We are teaching phonics to our third graders, and I found a great site for help in teaching the alphabet and alphabet sounds. There are cute songs for teaching the letters. I made a rookie mistake in teaching beginners (third graders are brand new to learning English). I began with teaching the letter A instead of showing them the entire alphabet and singing the song. My co-teacher gave me a handout and told me that I had 10 minutes to teach them about the letter A and the short sound.

Teaching the ABCs in South Korea
The first class was a disaster because they didn’t know what I meant when I tried to get them to pick out pictures of objects that had the short a sound. My co-teacher translated everything, but they still didn’t understand. They tried to answer the questions on the handout with us, but it was obvious that they were guessing. I learned in my special education training that it’s a bad idea to teach to a handout. Handouts are tools that should be used to aid teachers in teaching and assessing learning.

Teach the Alphabet to Third Graders in South Korea
Kids need to be able to make connections. They need to know that they are learning letters that will help them learn to write in English. I plan on explaining that we use the alphabet, and they use hangul. Some of the children know this, but I think that it’s worth saying for the children who have never been exposed to the alphabet.

Use Strategies from Other Teachers
I learned to steal in my teachers’ education courses. Actually, I learned to ask other teachers for great ideas and share my own ideas. My teacher was kidding when he said that we should steal. Anyway, since I had no classes on a Friday, I had the opportunity to watch another teacher at work. My class is a joint room, divided by glass windows, and there’s no door to shut out the sound from the adjoining room.

I saw another Korean teacher at work, using the video that I shared earlier, speaking in English, and teaching in an animated way that I love. I’m dramatic, so I act out things in class all the time. When we told children in our rules that they must stand in a corner if they misbehave, I stood in a corner with a sad face to demonstrate. ESL learners need to be able to see actions/pictures and hear English all at once. I asked the English teacher if I may have the link to the alphabet video that she used, and I noticed that she repeated the letter sound a lot. She was teaching them about the sound “o”. She used very little Korean in my opinion, and the children appeared to understand her. I had to convince my co-teacher to allow us to use the video, but the other teacher stepped in and my co-teacher agreed to using the material. I don’t believe that I’ve ever had to get co-teacher approval before.

I think that I am going to try her method. She was willing to share, but she said that she didn’t speak English well. She did a good job! I think that in our class, I will try explaining one tiny little step in English, waiting to see if there are any lightbulbs, if not, ask the Korean teacher to help. I don’t know how will work out. A lot of Korean is spoken.

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