We have moved onto mythology this week.  My students have covered some of it in different English classes, so they asked me to carry it over to the conversation classroom.  This is LESSON 4 for my second grade high school students.  They participated SO well and seemed to really love this topic.

Basic lesson plan:

Greet students and chat for a few minutes.

Introduce slang of the day.  (Today's slang is 'Rookie', as in a new member to a team or group.)

Introduce the topic of mythology, and ask for their definitions thereof.

Show them the PowerPoint slide show.  Ask them about the myths and explain a few.  (I think it might be best if you(the teacher) brushes up on your own mythology, because they ask quite a few questions.)

There are two relevant English sayings that we discussed.

                  -  Achilles heel.  "What is your weakness?"

                  -  To open Pandora's box.  "Doing something that will have bad consequences." 

*There are many video clips and web links that the kids love. 

(for the video clip from Troy, skip to the part where Achilles gets shot in the heel).

*pics to follow

Mythology lesson

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Lesson 3 (grade 2)

This lesson (the 3rd lesson for my second grade high school students) follows on from the second lesson "Hope for Japan", but it works very well as a stand-alone lesson too.  The topic for today is 'Charity'.  At first I was worried about how this would go down with the learners, but it was very well received.  

Basic lesson plan:

• Greet students and chat for a few minutes about news in their lives. (We chat like this every week).  
• Introduce the slang of the day.  Today the slang in B.O. (Body Odour).  The students receive hints and clues and have to guess what B.O. stands for.  The best answer - Barack Obama. 
• The lesson.  I chose not to introduce the topic at the beginning of the lesson and went straight to the first slide.  All the slides have ONLY the logos and names of the respective charities.  After seeing a logo the students guess the name, once they have managed to do that you can explain what the charity is about.  We even ended up playing charades at some point to get them to guess the correct answers.  After the last charity logo, ask them what all those logos represent, and move on to the next part of the lesson.
• There is a GREAT website called www.freerice.com .  It is a site that supports the World Food Programme.  (Select English Vocab as the subject and have the teams compete against each other to see how much rice they are able to donate).
• Wrap it up with a quick recap of what charity is and why it is important, and don't forget to thank them for the charity that THEY had done.    

Charity Lesson

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Explaining that the World Wildlife Fund does.

Students guessing charity names.  (They all guess K-Swiss for the Salvation Army hahaha)

Explaining 'Doctors without Borders"  

Charades with the World Food Programme.

Students playing on www.freerice.com.  I am showing the rest of the class the correct answers.

Donating more rice to the WFP.

Grade 2: Lesson 2

This is the second lesson that I did with the second grade students at my school. This was not part of the original year plan, but we decided to do this lesson in support of the people in Japan, while they were suffering through the terrible effects of the earthquake and tsunami that hit them.  All my students showed a great sense of compassion and concern for the people of Japan, and the work they produced is proof thereof.

Basic Lesson Plan:

• Greet the students.  Chat to the students for a while about what their news is for the week.
• Introduce the slang of the day.(Also recap last week's slang)
• Introduce the lesson topic, 'Earthquakes'.  Ask students to define the word earthquake.
• Use the PowerPoint presentation, to show the class what has happened in Japan.  
• Ask them to empathize with their neighbouring country, and to write messages of hope.

Introducing slang of the day

Introducing Lesson topic.

Showing them the effects of the earthquake.

Co-teacher (Kim Bo Yeong) giving some advice.

Being creative

"We can't give money, but we can give hope"

A multi-lingual message of hope.

Drawing  inspiration from the wall of hope.

"Don't lose hope."

:)

How CUTE!

Comic self portraits with a message of hope.

"We are best friends." ( "Fighting" is Korean slang for strength!!)

Hope for Japan

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Lesson 1 (grade 2)

This is the first lesson of the year for my second grade high school students.  I taught ALL of the students the year before, so there was no reason to re-introduce myself.  This lesson will focus on my vacation in South Africa (my home country) and will give me the opportunity to ask them about their vacations too.  The aim of this lesson was to be an easy start to the year. 

Basic lesson plan.

• Welcome the students back to the English conversation class.
• Spend time chatting about what they did and where they went in their vacations.  My students really enjoy chewing the fat and theres nothing quite like some holiday banter to get the year going.  
• Introduce the topic for the lesson.  "My vacation" .  
• Use the PowerPoint presentation to show different aspects of the vacation.  (This slide show aims to teach the students more about my home country and culture as well as being just a vacation story.)  The  PowerPoint presentation was punctuated with video clips.  All the animal slides were explained giving the students the names of the animals and basic information about them.  (They LOVE guessing things and fooling around with silly answers when they have no idea.
• At the end of the slide show there is a true/false quiz.  This is a great way to wrap up the lesson and to test their understanding of what has been said.  I normally give the winning team a prize of sorts.  
• **

VACATION

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* I realise that this is a "personlised" lesson and that you would have to adapt the lesson plan to make it your own.  The lessons that will follow will be easier to use.

