The aim is to help learners notice the fundamental patterns of English and encourage using the English they already know, in combination with listening, enjoyment and an exploratory, not-speed-driven, not-transmission-driven approach.  The demo lesson is backed by theory, including text-based and content-based teaching, Extensive Reading principles as applied to other text types, language as a social activity, and corpora linguistics for teachers.  Corpora data shows that song lyrics often share commonalities with spoken English, making them ideal texts for many language classrooms.  Two of my MA courses influenced the development of this material:  Language Analysis with Scott Thornbury and Materials Development with Steve Cornwell & Deryn Verity.

This is not a death-by-power-point presentation.  The material is fun, useful and applicable across many teaching situations.

Gwen Atkinson is from the U.S. and has been living in Seoul for six years.  She earned a Master’s in TESOL (curriculum development concentration), with an award of outstanding achievement, from The New School, and currently teaches at Soongsil University in Seoul.  She has been KoTESOL Seoul Chapter Hospitality Chair.  In her free time she writes and is a (somewhat lazy) yoga student. She is also interested in materials development informed by corpora linguistics and extensive reading principles.

Goal-setting: how to get students to want to work: How many times have you walked into your classroom a few minutes early, only to find your students copying their (workbook) homework from each other?  Are they really getting anything from this homework?  Is it worth the (often limited) class time to go through it?  Instead of traditional teacher-directed homework, why not encourage students to do self-directed homework? This can be done by helping students set SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timed) goals for themselves.  Although learners often need some training in how to make SMART goals, once they understand the technique there is little stopping them from setting personal, meaningful goals that they will want to work towards achieving outside the classroom.  To assist the less motivated learners, requiring students to show you an agreed upon form of 'proof' that they are indeed working towards their goals can be helpful.  This workshop will be a practical guide to assisting your students in making SMART goals, and monitoring their progress towards achieving them. The benefit to your class will be happier, better-motivated students who are actually spending time outside the class working on English language learning, instead of copying their friend's workbook pages.

Kristin Dalby holds an MA in Applied Linguistics and TESOL from the University of Leicester in the UK.  She has been teaching English since the summer of 2000 and has taught in Korea, New Zealand and the Czech Republic in a variety of contexts including business English, general English, EAP, FCE, CAE and IELTS.  She has been a head teacher as well as a teacher trainer.  Her professional interests include motivating students in mandatory classes, curriculum development, syllabus design and teaching spoken English.  She currently teaches at Jeonju University and is available on email at kristin_dalby@yahoo.com.

Join us for an optional dinner after the meeting

The National Drama Festival

Come and see a variety of dramatic performances by teams from across the nation. More details here.

Contact Shawn DeLong for more details. Email. Call 010-9223-0730

Join us for an optional dinner after the meeting.