these kids dont need a fun teacher. they need to learn irregular verbs! how will they ever score highly on the university placement test, get into one of the SKY universities, and become a plastic surgeon or CEO if they dont. Stop playing your silly bomb games and raise these book worms right!
B.S. on the age but Word on the energy!I am 51 and in my 18 years here I have never been pegged by students as older than 36. :)I am LIT every minute of every class. Every minute. Don't waste time is my mantra. I am in the same mindset i was in when playing a lead on stage in a.high school play. I am ON from :00 until :58. I hustle to erase the board and guzzle cold tea or water before the next class. The fav part of my day is classtime. If i am sick i don't feel it until the last class has ended (or - horror - those months when a one-hour gap is in my schedule. I prefer rockin' 4-8 pm every week day. I am here for that! How can one be a fun teacher?1. Don't try to be "fun". BE ENGAGING. I want to say be challenging but 1 or 2 of every 20 classes has more than one sluggard who's nonresponsive to it (no, not even 10%, but a few every week. Let's not excuse our lacklustre slacking teaching effort - gawd how many hagwon teachers start classes late, have few rules, don't seem to care about attendance, effort or demeanor.)2. CARE. That's it. Care whether your kids arrive on time. Ask them not to be late next time. Ride the receptionist to phone and see why they aren't in class when it's classtime. Do it all with an eager smile!3. BE NICE. No hats, no gum, chairs down, no heads on desk. Help each other. Let's go!4. It's English time. LET'S SPEAK ENGLISH NOW. Of the four or five times a year i have to send a student to the hallway, it's usually for refusing to stop chatting in Korean despite a warning. Strong warning. And "Yellow card" (i pantomime pulling it out of my shirt and look totally serious). Three strikes and you are out. My diligence on this results in few problems for most classes a year. Classroom management is about what they can get away with.5. REWARD "GOOD JOB." I am constantly seeking to encourge positive energy. I even remove my mask for two seconds to simply smile! I give little candies or chocolates at the end of the class 1 to 3 times every 4 to 5 classes (they line up, according sometimes to their performance, sometimes randomly).6. BE ENGAGING. (Bears repeating.) If you are bored, they certainly will be! Don't waste a single minute of classtime. Half of my 90-minute daily prep is ensuring i have extra tasks (often review material or re-enforcing foundational stuff) for the quicker students to do while i help the slower ones.My students like my class. They smile when they come in. I only try to be "fun" once every two months (i call it "Game Day" but it's really challenging pair or group work with nice yummies, better/bigger for winners).The only exception: VERY LOW LEVEL MIDDLE SCHOOLERS (I mean, the 2-4 out of 100+ who are teenagers who can't spell "house" or answer "How are you?". Some years i have none of these. This year i have three. They just wanna shut down. They really should be in their own class away from others whose levels are higher - but such is life here).
i know you are mostly joking but bomb games really are criminally overused
Nothing about my French education was "fun." It was STFU and conjugate these verbs. And if you didn't, you failed and looked like a moron. This isn't to say that language learning CAN'T be fun, but to insist it's ALWAYS fun................ .. just, no. This isn't reflecting on anyone here, but we've all heard of the management or coteachers that want this from us all the time.Do you think I wanted to do multiplication tables for an hour? I didn't. But if I didn't, I didn't learn multiplication and then I failed the test and I looked dumb. So I did it.Not everything needs a candy and a pat on the head at the end. Just do it.