Lesson 2 (grade 1 )

Hi everybody.  This is the second lesson that I did with my first grade high school students, at 남한고등학교 (Namhan High School).  This is the first lesson in which the students will encounter "Slang of the day".  Every lesson that I teach, no matter if it is first or second grade, will start with a new slang word.  The students LOVE this part.  They always guess crazy things and laugh at the silly examples we make up.  It is a great way to start a lesson and get the spirits up. 

Basic lesson plan:

Greet and welcome students.  We briefly chat about arbitrary things, like what they did on the weekend, or celeb gossip or the severity of the yellow dust. (This is an English conversation class after all)

Slang of the day.  (Todays word is "has-been".  As in Arnold Schwarzenegger is a has-been actor.).  I like to keep them guessing and guide them in the right direction.

The students are then divided into groups.  The seating in my class is always in clusters, as many of the lessons involve group work or games.  Each group has been created with a "leader", chosen on academic merit.  (What we did was have the leaders pick their team mates, but thats obviously up to you/your co-teacher).  After the class is divided, get the teams to make a group name.  Again their is no limit on what the name can be, let them be creative and funny as they please.  (Push them though, as there is not that much time.)

Homework worksheet.
(From lesson 1)

Now that the groups have been named and the excitement levels have peaked, it is time to produce the homework from lesson one.  Give them a few minutes to complete the table by asking the other members in their groups about their personal information.  You might want to write helpful questions on the board, but walk around the class listening and helping out.  

Now the fun starts.  Tell them that each group has to pick only ONE person to speak. (This will save time when the introductions begin)  Although only one member will speak, the entire group should stand in front of the class so that we can all see who we are meeting.  This year my classes were fighting to go first, so that should not be a problem.  The chosen person then introduced his/her team members and sometimes added his/her own 2c to the table.  They have a GREAT sense of humour.  Feel free to ask them questions and to get them speaking.

The students love to make the kids whose "hobbies" are to perform in some or other way 'show off' their talents.  Lots of clapping and shouting and encouragement is always heard.

This should take you till the end of the 50 minutes.  In fact you might have to watch the clock and speed some of the groups along.   They really enjoy this lesson as you will see from some of the pics.

Introducing her group members.

Introducing his group members.

Doing some kind of performance, and LOVING IT!

My little posers.

Below you will find the PowerPoint guide of this lesson.

Enjoy

week 2 - student introduction

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Grade 1: Lesson 1, (high school) - Introductory Lesson

Now that I have the whole separate blog thing figured out this should become a lot simpler...i hope! :) 

This is the first lesson I did with my newbies, the little rookies of my school her in Korea.

I was asked to do an introductory lesson, about who I am and where i come from.  Having taught in Korea before i know just how fascinated students can be when you tell them you come from somewhere in AFRICA! hahaha

Basic Lesson Plan:

All the lessons are 50 minutes long.

For this lesson (and I use them for 99% of my other lessons) I made a PowerPoint presentation about my me, my family and my country (South Africa).  This was made a while ago before I was totally fluent on MS PowerPoint, so the presentation is not the lesson in it's entirety.  It was punctuated with YouTube video clips, music, the passing around of South African money, direct comparisons between the two countries and numerous attempts by students to blow on a Vuvuzella, and even some tribal language lessons.  At the end of the presentation there was some Question and Answer time, followed by the CLASSROOM RULES.  

When we were all happy and had agreed upon the rules and regulations that everybody was to abide by, they received a worksheet with a very simple instruction.  They were to only fill in the first row in that lesson.  It was personal information under 4 different columns.  

Name:  Hobbies/Interests:  Something unique:  Favourite (YES, i use British English hahahaha) 

They were allowed to write only their names in Korean, and the rest was to be completed in full English sentences.  They could be as creative with their answers as they liked, in fact  it was encouraged. 

They had to complete their own information only, and would have time in lesson 2 to complete the rest of the table.

introduction- powerpoint

This is the first handout. Students have to complete only 1 line for homework.
Best answers:
 Hobbies - Killing dragons (in a game)/ "not smoking" (from an obvious student smoker)
Something unique: my eyes are different sizes/ i am the most genius of the class (lol)
Favourite:  my favorite smell is rice / my favorite baskin and robins flavor is mint choco      

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