High School - 01 - Introductions

[jellomando]

My first high school lesson (stolen from AlexMokpo) was an introduction lesson. I know this probably seems like a dumb lesson to post, but I'm doing it for sake of completion.

Introductions:

• Native Speaker begins his introduction while an attendance sheet is passed around the students. 10 minutes.
• Students complete individual introduction sheets. 10 minutes.
• Students find a partner and swap introduction papers and introduce each other. 15 minutes.
• With remaining time play Typhoon with Native Speaker.  10 minutes.

Some Notes:

• Grade 2 students are capable of completing their introduction in the 10 minute time allotment; Grade 1 on the other hands will be slower.
• Some classes were confused about the English Name.  Should they put their English Name or the Romanization of their Korean Name?  I always steered them towards the Romanization just for personal reasons.
• As a part of your introduction, make it clear that students are responsible for their required materials; high school students will slack off during this class, so it's important to start laying down the rules.
• The students loved pictures of non-Korea things; any mundane hometown thing becomes magical with a picture or two.  Family and High School life are good examples of this.
• Passing around the attendance sheet is tricky.  If the students are in groups they will fill out their information as a group; this is distracting, especially when they discover the English Name slot.  You can save it for the end of class, but the students will want to run off and leave the entire slot blank.

I suspect that I'll have to hand in my lessons eventually so I've started writing them up formally using a lesson plan template in the word document.  I also use powerpoint to highlight the talking points.  I won't clutter up this post up any more; more information about my lesson formats can be found here: http://jellomando.blogspot.com/2007/07/lesson-plans.html

[Arsalan]

I really like the powerpoint for this, had I seen this earlier I would have used it to modify my own intro.  You're right about photos, they go nuts regardless of what it is--if it's not Korean.  Powerpoints make you look very organized, but I find they take less effort than tediously writting on the board for each class.

I had my last lesson for the middle school today.  I feel... ummm, like someone who's just come out of a boxing match, bloodied but victorious!  (The devil must be a spoilled little Korean girl).  Don't get me wrong though, I have some really awesome students here as well.

p.s. Nice blog

[jellomando]

I've started a new term so I've had a chance to revist this lesson; I'm adding an introduction worksheet since my kids never have 'extra' paper for my class.

[eryan390]

I taught 1,000 students this year in classes ranging from 15 to 44 in size, averaging about 38 students per class. I saw my kids 1 time in 2 weeks, and this system of name tags and pictures to study helped me keep my classes, levels, problem/exceptional students, etc. organized.

Attached:
Lesson Plan
Popular English Names printout
Class Rules and Discipline system (translated into Korean as well)
Getting to Know You survey for Beginner and Advanced levels (modify for intermediate)
Class Flow (my cheat sheet in the classroom) for Advanced.

[ubercake]

I did a modified version of this and it worked fairly well, but still not sure about the typoon game. I need to practice how it'll work more.

[noealz]

I'd like to mention a pretty awesome way to present that isn't powerpoint, its a program online called Prezi.

http://prezi.com/

It makes the presentations alot more attention grabbing and is pretty simple to use : )

[jksmith6]

I agree with noealz. Prezi is such a wonderful tool to use. I used it today for my first class and the students thought that the zooming and turning effects of the presentation were so amazing.

It's pretty straight forward and easy to use. It only takes an afternoon or so to tinker around with the different tools in order to figure it out. If anyone has any questions about how to use Prezi in addition to the tutorials online, then please feel free to e-mail me.

[xdavil2]

I agree- prezi is amazing- just don't get carried away with the zooming as you can make your students feel sea sick!

[mtango]

Thanks for sharing this! I start teaching tomorrow, but was initially told that I'd have a few days to prepare lessons. Scrambling tonight to put together a (hopefully!) fun and interesting intro lesson. I'll incorporate some of your suggestions.

Cheers 

[bhope0127]

I am working on my first lesson plan for H.S. now. I start teaching next week. Thanks for the ideas!!

[levyjas]

Hi, thanks for the ideas. I'm starting to teach high school in a couple days. Only thing I'm wondering is how to access the powerpoints you posted..? I can't seem to find the link

[mtango]

You won't be able to download material from other users until you have posted on the site at least 5 times Once you've reached 5, all of the appropriate links will appear in others' posts.

[MLynTeacher]

That website looks great. I'm going to try it out and put together a ppt for my first class this afternoon. Hopefully it works!

[erikgray4]

Wow, great posts everyone. I was suppose to be teaching elementary school but midway through my second day teaching I was put into High school. I have no textbook or co-teacher so I really appreciate the help!

[Soonjong Yang]

Breaking the ice is somewhat diff.
This website looks awesome.
I'll also upload my ppt of the 1st lesson.

[Prometheus]

I thought this lesson plan was nice for intoductions. Typically I have not liked some of what is posted. However, this one was a little too hard for many of my students since they cannot construct sentences (high school too). But, I scaled it and it worked fine.

-Pro

[aspadget]

This is what I did on my first day of teaching high school, and it went really well and worked for all skill levels.

Introduction: About me (the native teacher).
Discussion of hobbies and things I like to do (focusing on using the phrase, “I like to…”).

Game: Hot Potato with Words.
-On the board is the phrase "My name is ______ and I like to ________".
-Set a time limit (60 seconds).
-The student with the ball will recite the phrase on the board, filling in the blanks with the proper words.
-Once phrase has been recited with proper pronunciation (so long as the native teacher can understand), they may then pass the ball.
-Process will continue until time has run out. Student holding the ball at the end of time will have to wear a goofy hat (I used a large fedex envelope I had lying around) as the penalty.

*you can mix up the rules for more advanced students, like no one is allowed to "like" the same thing as another classmate.

While this may seem simple for advanced student, they will still get a kick out of it and laugh when someone has to wear the hat. Also, they were usually interested in learning about the new teacher.

[onereaderwrites]

The more students I help prepare for university entrance interviews, the more value I place in teaching, re-teaching and re-re-teaching introductions. Good work!

[mr_cabeza_magica]

Hi everyone,
I've just arrived in S.Korea and I really look forward to using this site.  I have just finished teaching my first introduction lesson and it went surprisingly well.  Cheers for the tips.  I hope I can add some of my own ideas to this site.

[watermelon_sugar]

Thanks for this! I'm a newbie to teaching High School too, I'm planning my intro lesson now with Prezi, hopefully the girls will like it .