Classes

I realized pretty much from the first day of teaching that I would need to keep a detailed account of what I was doing in each class so I could keep track of them. I started to do lesson plans from probably the second week which has helped me a lot. A few people have asked me about the classes and what I am teaching, so here is pretty much a detailed account of each. 

LOW LEVEL ELEMENTARY (age 5-9) - Started off by teaching them the game of go fish. They LOVE go fish. I started with this because it taught them "do you have a ______" and then answering yes/no. After the second time playing, I made them say "yes i do have a ___" or "no I do not have a _____" because it is important to make sentences. The third time we played, i taught them what "pairs" were, and at the end of the game, they had to count up how many pairs they had, and tell me "I have ____ pairs" which went well. They want to play go fish every class. 

After go fish, i continued with the theme of "do you have a" and taught them clothing items. This ranged from pants to shirt/t-shirt, socks, shoes, hat, gloves, ring, necklace, etc etc etc. I asked them "do you have a _____" and they answered. Then they paired up and asked each other. From there, I taught them colors, most of which they knew. That enabled them to ask each other "do you have a blue hat" which went well. We spent quite a bit of time on this until they didn't have to look at the board anymore to remember the terms and colors. 

Then I introduced them to hangman, which they also enjoyed. They knew the alphabet (including the alphabet song), but weren't that great at pronouncing some of them, so we went over the alphabet and how to say the letters. Hangman is a great way to review terms. Usually I start off easy and write the terms on the board I will use. At first, only 1 kid understood the concept of seeing how many letters for the hangman and if a letter guessed correctly, then he always knew what the word was. Just yesterday we played hangman, and they all actually understood this. Usually at the end I erase the words and make them play again, and its really more of a guessing game although one kid (the same one that understood it earlier) is sometimes able to figure it out. Who is this kid you ask? He is the 5 year old. He amazes me with his abilities. 

Next, we covered shapes (square, circle, triangle, star, diamond, heart) which they learned quickly. Then we started on weather "it is raining, it is snowing, it is sunny, it is cloudy" which they are good at. I also taught them tree, grass, sun, cloud, flower which they also know well. 

Next I started to teach them time, and they actually knew "o'clock" but didnt know if its 5:30 that you dont need to say o'clock, but they got that quickly. 

Yesterday, i tried to get a bit harder and teach them some simple commands like raise your hand, but this was just way over their head. I wanted to try to play Simon Says with them, but I think they are too young, so i will try this with the upper elementary class. 

Coming up, i am going to go to seasons, and then have them say what they wear in each season. Also work on time some more, and with each time have them tell me what they do so like "it is 9 o'clock, it is time for bed" or whatnot. 

Oh and I forgot to add, I taught them basic family relationships like sister, brother, mother, father, grandmother, grandfather. 

Upper elementary (age 10-12 i think) - this is by far my favourite class. At first they were with the low level elementary, but they were just far ahead and we figured out quickly they need their own class. It is only 4 kids. We started off with family which they figured out quickly, and I added aunt, uncle, cousin, and great grandmother and great grandfather to their vocabulary. 

I then wanted to teach them about food, but I kinda scrapped this quickly because I realized I didn't know the words for most of the food that they ate, so it made it really hard to teach them much more than soup, rice, fish, chicken, etc. 
We then went to colors, which they got very quickly. I introduced them to pictionary, which they had fun with. I wrote the terms on little pieces of paper, and they had to draw the item on the board. Points went to the drawer and the person who got it correctly within 30 seconds. I hope to be able to play pictionary again because they enjoyed it, but it means coming up with terms that can be drawn. 

I then discovered a series of about 18 books which was PERFECT for this class. The books were short, and each page had one sentence on them with very basic sentences and pictures. It introduced words like "want, get, put, dream, read, downstairs, chase, push" etc etc etc. Unfortunately the books only lasted about 3 classes, and last class I reviewed all the terms which they really seem to understand. 

I then started doing some opposite words like in out big little, but they really knew all of them. I then taught them uno which they love. 

Next I think i will start to teach them commands, which i think will be more at their level, and hopefully be able to play simon says with them. 

Middle School @ the school - (age 13-16 i think)

This is my most difficult class. At the center I can just play an episode of the simpons or teach them about baseball, etc, but this is really more of an english class than a cross between american and english. 

We gave them American names in the beginning. We had them introduce themselves with "my name is" and then taught them about american ages versus korean age (in korea, when they are born they are 1 year old, and then every january 1st, their age goes up a year, so their age is usually 2 more than an americans age). 
We started easy with "I have, I want, i am" which they knew. We then went into the different parts of speech which just ended one class ago. Next up, I am going to teach them prefixes and suffixes so that they might understand big words better which they might not know, but a prefix or suffix would help them to understand. 
We went over possessives like truck's horns and a/an/the. I then taught them the different rules for plural words. Started to teach them the different tenses. 

This group is also hard because I really can't think of fun games for them to play which will help them at all. 

Suggestions would be fantastic, but remember the best student in all the classes can barely put a basic sentence together and I don't have the resources to make worksheets or anything for them.