Vacation classes

One of the first things I learnt about Korea was that they are passionate about education.  Their passion is so great that you will find students returning from a learning institute at midnight, and getting up early over the weekend to go to school.  As a guest English teacher we are expected to go with the flow and teach during the vacation. As predicted the students don't want to be there and us teachers would much rather be spending our summer at the beach or travelling to some inexpensive yet exotic location.  Thus, to make the 2 longs weeks move as fast as possible I turn my classroom into a cool vacation hang out.  

Day one usually begins with a short introduction lesson.  I also assign nicknames to the students (it makes it easier for me to remember).  To keep the atmosphere light I play a game of pictionary or charades and I dish out candy.  Fortunately we only have to be at school for 3 hours so by the end of it the students are "hypnotized" into believing that the rest of the 2 weeks are going to be just as much fun. And they are not wrong.

I try to theme each day and do activities related to that theme.  For example:

Week 1

Monday: Welcome party

·         Introductions

·         Getting to know each other

·      Icebreakers 

Introduction Lesson

Tuesday: All about summer

•  Summer games
•     Crafts

    

  

Wednesday:  Detectives for a day

·         What are detectives?

·         What do they do?

·         Solving mini mysteries

Thursday: Around the world in 3 hours

·         A look at different countries and their culture, food, clothing etc.

Friday: Going to the movies

·         How we buy tickets

·         Movie genres

·         Watch a movie and complete a set of activities related to the movie.

    Vacations are for having fun so have fun with your lessons and make the students eager to come back everyday.  By the end of the vacation classes they will be sad that it's over.

 Happy teaching :)