Lesson Planning and an Animals/Countries Lesson

So, since my schedule is on a bi-weekly rotation, except for Mondays and Fridays, I have found myself really having to keep close track of when it’s time to make a new lesson plan, and I’ve been writing in my planner which schools I have used which lessons at, so that I make sure not to repeat something. It doesn’t sound that hard, but trust me, it is. When you throw in school holidays, etc, it’s even more difficult, as I may have done the lesson with all but one school, and I won’t get back to it for another two weeks, if I miss a day at that school. So, if schools 1-6 have done lesson A and are now on lesson B, but I didn’t go to school 7 one week, for the next two weeks I will be teaching lesson B, but then for one day in the second of the two weeks, I will be teaching lesson A again. It’s really quite confusing.

Tomorrow I’m doing a lesson with my Jindo students (it may be my last with them, actually!) on animals and countries. My students can name both countries and animals until they turn blue, but if you ask them to point to said country on a map, they are totally lost. Same thing with placing animals in a given country. I did a variation on this lesson way back at the beginning of the year, and at one point one student pointed at Canada when I asked them to point to France (and I said “Well, not anymore…” to myself under my breath ), and another, when asked where kangaroos lived, pointed at Russia. So, here’s my basic lesson write-up:

Animal/Country Matching

Discuss animals with students. Use pictures.
 

Discuss some basic countries with students. Use map, preferably on the computer/tv/overhead so they can more easily see, but it’s not completely necessary.
 

Name animals and ask students to name what countries the animals are found in.
 

Name countries and ask students to name some animals that are or might be found in that country.

This lesson is easiest if the list of animals is mostly made up of distinctive animals like penguins, kangaroos, lions, giraffes, etc. Other animals like sheep, wolves, and tigers, which aren’t found everywhere but are found in a few countries, are good to have, as it allows the students to be a little more general, and causes them to think about the environments that those countries have as well, but it can also be too vague, and in my experience, the students tend to prefer questions with one right answer, rather than several.

I stole the basic idea of this lesson (animals/countries) from one of the other teachers here on the island, but have changed it a bit, since it was originally conceived for elementary students.

Is it just me or is everyone here angry?

I have noticed what seems to be an inordinate amount of violence at the 7 middle schools I teach at, given the age group and the location (rural Korea).  Almost every week, a window is broken, a fight started, or a teacher yelled at, at one or another of my schools.

Maybe I was just sheltered at my private school in middle school, but to me, this seems very odd, and something I would associate more with city schools, if any middle schools at all.

Is this normal?

Ah, public school…

Yesterday I had to isolate (separate from the class) a student for the first time.  He later was so pissed that he broke a window.

Story later.

First Week is Done!

Today ended the first week of the new semester.  Here in Korea, the school year begins in March, not September, so I have the same kids as before.  They don’t seem to have as much trouble with re-integrating back into school as American kids do, because they all attend summer school, school camps, etc, and have homework assigned over the break.  Definitely sucks for them.  Makes my job easier though.

I could get away with using the same lesson plan next week, but I think I’ll do something new.  I see each class of kids only once every two weeks (except for one school), and so if I wanted to, I could teach the same lesson for two weeks straight.  However, in reality, after a week, I’m pretty tired of teaching that lesson.  So, I put it into a binder (after teaching it 18+ times, it’s pretty perfected, and I add it to my repertoire), and if necessary, I can use it later with the kids who didn’t get it the first time around.

My initial version of this week’s plan crashed and burned in the first 5 minutes.  That happens quite a bit.  I am still learning what it is that the kids like in terms of classroom activities, and it is rarely logical.  Thus, most of my lessons are of a “phoenix from the ashes” type, generally a remixed-on-the-fly version of whatever it was I was originally going to do.  Korea has really taught me to think on my feet, as if the kids don’t like my lesson, they just don’t speak.  English is required here, but it is not counted into their final grade, so they have little to no motivation to do well, or participate, so if they don’t like the activity, they just won’t do it.  It makes my job here very, very difficult at times, especially when I try to teach something that is very important, but also very boring (to them, anyway).

Anyway.  I got two books last time I was in Seoul that seem good.  One is activities that teach through stories, and one is about teaching idioms.  I looooove idioms, and they can be silly and fun, so hopefully I will be able to adequately convey that to the kids.