TaLK Orientation 2017 19th Generation

 

It was great getting back to the TaLK orientations. Can’t believe I’ve been doing these since the 11 Generation. Every orientation the TaLK scholars are more and more passionate and excited to be teaching and learning in Korea. This time I gave a lecture on the curriculum here in Korea focusing on the English classroom. It’s so much information to go through. I hope my horrible dad jokes, memes, and quirky sense of humor helped out the lecture. Below is attached the PPT I used and the MOE changes for 2016 and beyond in English. If you all have any questions or need nay help reply below or send me an email. I wish you all the best in teaching, living, and learning in Korea!

 

Elementary English Curriculum

2016+Education+Policy+Plans

2017 Bundang EPIK Training

I’M BACK!!!

I haven’t updated my blog in about a year or so. A quick overview of what I’ve did and am doing now. I went back to the U.S.  where I worked at a middle school and then left it (more to come on that). Basically it has gotten even worse in the U.S/ Florida for teaching and education in general. It was heart breaking and ridiculous the condition that the school system is over there. I feel more at home in Korea as this will be my 7th year teaching here, finally surpassing the number of years I have taught in the U.S. I recently finished up another EPIK training. It was was so nice to see old colleagues and staff members, and once again be reinvigorated by the new EPIK/ GEPIK teachers. This training I was the first foreigner to ever do the Elementary English Curriculum lecture! It is basically an overview of the curriculum over here in Korea. It has been a lecture we have been asking for since I an EPIK teacher. I really wish I had this lecture when I was an EPIK teacher. I really struggled with understanding the context, goals, and purpose of the education system I was working in. I hope this training provided that for the new teachers. Below I have attached my ppt for this lecture and upon request a link to a previous lecture on giving directions. Let me know if you all have any questions or need any help. Keep reflecting and assessing!

 

Elementary English Curriculum

Giving Instructions

 

April 2015 Daegu TESOL Training

Hello everyone out there. I just finished up 2 Saturdays in Daegu doing a training for a TESOL certification course. As usual it was a lot of hard work, long hours, and my feet killing me but I had so much fun and thoroughly enjoyed myself. It was a small group of participants, 6-7 new teachers.

Everyone came from different academic backgrounds and even a different country. We had business majors, university students, no teaching experience, and even a Russian linguistics major! It was amazing to see people from different backgrounds coming together and wanting to teach. No matter their reason for wanting to teach everyone was passionate and driven to learn (and acquire lol) teaching skills.

As usual we tried to slam 2 years of undergrad pedagogy and experience into a few short weeks. It was amazing to see everyone process so much information and try to make sense of it in such a short time. Trust me… I know the feeling. At times I even felt overwhelmed with the amount of information flying across the room.

I feel really lucky to be able to be a teacher trainer at a time where the education system in Korea is shifting education paradigms. There is so much growth, exploration, and melding of the old and the new (kid like Bhabha’s 3rd space of  cultural interaction but for education… sorry for the bad geeky joke!) I digress.

Below are all of my materials from the last 2 Saturdays please feel free to download and use the materials but just make sure not to sell them… well, at least cut me in on the profit lol j/k. As usual feel free to leave comments, insights, questions, and what not below.

Week 1 Framework Lecture PPT

Week 1 Framework Lecture Handout

Week 2 PDP Lesson Planning PPT

Toy Story Listening Plan

PDP Lesson Demo Reflection Form

PDP Blank Lesson Plan Form

February 2015 TaLK Orientation

I just finished up the February 2015 TaLK orientation. We were at a new location at, 부산외국어대학교. It was a very nice and new campus but up on a tall hill… my legs did not appreciate that. The orientation was great. As usual the staff were fantastic and the food was partially better than previous orientations. The weather was pretty ok too. It was sunny at least but still cold! Thank goodness there was no snow.

This year I did the Giving Feedback and Assignments and Tests/ Assessment lectures. Both went well overall despite a lot of modifications that had to be done at the last minute. These were two new lectures that TaLK hasn’t done before. The participants were enthusiastic and like every year the quality of participants goes up. I thoroughly enjoyed their insights and the challenge of training new and passionate teachers. As I walked around and listened to their conversations during a group activity I could hear them, despite their exhaustion, trying to questions their methods and challenging their decisions. This is something they will have to do on their own now and I could see the process starting to mature. I also noticed a sense of comradery that I hadn’t seen much before at these types of orientations. Most groups seemed really tight knit and seemed to really care about each other. All of this from just a week and half of being together and starting out as strangers from around the world. It’s pretty cool to see this and it never ceases to amaze me how this seams to happen during these orientations. Thank you all for letting me be a part of your teaching lives and professional development. I always love doing these orientations. I learn so much, get to develop as a teacher, and re-affermate my passion for teaching. I wish you all the best of luck. If you have any comments, tips, or suggestions please leave them below. Please look back at previous posts for more materials, links and tips.  I am truly excited to have you all here as my peers.

