Author Topic: High School - Low level/technical students tips and lessons  (Read 13361 times)

Offline smiling123

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Re: High School (LOW) Lessons
« Reply #80 on: June 02, 2011, 10:42:44 am »
Hi, could you give me some ideas for topics, I've got low level high and middle school .
This is a great idea i got ..  I made this ppt (simpson game) hope everyone like this.
if any comments let me know ok
thanks you and good luck ,....

Offline adlez

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Re: Very low level after school class. Help!
« Reply #81 on: June 28, 2011, 12:20:06 pm »
Wow..I am definitely interested in this cardgame idea! I play Uno with mine .. the one with the sentences..but they are getting bored with it.

Offline Sara

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Re: Very low level after school class. Help!
« Reply #82 on: June 29, 2011, 08:36:28 am »
From Leni (accidentally sent it in as a mod report  ;D)
How about chatting or having a discussion on soccer....i see they love that

Offline flasyb

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Re: Very low level after school class. Help!
« Reply #83 on: June 30, 2011, 03:30:01 pm »
Hi folks,

I need a bit of inspiration for my after school class as I'm running out of cunning ideas.

I teach in a very low level vocational high school, and I have 1 class of 6 students twice a week for an extra lesson after school. I've tried numerous ideas on them to try and have engaging lessons but I'm running out of ideas. I'm lucky that the school doesn't really expect results from the students so I am free to pretty much do ANYTHING I want, which is great as I am not tied down to a text book. However the problem is that they are so unresponsive it is unbelievable! Most of the students in my school are very wild and hyper, but these guys in the after school class are very quiet, uninterested, possibly shy, and generally stare with blank faces for the entire lesson, even when I keep things as simple as possible.

So does anyone have any ideas on how to get through to them? I've tried games, games and more games, simple activities like word searches, watching movie clips and music videos etc etc, but they seem generally uninterested with everything. They don't even want to play arcade games like pacman and would rather just stare blankly into space!

Arrrrgh, I don't know what to do anymore! Any help much appreciated!

You totally need to make friends with them. Talk to them, get them to tell you personal stuff, tell them personal stuff (if you lie, don't tell lies that can be easily found out) and most importantly, learn their names. You need to develop a personal relationship with them (or at least the most influential kids in the class). Bribes can work with this too. Also, ask them to help you with things. You need X, where can you get X? What should you get your girlfriend for her birthday? Where should you go with her on vacation? etc

Find a game they like and use it as a bribe. If your after school class is 50 minutes, divide the class between teaching time (say 30minutes) and if they are good, game that they like time (say 20 minutes). Remember that they're just kids and if they do something that you find personally insulting, don't take it personally, laugh, shrug like you don't give a [proverbial] and move on. Be so nice to them that being rude to you becomes unthinkable.
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

We are not "guests" in Korea. Korea didn't invite us over for Pimms in the garden. We are paid employees.

Offline korr

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Re: Very low level after school class. Help!
« Reply #84 on: July 01, 2011, 09:43:03 am »
Definitely get on friendly terms with them. Just chatting with my low-level high schoolers about their new hairstyles or favorite songs or whatever made them much easier to deal with. They're some of my favorite classes now.

Also, other people may not agree with this, but let them derail the class as long as they're derailing it into something that involves English. I wound up scrapping a whole lesson because my students wanted to know how much it cost to fly from Korea to the US. I pulled up Expedia or Orbitz and we practiced numbers and country names to plan a dream vacation. Another time they saw me sign my name and decided they wanted to learn cursive, so we wound up reviewing the alphabet. Especially if this is a class that they're not getting tested or graded on, they're going to get much more involved if they get to learn things they're interested in.

Offline flasyb

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Re: Very low level after school class. Help!
« Reply #85 on: July 01, 2011, 10:16:37 am »
Definitely get on friendly terms with them. Just chatting with my low-level high schoolers about their new hairstyles or favorite songs or whatever made them much easier to deal with. They're some of my favorite classes now.

