[quote=“Rupert”]I’d like to find some idea or suggestions from experienced h.s. or jr. high teachers. I’ve been in buxibans for years, taught adults for other years, and now I’ve started at a high school and so far I really like it. But mang…the classes aren’t so much classes as audiences. And I only get them for fifty minutes, so I blink and it’s over. It’s pretty ridiculous like most of Taiwan education.
That being said, I want to give them the best experience possible. I’d like it to be effective yet fun and interesting, and integrative, involving them, so that when they graduate they feel it wasn’t the usual boring grammar shoved down their throats by a local incompetent but a productive learning experience with a qualified native speaker.
The school doesn’t seem to care what I do, which is good, cuz if they did I’d probably not wanna do it. I’d like to find out what others have done.
Any suggestions? Or point me in the right direction where there’s a bank of ideas used specifically for Taiwan or Asian public schools?
thanks![/quote]
I have been teaching for 11 years hear and much of it has been in private high school and Jr High schools. My classes are also 50 min. I have tried many different things and I have finally found something that works well. I do have a text book and I use Smart Choice 1,2 and 3. It isn’t my favorite book, but I am required to teach it. I each high school class twice a week for 50 min. So first day I usually play a warm up game then I teach the book. I usually get through it fast and play another activity. First off I my classroom is huge so I have rearranged all the desks into groups. I only have 25 students, so if you have more it might be harder. I put them in 6 groups (4 desks together, but yes one group will obviously have 5 desks). This just makes it easy for me for activities or games.
The second day I do lots of GEPT style speaking practice or reading in class. So basically I give them a question. Something like, “If you could travel to any place in the world, where would you travel and why?” Then I make a student from every group stand up. I usually let the students to play “paper, scissor, stone” to see who loses. Then the losing students stand up (all 6 or sometimes I make 7 of them) and I let them think about the question for a bit. Sometimes I even let them write 10-15 words on a piece of paper to help them remember what they want to say, but they aren’t allowed to write complete sentences. Then I have a 1 min conversation with them. If they don’t talk, then I stop the timer and try to give them some ideas to help them communicate. I help correct their English and grammar along the way.
Also, instead of giving them a question, I will change it up and give them a problem. For example, “You friend has been talking behind your back, but he/she is a really good friend of yours. How are you going to deal with this problem?” I also give them time to thing about it and then we talk about it for a minute. If they wanna keep talking over a minute than let them.
I do this same thing for GEPT style reading. I basically pick one student from the group to stand up and read a paragraph. They read until I say stop. I also correct them along the way.
After this, I usually teach them 3 idioms or slang terms that are popular and write the definitions for them and give them examples. I make them write them down in their English notebooks that the school provides them with. I give them quizzes on these idioms about twice a semester.
I usually have 5-10 min left after all of this and I have a ton of activities that I do with them. Just like category games. I have actually published a book and have gotten really good feedback from it. There are 55 games in the book and I use all of them in my High School classes. Here is the website, if you are interested feel free to message me. There are a few sample games in the website. http://eslgamesbible.jimdo.com/
Anyway, I hope this helps a bit.