P.S. If you are looking for the rubric materials that were missing from lecture book they are in the file labeled “Daniel Moonasar_Assignments and Tests” Also here is link to Casey’s blog. It has a ton of great info for teaching in Korea. 

Casey’s Blog

Assignmetns, Tests, and Assessment Materials 

Daniel Moonasar_Assignment and Tests

Assignment Testing

Giving Feedback Materials 

Giving Feedback

Daniel Moonasar_Giving Feedback

Daegu EPIK/ UCC Training

Just finished up two weekends worth of training with the UCC center in Daegu. WOW was it a long 2 weekends. Despite the long long weekends and many trials and tribulations, we all made it through alive. The participants were fantastic and had so many great things to share. I love in-service trainings. This is where we as educators get to practice critical thinking, reflection, and professional development. Additionally it was a mixed training. Both KETs and NETs were there. It was my first time training them together. I had always hoped for this but no one has really done it. It turned out fantastic. I got to meet so many teachers and heard from both sides of the cultural perspective on teaching in Korea. It was amazing seeing teachers that shared one passion for teaching our students work, talk, and build relationships together to further strenghten ourselves as educators.  I always come away from inservice trainings with so many new ideas and a reaffirmation of my love of teaching. Thank you my fellow educators for this. Thank you for letting me help in your classrooms and your growth as an educator. Most of all thank you for helping me grow. Below are the links to all of my training materials. Please leave a comment, question, or teaching tip for others. Thanks again for a great training! I’m gonna go soak my feet and do some more reflection from these past 2 weekends.

Pleneray Students Centered Teaching, Warmer, Wrap Ups

GTKY Plenary

Warmer 1

Warmer 2

Pronunciation Training

Teaching Pronunciation Elementary PPT

Pronunciation Activity Worksheet

Teaching Pronunciation Secondary 

Vocabulary Training 

Teaching Vocabulary PPT

Teaching Vocabulary Worksheet

Co-teaching Training 

Models of Co-teaching_Part A PPT

Models of Co-teaching_Part B PPT

Co-teaching Worksheet_Psrt A

Co-teaching Worksheet_Part B

Giving Instructions, Modeling, & CCQs

Giving Instructions PPT T

Modeling_CCQ PPT

Planning Instructions/CCQ – Worksheet

Working Across Cultures:

 Working Across Cultures PPT

Class Assessment & TaLK Febuary 2014

Man was it cold during this year’s training. Despite the cold and windy weather the training went very well. We had a lot more returning TaLK participants and even some who had taught before. Everyone was really excited to share their experiences. Below are my training training materials. Leave a comment, a tip, or questions. It was great meeting everyone. I wish you the best this year in teaching.

Class Assessment Materials:

Class Assessment PPT

Class Assessment 2014 Manuscript

Class Assessment Group Activity 5 Topics Worksheet

KOTESOL Internation Conference & Action Research

I just finished up a presentation at the KOTESOL international conference. I presented Using action research as a means of developing student centered curriculum. This was a project I did with one of my co-teachers when I taught high school in Seoul. Below is the my abstract and you can jump the break below for a short story about it and a link to the press I used.

Using Action Research to Develop Student Centered Curriculum Abstract

As educators, bridging the gap between theory and practice when creating student- centered curriculum for the ELT classroom can be challenging but extremely rewarding. To gain direction and purpose when creating student-centered curriculum, ELT educators may engage in reflective practice supported by SIGs, CoPs or other professional development groups. However, is there a more research-oriented approach to ELT classroom reflection? Action research can address both of these concerns and is known for providing immediate change to perceived needs by bridging the gap between theory and practice. This presentation will demonstrate how teachers can use action research approaches to develop theories about curriculum choices that inform and impact their own ELT classroom practices. Through examining real classroom experiences in which action research was used, teachers will take with them a research-oriented approach to classroom reflection that can address their day-to-day concerns while creating the direction and purpose for student centered curriculum that so many of us seek in ELT classrooms.

My Story (been living in Korea way to long!)

So my story begins in my frustration of working at a school that was one of the lowest socio-economic schools in Seoul. It wasn’t in my co-workers, or students but in the circumstances that my students were in. Most were poor and worked a part-time job, which is a big no-no still in Korea for high school kids. Most of our school was on free or reduced lunch. I was in the typical low socio-economic school conditions. Not much money, good hearted students but seemly hopeless and frustrated with their education. Long story short after about a year teaching my students nothing except preparing for the 스능 (Korean SATs) my students were burt our and if not already had, lost hope. Despite all of this I had a great relationship with my school and students. I really loved teaching there and my students. We had so much fun together and were all really close.

