Teacher's Meeting on Friday, Aug. 11th, 2017
0. Host: Emily (Eurorpean) & Melanie (American)
1. Small Talk
2. Aug. Class Schedules: Monday, Aug. 7th - Friday, September 1.
September School days: Monday, Sptember 4th - Friday, September 29th.
3. We are teaching on Tuesday, Aug. 15th (Independent Day in Korea).
4. Long Weekend in October: No classes (5 days weekend): Mon, Oct 2 - Wed, Oct 4. (Korean Thanksgiving).
5. This month is the month for the evaluation. (All students except: Male Adults, Male once a week students).
6. The review
What is up?
We tell our students and their parents that studying at our school is like studying English in the USA. This is not only because our teachers are native speakers from the USA and Canada, but also because we do a review in class.
If you ask your students about their day most students have to translate their thoughts from Korean into English. This is not the ideal process for becoming fluent in English according to our school's methodology. Of course some students do not do this internal translation because they are prepared for what you will ask them in class. That is what we expect from our students.
However, most students, unfortunately, are not at the level of thinking in English. On the other hand, if you ask specific questions about the previous classtime, they will usually not need to translate from Korean. Since the class was conducted in English, they have the material in their heads already in English. This is a great chance to have your student practice speaking English without translation and we like to take advantage of this in our classes.
This is the reason we say that students at our school learn English as if they are in the USA, because we take these opportunities to get the students thinking in English. In addition, parents like to hear their children speaking English in full sentences and not only simple words and phrases.
How can you do it?
It is easy to do:
All you have to do is ask a couple of simple questions that you repeat consistantly in your classes, this way they will be prepared.
Examples:
"What did we do in the last class?"
"What was the reading/video/listening file about?"
"Do you remember what we talked about in the last class?"
Asking about the previous class is important because they did the reading or other activitiy in English and therefore probably have the information already in English instead of Korean. This provides a true English language environment for our students, just like they were studying in the USA.
We provide our students with an English environment. In one of our classes, the student only speaks in English, and therefore can recall memories from past classes without translating from Korean. Students get used to this, and it benefits their speaking skills. It may be a little difficult or uncomforable at first, but since they know what to expect, it becomes easier for them to prepare for.
The results:
At our school, all classes have one thing in common, which is the review. The teacher just needs to ask what the student remembers from the previous class. This is a good thing, because our class is primarily to practice speaking, and the student can have time to prepare a longer (more than two sentence) response, which the parents really appreciate. At first this can be difficult, but if you keep it up in every class the students get used to it and it really works. Our teachers should do this even in TOEFL classes. The exception is if the teacher begins by correcting the student's writing (homework), in which case looking over the writing is reviewing in a different way.
This method is present in our advertising for our school, so parents and student expect it. Besides, it is always good to ask your students about things you have already experienced together. They will then think more about the things they did in class because they know they will be asked about it later.
8.1. Examples:
Ikee with James: https://youtu.be/KLPCyZvEMx4
Nicola with Mandy: https://youtu.be/m7IJADSV7IA
