WAYGOOK.ORG

Since this board is for ideas as well as lesson plans, I thought I'd try to share and gain some ideas regarding the new semester we've just begun in public high schools.

I'm apparently in a somewhat uncommon employment position.  I recently re-signed at a public high school where I was last year.  I know a lot of native teacher high school jobs in SMOE have been cut, but I'm in GEPIK (well, Gyeonggi-do sponsored by my city hall).  If you're in a similar situation (2nd year renewer), this'll be most relevant to you, but I guess it could apply to newcomers in public high schools as well.

The curriculum last year was a make-my-own model.  I came to Waygook.org for most... okay, let's say all... of my lesson ideas.  The students responded well, and because they were having fun and talking about interesting content, they were more open to having conversations outside of class too.

My first day back to school this year, I was given an SAT listening test prep book and told that things had changed when I was visiting back home.  I'm still allowed to stretch the lesson content (so I can do a lesson on superheroes is the key phrase is "I'm here to..." by saying, "I'm Superman, and I'm here to help" and extrapolating thus), but really what the school wants is boring MP3s and listening drills, not real-world English.  The co-teachers are bored too, but they know I have to teach this stuff.

Has anyone else encountered this 180-degree curriculum shift in their schools this year?  Sitting and complaining won't change things, so I want to be more constructive.  It'd be nice to share ideas and see if it's possible to brainstorm lesson ideas that will actually give the students some "real" English instead of just boring them to death with bland, 2-sentence MP3 conversations. 

Is this actually a normal curriculum for a lot of you public high school teachers, and I just had it really good last year? 

I just checked and this year the first- and second-year students have 22 listening and 23 reading questions on their 수능 preparatory tests while the third years still have 17 listening and 33 reading, as used to be the case for all grades. This is likely why your school wants you to focus on listening.

EBS is really just the broadcaster - MoEd staffers write the tests. I know exactly what kind of guide you're using. It's very boring indeed. 50 minutes is just way too long to do that kind of thing. The dialogues from these books: http://www.kyobobook.co.kr/product/detailViewKor.laf?ejkGb=KOR&mallGb=KOR&barcode=9788972557920&orderClick=LEA&Kc=SETLBkserp1_5 and http://www.kyobobook.co.kr/product/detailViewKor.laf?ejkGb=KOR&mallGb=KOR&barcode=9788959950515&orderClick=LAG&Kc=SETLBkserp1_5 tend to make much better listening exercises, and you can use other parts of the book to supplement them. There are also heaps of other non-Korean listening books you can get, but again, 50 minutes is a long time to be engaged in the same type of activity.