While this was going I was studying for my masters degree and was finishing up a approaches to research model. We had read, studied and used action research during the model. Basically action research is an approach to research that allows for research to be contextual, valid and reliable to our setting, and continually modified to create practical interventions for our research question (Read more in my abstract). Our research question centered around:

Why exactly, despite my students liking us so much, having great camps, and other XCAs were they so disinterested in learning English in our classroom.

So my co-teacher and I went into research mode. We did informal/ formal interviews, surveys, and observations. From this we developed a class curriculum that the students helped design and implement. It turned out to be a really good success. Not everyone was happy but in short we had much better participation, test results, and a general mood and moral change that gave not only out students hope and belief in learning again but also ourselves.

KOTESOL Prezi Link

Let me know what you think and your experiences in either using action research or developing SCC in your class.

Class Assessment and TaLK August 2013

Yesterday I did my second TaLK training. The warm days and great weather really helped out with everyone’s excitement and vigor during the training. It was inspiring to see so many young teachers who were so passionate about teaching and living life abroad. With the great weather we got to hang out, talk, and have a few beers. I wish them the best in the next year or so while they are here in Korea. If you have any questions or want to leave some tips please leave them below.

Class Assessment Materials

Class Assessment Manuscript

2013 TaLK Handbook

1 Class Assessment Activity Worksheet

Class Assessment PPT

Classroom Assessment

I just finished up lecturing for the 2013 11th Generation TaLK Scholar Orientation. I really enjoy lecturing at the TaLK orientations. The staff is always great, hardworking, and friendly. Seeing and spending time with such a great assortment of young educators from around the world is always inspiring. Many of the scholars are here for different reasons, some are here just to experience Korea, some are here to take some time off, some are here to get teaching experience, but no matter the reason all of them were sincerely interested in becoming a thoughtful and caring teacher.  I know when they leave Korea and go back to their homes they reflect upon their time here. This reflection might be just talking to some friends over a beer or two, looking at photos with friends and family, or even writing about their experiences on a blog. No matter if they consciously do it they all will take the time for reflection.

This brings me to my topic of classroom assessment. This was my first time teaching the classroom assessment portion of an orientation and while most of us are familiar with classroom assessment I wanted to focus this blog post on the reflection portion of the assessment cycle. Reflection has been a focus of mine for the last few years and as I have grown from being able to realize that I need to in fact engage in reflection to being able to anticipate issues before they happen, I still struggle with evaluating my classroom assessment strategies, primarily how effective my assessment as learning strategies are.

My main concerns are being able measure and show a correlation to the strategies used that show an effect size that is substantial enough to prove the strategy works.  So basically do my strategies really work and to what effect? This semester as I begin to work with the second semester freshman English conversation students for the first time, I plan to implement in full force assessment as learning to help to give reason and measurable and observable progress in their learning that the students themselves can monitor. With backing and guidance from my department head and colleagues we will be really pushing the limits of our students in this aspect in hopes of giving them a reason to not only stay in the department but more importantly fuel the spark that they have for being an English major into a unstoppable life long passion. So indeed there will be much reflection in how to “fuel this spark”.  Further blog posts will detail this and follow out progress but I want to leave with asking a few questions:

1. When you see this spark in your class, how do you fuel it with classroom assessment?

2. How do you provide your students will measurable and observable learner outcomes in the EFL classroom setting?

These are two questions that I will be constantly asking myself this semester. Let me know your thoughts on this. Have a great semester as we get started up again.  To the TaLK scholars fee free to leave questions or if you have a problem let me know. I will post up some links to my resources.

Training material:

Class Assessment Manuscript

Class Assessment PPT

http://www.waygook.org  Great teacher led forum with thousands of lessons and resources , i.e. the bomb game.

http://www.slideshare.net/LienadRasanoom  My slideshare page. Slide share is a great place to share your PPTs.

http://prezi.com/user/dmoonasar/  My Prezi page

 If you need anything in this folder feel free to use it and share.

Secondary Classroom Management/ Co-teaching

I just finished the EPIK April late intake orientation. It was interesting to see so many teachers that didn’t have the orientation before teaching. Most had been teaching a month or so and then came to this training. Many of them were less nervous than the regular intake orientation and ready to gain some practical methods to get their classes going. I always learn so much from training teachers. Thank you all for letting me train you. Below is my manuscript and ppt from the training. Feel free to comment and leave some tips for myself and others.

Secondary Classroom Management Co-teaching Manuscript

Secondary School Classroom Managment_ and Co-teaching PPT