[jessteacherkorea]

Hi! I have been teaching in Korea for about 3 months, and I have a 2 hour class twice a week with around ten 9-11 year olds with a wide range of English abilities and I have absolute free reign...the problem is that its waaay too much time and my kids have very low attention spans. I am having trouble coming up with enough material for them as well as keeping them interested for the entire classtime! It usually starts out well, but by the end of the first hour it completely falls apart! I would greatly appreciate any help or advice.

[mesmark]

Can you tell us what you are doing or have been doing? What are you teaching them for content and how do you break up the class?

Do you have a text?

[jessteacherkorea]

I have absolutely no text. I basically choose a theme and try to work around that. Last week I did body parts and search for lessons, activities, and games based around that theme, but again two hours straight is a very long time and its very difficult to find enough material to last that long and keep their attention at the same time.

[orieux]

Super Heroes

-skills: strong, smart, tools, martial arts
- super powers: fly, wall walk, breathe underwater, laser eyes, super strength
- costumes: boots, mask, cape, tool belt, logo
- create your own super hero with: name, costume, logo, skills, and powers

[orieux]

go to puzzlemaker.com and make a super hero word search as well -- at 20x20 letters with 12 words it took up 40 minutes of concentrated time (i had grade 3-6 students in one class and all did it well)

[paddyfrog]

Two hours is a mighty long time with any language learners but 9-11 year olds.... Do you use video, miming/guessing games...? The most important thing is to vary activities. Do the same thing but from different angles. Get them up and moving too. Associate words with actions. It's very difficult to help out in a few lines. Good luck!

[jessteacherkorea]

I'm also running out of material! I've done many games, I just run out of things to do before the class is over, I usually end up showing a video during the last 20 minutes of class. I also have a lot of trouble getting them up to do games and activities. The class is right after school and they are sick of sitting and learning, or even playing games, so I find it difficult to get them to do much and enjoy it.