Also, other people may not agree with this, but let them derail the class as long as they're derailing it into something that involves English. I wound up scrapping a whole lesson because my students wanted to know how much it cost to fly from Korea to the US. I pulled up Expedia or Orbitz and we practiced numbers and country names to plan a dream vacation. Another time they saw me sign my name and decided they wanted to learn cursive, so we wound up reviewing the alphabet. Especially if this is a class that they're not getting tested or graded on, they're going to get much more involved if they get to learn things they're interested in.

Very true. We're supposed to be here as "conversation teachers", right? If they start conversing, let them converse!
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

We are not "guests" in Korea. Korea didn't invite us over for Pimms in the garden. We are paid employees.

Offline thaivle

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Re: Very low level after school class. Help!
« Reply #86 on: July 03, 2011, 04:45:33 pm »
Try to pick the most popular student or the more talented student and ask them to plan a lesson plan with you and "co-teach" it with you. It'll help you gauge the students' level better and get more of their attention since they will probably be more interested due to peer influence.

Offline massey.breanne

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What type of content should I introduce to low-level high-school students?
« Reply #87 on: August 28, 2011, 01:15:26 pm »
I've been told to plan lessons for the whole week, and I have absolutely zero content or experience. I'm teaching at a technical high-school in Busan and I'm not sure how to start off the week, any advice that you have would be great!

Offline Jozigirl

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First, good luck with teaching at a technical high school!  I've heard that they're a nightmare and the kids usually have zero interest in English.  Most of the kids who attend technical high schools are not aiming for universities and if they are, they're aiming for low academic-rated universities. 

One of the new Korean-English teachers at my school this year taught at a technical high school for the first years of her teaching career.  She said she loved teaching there even though the kids were challenging.  We've often chatted about her experiences at a technical school compared to my current school (a specialised language school).  In 9 years of teaching, this is the first year that she's taught girls and she's often commented that teaching boys is much easier. 

Do you know if your school is co-ed or single sex?  I'd guess it'll probably be single sex - and most likely boys - so it makes it easier to tailor all of your content.  Try to think of topics that they can relate to.  Think of things that you can do in every lesson to catch their attention - like starting with a riddle, a song, a short video clip, etc.  Rather aim to pitch your content at a much lower level than what they really are - think very basic to almost no English.  Work on the assumption that a lot of your kids will most likely only be able to say, "Hello" - expect the worst but hope for the best - and maybe, "How are you? Today is _______."  If you pitch your lessons at a very low level and find that they're capable of much more than you expected, you can always make the tasks a little more challenging in the lesson provided you've chosen a topic that gives you some flexibility. 

Try not to get too frustrated if they don't really respond in the first couple of weeks.  Keep telling yourself that, at most technical high schools, English is not a top priority for the majority of students but that doesn't mean they won't like your lessons.  Aim to make things fun - with one or two actual grammar concepts hidden in the content - than focusing on trying to teach them something.  I'm not saying that this is what your lessons will definitely be like but, from what I've heard from a lot of people who teach at technical schools, there seems to be a pretty common link among students. 

The first week of planning is going to be a shot in the dark - no matter how experienced you are - so choose things that you're comfortable with and that you think teenagers (probably boys) will relate to.   

Good luck!

Offline oddrock

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I'm in the same situation. I've been told my students have a very low level of English and I have very little teaching experience. I'm teaching my first lesson tomorrow... should be interesting. Good luck with your classes.

Offline mtango

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I, too, will be teaching to low-level students, though I'm at a private, co-ed high school. I appreciate the 'shot in the dark' comment since I am a new teacher and feeling totally out of my element! Best of luck at the technical school...I guess we'll all need a bit of luck!  ???


Offline lucycoulson

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I am in the same situation! i have no text book to follow and have been no clue as to what I am supposed to be teaching.. I think my students are a fairly high level as I am at a private boarding school. Guess we are just going to have to go with it!! Good luck everybody xx

Offline bertacci

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I'm teaching at a technical high school in Seoul, but my co-teacher gave me the materials to choose from and the previous NET was kind enough to give me his email. The students seem pretty low level, which is fine by me because I sometimes find it more fun to teach.

