What should I do during my teachers workshop?

[babyandroid]

Keep your head up! I'm on my second semester of doing teacher workshops..they just kind of threw me out in the deep end of things the first semester without any type of direction so it was awful. I got so stressed out because of it cause it's intimidating, but I found this website this semester and what I do is just take articles and analyze it with them and they seem to really enjoy it. The teachers are not quite fond of being lectured but they do love being able to discuss things. Hope this helps!

http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/

[askgabrielteacher]

Hello all,

I was told to hold a teachers' class to fill out my contract hours.  However, it has since fizzled and is no longer held.  What should I do?  What should I have done?  On the first class, I asked what teachers wanted and recieved no real input.  After a couple classes, the few that showed up would just discuss topics like movies, music, or family.  I thought that was fine, but, like I said, the class is dead.

Advice?

Thanks,
Gabriel

[Kaypea]

Yeah, teachers' time is tight!  The "teacher's class" is successful if it's an interesting gossip fest in English, but they're adults and they outrank you so you can't yell at them to speak English!

Don't worry about it.  They don't want to take the class, it's not your fault.

[cainrok]

Same thing happened to my class... and all my friends' classes too!  I think the teachers liked the idea of having their own class, but then they got lazy and didn't want to have it anymore.  It started with an excuse like, "Mrs Soandso and Mr Blahblah can't make it, so class is canceled."  I guess if one or two teachers can't attend, then NONE of them can... like it's a package deal or something.  Then the next week it would be the same excuse.  And then since two weeks in a row were canceled they figured we might as well not have the class... ever. I say YAY!!  One less class I have to prep for   Although with my luck they will decide to have a class on a random day in June, and they'll tell me 5 minutes before it starts. I always have a lesson ready to go... just in case!

[portlandzach]

same same. My teachers class has been cancelled everytime...cant even remember the last time i had one...I'm pretty sure that they 'happened' according to the paperwork...

[SpaceRook]

Don't worry about it....it happens with lots of people.  I had the same experience as you.  Attendance was something like 12, 6, 4, 2, 1,1,0,0,0.  After wasting time planning for classes that no one attended, I told my co-teacher I was done with it. 

[Katherine84]

The exact same thing happened with me, and with other people that I know! As Cainrok said, make sure you do have a prepared lesson plan ready to go at 2 seconds notice, as one day your co-teacher may randomly decide that the most important thing in the world is to have you teach the lesson!

[southernman]

Yes, its a Education Department idea that sounds good in theory,  mine last year were average at 3 different schools.  Better at some than others but still average.  The teachers are only really attending because their Principal or VP has told them to.

This year I've just been given an extra student's class to teach,  there's not even a pretence that it's important.  I actually prefer it this way.

Don't be too worried about it,  it's not your fault and you won't get hassled for poor attendance form the teachers.  But has others have said always have a lesson plan on hand in case you need to show it to someone

[Kaypea]

My teachers' class has been replaced by a "Genius" class for students with good E ability. It is a lot of fun, but those students can be the worst behaved in regular classes.

Yeah, same for me.  I teach the "global chat" class...   It's pretty fun.

I feel bad that some of my "global" students sleep in the normal class, but... that's life, I guess.

[Aadi]

Too bad you got busted.  My teacher's class also fizzled.  I think my attendance was 12, 4, 0.  I didn't say anything about it to anyone and took to going to my classroom at the appointed time and reading for a bit before turning off the lights and going back to my office.  It was great until my head co-t found at no one was coming and put the kibosh on my me time.

It was my mistake to assume the teachers wanted to learn some English.  In my two attended classes I tried to keep things informal and only as structured as was necessary but I think what was really wanted was a class for gossiping in English.  Sadly, no one outside my school's English department (and maybe only 2 inside) is capable of such a thing.  My teacher's class was doomed; yours probably was, too.

[JuliusCaesar108]

Try not to take it personally.  As you can see, it happens to many people ~ adults aren't really motivated to learn.  It happens with teachers class, and parents class.  In my experience, there is a better turnout for parents class than teachers class, and that is not even all that impressive.

