(4) 90 in 90: Teaching During Summer Vacation

Like most other teachers in Korea, I have to teach students during their summer vacation. Now before anyone asks the question, the summer vacation period for Korean students isn't a summer vacation in the sense of the summer vacations from America. There is no three month period of doing nothing during the break rather, students still have to come to school and still have to attend class, just not as long or not as many classes as the normal school year. Most students go home at 12, but some still stay behind to either study or go to additional classes.

I'm the teacher who teachers the additional classes. While most foreign teachers here teach for a few hours during the morning period, I teach in the afternoon for only an hour and a half each day. Most other teacher use their summer classes to play games with students or for the most part, entertain them for the class period. Since I teach high school, entertaining is not really part of my plan, or rather not the goal the head of the English department wants me to teach.

I was specifically instructed to teach students the concepts and mechanics that cannot be taught in a classroom. I would be having a smaller class size this year, only three students. While at first this sounded daunting, being able to keep the attention of only three students for a longer than normal class time, I pleasantly found that this could not be further from the truth.

My summer classes only last a week. During this period I have taught the students advance speaking techniques. Techniques such as intonation, pacing, pronunciation and volume control. All important concepts when it comes to speaking another language but are almost impossible to teach effectively to a classroom of thirty students who would rather be anywhere else than a hot and stuffy classroom.

I feel very lucky that I can teach important concepts on a near one on one basis to other students. I feel like the progress we have made over the past few days is incredible and with just a little under a week of classes, the students are already showing remarkable improvements in their intonation and pronunciation.

After today, there are only two more days of classes before a three day break period and I'm looking forward to what we can accomplish. Last year, was a bit of a cluttered mess with a larger class and lack of clear ideas for what the class was supposed to teach. This year is tighter and more focused, making much better results in the end.

I'm looking forward to my mini three day break, but in the mean time I can't really complain about my summer classes. If only all classes could be this simple and effective.