C&T 598

Dr. Cho & Annette

June 27, 2017 Instructional Narrative Hazara Leon 1

As teaching English transcends the fields of ESL and EFL, its wider use for

communication in the spheres of international business, politics, science, entertainment

and education have made English an international language (EIL). In particular, its wide

influence in Korea has led to what Park coins the English Fever. According to Parks

article, Korean students are faced with the pressures of a tough work and school

environment where they have to attend school from nine in the morning until five in the

afternoon, and then continue after school classes elsewhere. On the weekends they then

spend their time studying and building up their resume by either working or attending

extracurricular activities. These students spend long hours developing their skill sets so

that they can appeal to future universities or land career opportunities. One of the biggest

aspects of this phenomenon is the learning of English throughout early education and

outside of school through club activities, after school classes, or even study abroad.

There are various downfalls to the spread of the English Fever and its

classification as an international language. This large emphasis on English learning has

led to strict EFL testing which has changed the way English is being taught. Chois

article The impact of EFL testing on EFL education in Korea, discusses the various

tests that are used to test English skills all around the world. In particular, Korea uses

TOEFL as a requirement for admission into a school and as a graduation requirement

while the TOEIC is used for hiring employees at Korean corporations. These two major

EFL tests are highly valued in the Korean sociopolitical spheres as well as in the

educational sphere. Due to their importance in society, much time, money, and energy is

put into Korean students learning English.

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The uses of tests like the TOEIC and TOEFL at work and school, are examples of

how English has become another tool for measuring someones skills and quality as a

student or employee. Rather than preparing students and employees to work in a global

society and promoting the teachings of conversational English skills, English is now

being taught in a way that focuses on preparing students for testing purposes. It is more

important to learn test-taking skills for the English portion of the exam, thus students are

taken through years and years of grammar and syntax classes that will prepare them for

choosing the correct answer on their exams. When confronted with a situation that

requires real conversational skills, the students are then left unprepared for real-world

conversations. Therefore, our goal as students of this practicum is to promote English as

more than a tool for sociopolitical power by employing communicative methods and

approaches in the classroom lessons. With this in mind, the EB High school developed

lessons that would fit into the context of the schools English instruction criteria and take

it a step further by showing them English as a tool for communication.

The school in which we are teaching is the Kyunghwa English Business High

School, a vocational school that prepares students for employment opportunities directly

out of high school. During their first two years at the EB high school, the girls are

instructed in various fields such as business, accounting, music, history, etc. They then

attend English classes instructing them on English syntax and grammar as well as English

conversation classes taught by a native English teacher. The conversation classes are

divided up into three grade levels: grade 1 (ages 15-16), grade 2 (ages 16-17), and grade

3 (ages 17-18). There are then a total of 5 first grade classes and second grade classes that
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Dr. Cho & Annette
June 27, 2017 Instructional Narrative Hazara Leon 3

we taught. Since the third graders are in their final year of high school, their focus was on

interview preparations so our time with them was very limited and teaching them was no

longer an option for us. For the first grade classes there was only one co-teacher (Mr.

Shin) while the second grade classes had a total of three co-teachers (Mr. Jeong Chan

Yang, Mr. Lee Deuk Bok and Mr. Lee Myeong Joo). Each class has a total of 30

students, which is considered a large class. Due to the cutbacks in employment of native

English teachers, the classes contain a mixture of English proficiency levels, making it

difficult to adapt material to the levels of the girls and meet all their instructional needs.

The conversational class then has to make material that is highly adaptable and lessons

must include time for individualized help for those who are unclear or need further help.

During our time observing the EB conversation classes, we noticed the importance of

role-playing as a formative assessment, partner work for activities, repetition for newer

terms or concepts, and acting on the part of the teacher. Therefore, our initial idea was to

create a lesson on party culture and incorporate all of our observations.

The reason behind choosing Parties as our theme was so that the students would

get a chance to enjoy themselves. The NEST at the EB High School highly emphasized

this point during our initial weeks of observations. These girls spend three years training

for the work force and even their English courses focus on customer service skills and

business English. To somehow relate it back to their future goals as company employees

or businesswoman, our lesson was focused on company parties in particular. The first

lesson was for the students to prepare business invitations and practice

accepting/declining the invitations they made. The invitation would contain five key

elements for us to teach (Company name, Purpose of the party, Location, Date & Time,
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and RSVP). The lesson was then laid out in a way that allowed for us to present new

vocabulary relevant to the creation of an invitation and step-by-step instructions

explaining the forms and functions of the invitation. The most important part of the

lesson was to then have the students practice how to invite and accept/decline to

invitations through pair work and the set up of a script. This lesson was highly content-

based and required more student-teacher interaction; that meant a more structured and

formatted lesson was required for the first portion of the lesson. After creating the

invitations, sending them out, and receiving the RSVPs, the second lesson would be the

actual party. As a build-up of the first lesson, the second lesson would involve a

summative assessment of the first lesson through role-playing activities and a small talk

activity. The small talk activity involved the students taking on a persona and answering

a set of questions that we hand picked. These questions allowed for the students to use

their creativity and critical thinking skills as in a real-life situation. The final portion of

the second lesson was to illustrate the cultural norms of parties in America and shed light

on the differences in the target language culture and the L1 culture.

Future changes and improvements to the implementation of the two lessons could

be made to the timing of the lessons. More time was necessary for the role-playing

activities, so a more succinct explanation of the five elements of an invitation was

necessary. In addition, a more randomized choosing of students for participation in the

activities is necessary. It would work best to call out the girls numbers so that no one is

feeling targeted and ensure that there is full participation. Another point to improve on is

the deliverance of the instructions. Pictures and shortened text hugely facilitated our
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Dr. Cho & Annette
June 27, 2017 Instructional Narrative Hazara Leon 5

explanation of the activities, but more cooperation with the Korean co-teacher would be

good for explaining the rules.

In the end, the content-based approach was utilized to present the students with

the forms and functions required for invitations and a task-based approached for

practicing the communication skills relevant to the accepting and declining of the

invitation. The second lesson was then solely focused on the communicative approach in

which the students used their conversation skills for small talk activities and a review

session.