Comments on: Work Work Work, Work WORK work work

By: Mark

Mark — Mon, 13 Mar 2006 16:16:16 +0000

You’re right. All of his podcasting in English and Japanese have permanently severed him from his culture! He’s foreigner-izing at an alarming rate! Hahaha.

By: Not a english teacher

Not a english teacher — Mon, 13 Mar 2006 13:41:23 +0000

Yelling is so much not asian… tss tss you just don’t understand the culture here

By: JT

JT — Sat, 11 Mar 2006 10:02:37 +0000

I KNOW!! Totally agree. I used to teach at another place and one day I got really pissed off at them and started YELLING IN CHINESE. The kids were just terrified but, yeah, it helped them to realize what they did was wrong no matter what class they were in. May it be Chinese, English, math whatever. Points taken.

By: Mark

Mark — Fri, 10 Mar 2006 15:10:56 +0000

It sounds like you’re a dedicated teacher who really cares about his kids. The world needs more teachers like that.

As for L1, yeah! Banning L1 in the classroom is one of the biggest failings of foreign language classes in Asia if you ask me. Sure, L2 input is important, but if a low level class is all L2, it won’t be comprehensible to the students, discipline won’t be very good, and inspiring them will be nigh impossible.

By: JT

JT — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 15:39:36 +0000

Wow! I can’t imagine how happy you must feel. I can almost see your smile because I’m definitely having a big smile and hoping that my students will have the same level of progress as yours. Of course, my students are getting some progress throughout the months and years.

But the downside of my job is that they kids are either too young or they might leave in a year or two. Kindergartens and 1st to 2nd graders are just a bless to teach. They’re really lovely and naive, sort to speak, but having to see them off is not easy. While at my other job, the boss just shifts me around and always give away my good classes and asks me to teach a new class again simply because “I’m good with children and I can speak Chinese.” I mean, that part really really sucks. It happenned many times already…

Congrats on your new classes and hope they will go well and, yeah, hope my students will be like that too. But I can pat on my shoulder and say I got them interested in English the language and, to say the least, have a somewhat good(I can’t say great) teacher to open the English world for them.

I am also planning on telling my boss to let L1 be practiced in the classroom. What do you suggest?

By: Mark

Mark — Sat, 04 Mar 2006 08:33:22 +0000

My new first grade class and new second grade class are each 90 minutes, four days a week. I work M-F, but all of the kids miss either Tuesday or Thursday, depending on which elementary school they go to. All my other classes, including the one that’s approaching their semester exam, have a two hour class, twice a week.

By: John

John — Sat, 04 Mar 2006 05:23:30 +0000

Wow, that’s pretty cool how far you’ve seen your students come. How often do you teach those kids? 90 minutes a day M-F, or on some different schedule?