Offline The_Skyo

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I am in the same situation. Mine is a co-ed school but is 95% boys.
Judging based on the files leftover by the previous teacher on the school computer, he thought that inserting pictures of attractive women on nearly every slide would keep the boys' attention. To me it looks inappropriate and distracting but I haven't started with them yet..
What I plan to do is guage their abilities using my introduction. I will tell the students about where I am from using basic language and have them tell me something about Korea using starter sentences on the screen.

Will you have sessions with the teachers to improve their english as well? My school has me doing this once a week which could be fun. I will go over basic news items and discuss them in english.

Offline uticmmacdonald2003

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Re: High School (LOW) Lessons
« Reply #94 on: August 31, 2011, 03:39:20 pm »
Great work on the Simpsons bomb game! I really like it!
I made some minor adjustments to a few questions (including a Korean spelling error) and slides.
Might be helpful to some people  :D

Offline Snowytin

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Re: High School (LOW) Lessons
« Reply #95 on: September 01, 2011, 08:01:11 am »
ah yes, the wonderful world of public high teaching, where 90-95% of the kids will span from how-the-hell-are-you-still-an-absolute-beginner-after-7-years-of-English absolute beginner, to low-level beginner, to slightly above low-level beginner (ie they know the alphabet), to the yay!-you-can-say-something-other-than-I'm-fine-thank-you-and-you? beginner.

they LOVE hangman. Pictionary is said to be helpful, but most kids in my school hate that game.

You took the words right out of my mouth!

Offline CaliGirl007

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Re: What type of content should I introduce to low-level high-school students?
« Reply #96 on: September 01, 2011, 12:44:27 pm »
I have been teaching at a technical HS in Jeju for the past year and while there are certainly an abundance of challenges, I find it quite rewarding.

My school is co-ed so I try to keep my gender neutral and focus more one what is useful. Some of the topics I've covered are:

Shopping - very basic "How much is it/are they?" "It is/They are ___ won." This give then something easy to grasp and helps them practice   numbers which is difficult for most student.

Telling Time - Using quarter after, quarter till, half past XX, o'clock, etc. Again, helps practice numbers.

Movie Genres - Gives them something they're interested in and I tie this lesson to words that describe each genre or character or a scene, etc.

Food Adjectives - depending on level you can incorporate basic food ordering sentences and possibly a role play activity.

Emotions - Trying very hard to get a response other than "so-so" or "I'm fine thank you"

Giving Directions - I included a map activity

Past Tense Pronunciation mixed with vocab they already know.

Music - I use this topic to introduce more vocabulary.

Adverbs of Frequency

Some topics I'm working on are:

Hobbies

Sports

School Subjects

Jobs


After every 5 classes or so I take the previous 5 topics and create a review game. For most of these kids keeping things simple and lots of repetition is key. Finding interesting videos and funny pictures (no clip art!) also helps keep them engaged. I usually end each lesson with a short group activity (word search, fill in the blank) and reward the 1st team to finish with candy.

I'll try and upload some of my ppts. in the next day or so.

Good Luck!


Offline JLCutler

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Re: High School (LOW) Lessons
« Reply #97 on: September 02, 2011, 07:49:44 am »
I'm struggling with the fact that I have to plan lessons for high-level, mid-level, and low-level high school students.  So basically same lesson plans but different activities.  The challenge is coming up with material that will not only interest my four levels (A, B, C, and D) of students but also make sense to them.

Offline Logan.kruck

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Re: What type of content should I introduce to low-level high-school students?
« Reply #98 on: September 02, 2011, 08:41:10 am »
This is a wonderful post.  Many teachers are in need of help like this.  I'm just starting in a similar situation.  I hope that all will go well.  So far, I've been planning a simple series of lessons on expressing themselves. 

1. I think/feel/am - expressing basic opinions
2. Why, because - Adjectives and describing opinions
3. Simile - using pictures for thoughts

I'll let you all know if it works, and I'll post my lesson plans here as I complete them

Offline jfran

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Re: What type of content should I introduce to low-level high-school students?
« Reply #99 on: September 04, 2011, 04:20:28 pm »
this thread has been very helpful, CaliGirl007 you have some great ideas that i am going to give a try.

thanks,