Hi there

This is my first post, so I hope I'm posting this topic in the correct section of Waygook.

I'm heading to Korea in 2 weeks time and I've heard from a couple of people that the teachers attending the JLP orientation will have to present a mock lesson aimed towards the level they'll be teaching at their respective schools.

I'll be honest, I'm quite nervous, so I just want to try and prepare for it as much as possible. Can anyone that's interested in responding to this topic please share their experiences of this trial lesson, any tips worth noting in terms of preparation, do you choose your own lesson topic,, do you present it on your own or with someone else? Any information will really be much appreciated.

Please and thank you

Kind regards
QwertySA

Yo, I'm in JLP.  First off, welcome to the program!  I hope you'll like Jeollanamdo, from what I hear, I think most people do.  I myself have been having a great time. 

My orientation was not long ago and I think it was shorter than the main intakes but I'm sure it's similar enough.  We did have to do a mock lesson presentation and honestly, I think mine was pretty cruddy but the facilitator still found nice things to say and gave me a critique and advice that I agreed with.  So don't sweat it!  People range from experienced to those with zero teaching experience.  Even the returning teachers were a little nervous.  Mainly, I think it's awkward pretending that your peers are children.  Haha

Have energy!  Speak loudly and clearly.  Keep your language simple.  For mine, all we had to do was explain/demonstrate a game/activity and then have the "students" play it.  Walk around, observe, answer questions and/or correct things if the students "misunderstood" directions (we had some returning teachers to the program in my orientation so they acted like some kids they had taught before, which was helpful and realistic).  Give high fives if a "student" wins a round of whatever game you taught them. 

It's most likely gonna feel a little weird since it's not a real classroom and not real kids, but just be sure to smile a lot (there's a fun story about this one teacher who was apparently not great at his job but the school wouldn't fire him because he "always smiled" lol) and try to have fun with it. 

Also, if the "kids" finish the game early, just tell them to play another round and/or do another quick game/activity.  One of the groups at my orientation finished the game before the others did and though in retrospect the solution seems obvious, your mind might go blank in the moment.  If all kids finish early, review the key expressions and vocabulary.  It might help to have a printed copy of your general lesson plan with back up ideas for if there's extra time. 

Not sure if your orientation will be the same, but we did choose our own topics.  And we were allowed to borrow other people to work with (it can be good to choose a helper to use when explaining a game) but it was okay to do it completely solo as well. 

We did all of the lesson prep and planning during orientation and we had access to a laptop, projector, and white board for the teaching demo.  If you wanted to print materials you had to email it to the coordinator ahead of time by a certain deadline.  They also had paper available if you wanted to make some visuals by hand. 

Hope that's helpful!  Let the hive mind know if you have further questions~

I'm not sure if  caroliinaa meant 3 games or 3 activities in every lesson? I wouldn't use 3 games in one lesson, the lesson shouldn't be totally games because then there would be no time for introducing the target language?
Maybe she meant 3 activities, and yeah TaLK stresses 3 activities/stages in the development stage of a lesson plan; Presentation, Practice, and Production.

"The teacher PRESENTS the target language and then gives students the opportunity to PRACTISE it through very controlled activities. The final stage of the lesson gives the students the opportunity to PRACTISE the target language in freer activities which bring in other language elements."   

So basically.
1. Present: Introduce/teach target language.
2. Practice: An activity which allows students to practise the language.
3. Production: An activity which is usually a game that allows students to practise the language further. It gives them the chance produce their own ideas/answers.

Hope this wasn't confusing haha and when I had the mock lessons, the first two weren't full length lessons so obviously there wasn't time for this kind of ^ 3 stage lesson. And then my final mock lesson was full length so we were all expected to do that kind of lesson^.

Good luck, it's never as bad as you think! On my full length mock lesson we had to co-teach and my co-teacher flew in from a vacation the morning of it and I had never met him before and had no time to go through the lesson plan with him, it was a bit of a mess and he decided to do his own thing half way through! So know that whatever happens, your lesson will be better than this haha!

Also I used to live in Jeollanamdo! It's nice and peaceful and so many beautiful places, and good transport in Korea if you do want to go to the bigger cities!

Haha. I did the mock lesson at JLP orientation. I get extremely anxious presenting anything to adults, and this was one of the most acute episodes of anxiety I've ever experienced. Predictably, I totally bombed. I compared my score sheet to many of my peers afterwards, and my 'grades' were by far the worst (I got 'needs improvement' on every single criteria). I even misspelled the title of the lesson when writing it on the board, and I drew a submarine (my lesson was on transport) that ended up looking exactly like a penis I was convinced my teaching career was over before it had even begun.

Then I stepped into a real classroom, with real kids, and my anxiety melted away. I teach at a high school now, and my co-teachers are more or less always absent from my classes. On the rare occasion that one of them makes an appearance, I do feel a little anxiety creeping back in, but not enough to throw me off my game (or draw accidental penises) :p

Just relax, prepare adequately, and you'll be fine. And give Devi a high five for me ;)

Hey Greg, above wasn't me (Doron)