentation in favor of letting the students ask the questions. Sure, telling them X, Y, and Z is fine, but letting the students ask questions (and reviewing question stems) put the focus on the students and gave them a voice in the class. Did strange questions arise? They did. Depending on the question, I either said "I don't know" or "No comment. Let's think of something different." I figure it's just some students wanting to test their new teacher. Teens will be teens. We'll see what questions come up in the lessons to come. So far so good though!

Reblog: How I see it now: Eat, Pray, Love (Plan and Reflect)

How I see it now: Eat, Pray, Love (Plan and Reflect): “You need to learn how to select your thoughts just the same way you select your clothes every day.” Elizabeth Gilbert. Eat, Pray, Love ...

Excellent post about the fine line between reflection and self-flagellation. See also the blurry division between concern and worry. I completely agree with her, for I moved into a new apartment to begin a new contract in a new school in a new town. There are new coteachers and hundreds of new students. Not only that, but as Coordinator, two new teachers have arrived to replace the two who transferred out of the county. It's important to see that they're settling in, for as lovely as it is, Cheorwon's rural-ness can be difficult to adjust to. Though the two of them have coteachers and neighboring EPIK teachers, they're in my thoughts this week. Going overseas to teach is a big jump. I hope everything works out okay. And the same goes for my school. The past few days have been a whirlwind and it's taxing my mind and body. Moving schools is exhilarating, but it's also tiring.

At least I'm better prepared now than I was last year, let alone three years ago. The books that I read over the summer have come in handy.* I've the plans and the procedures ready; next week's plans are almost finished, and I've a clearer idea of what ELT is. And so begins another year in Korea.

[Addendum: I wrote most of the above this morning while in a hurry. It probably wasn't the best way to write, but I wanted to get the link up along with an explanation. I don't normally reblog things on Dispatches, but this post from How I See It Now warranted a mention.]

* Some of them have been mentioned in the "Books for ELT" pages on the sidebar, but more reviews and recommendations are on the way. One I can recommend right now is Teaching Large Multilevel Classes by Natalie Hess. Special thanks to Joel from China for recommending it! The book's packed with dozens of speaking and writing lessons for the language classroom. Most require zero-to-minimal preparation, too.

Sincheorwon, Cheorwon County, Gangwon-do

R and I went walking before lunch today and I went up the hundred-plus stairs of a big monument on the edge of town. The view couldn't get much better today. Beautiful.

The monument commemorates war veterans.

Sambuyeon Falls (삼부연)

After much delay, we finally made it out to Sambuyeon Falls in Sincheorwon. The sky was cloudy and droplets of rain fell down intermittently, but Rochelle and I had a good time. The way there was more straightforward than I'd thought. Gracie had made it seem like we would walk along a mountain trail, but it was actually a narrow paved road winding alongside a mountain. The walk took about 20 minutes from the center of Sincheorwon and we hardly saw anyone else around. It's amazing how a few steps in either direction can make the town into farm tracts everywhere we go in Cheorwon. It made for a pleasant afternoon walk.

Also, the blog's approaching 10,000 hits. Thank you for reading and stay tuned more!