Because we are teaching for a government, it's part of a bureaucracy.  Bureaucracies want to make sure there is an option available to maximize their budget potential, even if it doesn't get used.

But because I believe there are possible exceptions among the rule, anyone is free to share their experiences what makes a parents/teachers class with a consistent good turnout.

[Gunpo_Erin]

My teacher class also fizzled out after a couple of classes...... I think our teachers just really busy with other admin work and that the English classes just put on the back burner.

[greenapathy]

I had a lot of fun with my teachers class.  We took turn picking a couple articles to read, passed them out to the other members of the class a little in advance and then discussed them.  What made the class so interesting for me was the articles the teachers picked: abortion, human rights, sexual assault in Korea, gun violence in the states, etc.  It was a lot of fun to get their opinions on topics that I thought were a bit too taboo to discuss openly in  Korean.

[Damien]

Yeah, teachers' time is tight!  The "teacher's class" is successful if it's an interesting gossip fest in English, but they're adults and they outrank you so you can't yell at them to speak English!

Don't worry about it.  They don't want to take the class, it's not your fault.

You can't yell at them to speak in English? I do lol. I have a sheet I keep track of their Korean comments. The most at the end of class has to bring snacks for the next class. It's a very fun class 

[manonthemoon]

I wish mine would fizzle out completely! I started with 8, down to 5, then 4, then 2, then i had one, she will always come, she came two weeks in a row by herself. She always reminds the other teachers that there is a teachers class, but they don't come, then last week, it was upto three again, i thought i had almost got the class rid, then a new teacher decided to join and take her friend with her! It is a fun class though, so i dont mind so much, just on a Friday afternoon at 4-5 it is not what i want to be doing, especially as i finish usual classes at 12, and then ait 4 hours til my next class!

[bebouchard]

This is how it always seems to go with teachers' classes. They start with a bang, then fade out pretty quickly.

I suspect in many cases the teachers never really wanted to attend, but are *told* to go by the vice-principal. So they make a show of obedience to keep the VP happy, and then after a couple of sessions, suddenly become "busy" right around class-time. Definitely do not take it personally. It's just how things work here.

Also, don't worry about your salary. Your school has to pay you full salary whether you have class or not. The admins make up things like teachers' classes because they feel they have to squeeze as much of that "English juice" out of you as they can.

[fishead]

 My overall experience with this is it's best to cover your own  ________
Make good professional lesson plans submit them to the POE otherwise
Mr. or Mrs Kim will say they didn't attend your class becouse it was completely useless.
They don't want to attend becouse they think it's a waste of time. Give them lots of reading with vocabulary they have never encountered. Underline all the difficult words and then define them. Also assign homework don't let them think you are just another EFL/ESL slaker.

[LoloRising]

I was supposed to have 2 teachers classes a week - 1 for english teachers, 1 for other teachers interested in learning. Never once did I have any teacher show up - to either. My co-teacher did at least tell me that they were just put on my schedule so it looks like I fulfill my 22 contract hours - not complaining though - I enjoy the free period just as much as they do I'm sure!   

[askgabrielteacher]

Thanks for the feedback.  I'm actually happy to teach it, regardless of contract hours.  I like chatting with them and getting away from the computer for desk warming.  I think the best idea was to have a super thorough and professional lesson plan, with HANDOUTS with underlined and defined words.  You can scale back afterwards, if they want something mellow.  I have some people coming back and they're giving me handouts of things that they want to talk about.  Awesome, I say.

Cheers.

[Loki001]

Mine are going alright really. I think they went 10, 10,3,0,5,8,8,8,8 or something like that.

I don't actually teach them anything, unless they ask questions or I hear them say something wrong and I can correct it without interrupting the flow.

My classes are just a chance for them to talk to each other in English.

We mostly play conversation based games. one of my favorites was one where we pretended to be plane crash survivors, and they had to make decisions to survive. I would give them 2 or 3 options and they would argue and then decide, that decision would lead to particular consequences. For example when they ran out of food they had to decide who was going to be eaten. So they all took turns trying to convince each other not to eat them and then they voted.

I am afraid I'm going to run out of good ideas by then end of the year though