Open Class...

If you are teaching English here in South Korea with EPIK, there are quite a few 'unsaid' things that you will have to do at your school, the least of them being judging speaking competitions, helping students to prepare for English competitions and the like. But one of the scarier things, will be to prepare for at least 2 open classes.

Open classes are when other teachers/VIP's/your Principle etc will come in and watch your class, thus evaluating you and your co-teacher on a number of things. Most teachers here do 2 open classes for outside teachers (including other Foreign English Teachers) to come and watch, as well as open classes for their students' parents. Another type of open class is for the annual teaching competition. As well as having teachers and Principles watching you, your class is also video recorded, and then sent in (with a huge amount of other documentation) to the Metropolitan Board of Education and is then evaluated against the other candidates. The teaching competition is optional, and your co-teacher is usually the one who decides whether or not to enter.

For your open class, you can do whatever lesson you want (and then whichever period you want in that lesson) and you are free to change/mix up/delete/add anything to your lesson. So for example, we filmed our own videos for the 'Look and Speak" part of the textbook, and for the listen and repeat section, we do mini role plays using a dialogue that we make up (but using the key expressions of the lesson). Be as creative as you want!

This year, my wonderful co-teacher 정히 (Cindy) entered us into the competition, and we went through the the second round (YAY!!!!). We just had our second open class earlier this week, and now wait, with baited breath, to find out the results (please hold thumbs for us!).

The class went really well, the students were great and really participated well, the hardest part was trying not to pay too much attention to the 5 very important looking adjudicators sitting at the back of the classroom, all with stony faces and no smiles! But it went well...so we will just have to wait and see...oh! The winners of the competition get to go on a paid trip somewhere (it sounded really nice, but I cant remember) and it's an amazing thing to have on your CV :)

Here are some photo's of what we prepared for the class:
(again, my co-teacher actually had to do the majority of the work; writing up a report (40 pages!), making a portfolio of all our work, and sending in loads of application forms...so thank you Cindy!!!!)

*We did grade 6, lesson 11 "I'm stronger than you", period 2*




A brief outline of our lesson

*Greeting (using a Prezi) presentation
*Review of the last lesson (using a quiz ppt, where each student takes a piece of coloured paper at the beginning of the class and answers the question that corresponds to their colour in the quiz)
*'Wh' Questions (before watching our own home made video clips, we tell the students what questions we will ask them, eg "What are they doing?", "What does ..... say to .....?", "Where are they?")
*Mini-Role Play (Cindy and I do a short skit of the dialogue we want the kids to practice *based on the key expressions from the textbook*, then they repeat the dialogue after us, practice with their partner, and finally they volunteer to show the class their version of the dialogue; using emotion cards *happy/angry/sad*)
*Game to Practice the expressions (we used a Target Game, where the students were split into 2 teams and stood in a line. On the screen was a ppt presentation, each slide showing a different comparison. The second student in the line had to ask the first student "Who is stronger/faster/bigger" and then the first student answers. The shoots the gun *a gun shooting sticky bullets onto a target board that we made* to get points. The team with the most points wins!)
*Card Game (Farmboy designed a very clever card game, that the students play in pairs, again to practice the expressions. We broke the game into 2, with an easier set of cards and a harder set of cards to address the different ability levels in the class)
*Wrap Up (ppt with fun pictures, and the students had to volunteer to come up to the front and perform the chosen comparison, while the rest of the class guessed who would be faster/stronger etc.

Some pictures of what the classroom looked like on the big day...

Cindy and me :) 

The adjudicators seats...dum dum dum!