Poetry & Korean Middle School Boys

I’ve been working on a project the past month or so with my after school class. In case I haven’t mentioned, I teach an after school class of 13 Level 2 (8th grade) boys everyday for 45 minutes. Needless to say, 13 Korean middle school boys with one lone GET (Guest English Teacher) can spell a bit of a problem. Most of the time they like to play the, “Teeeaaachaaaaa! Don’t understaaaaand,” card. Anyway, they are quite fun, and they are the kids I’ve gotten to know the most over the past three months because I see them with the most frequency.

Aren’t they cute?



My class with them began with just playing speaking English games. The only issues there were they often decided not to play and instead just talked (because they didn’t understand instructions), and there really was no measurable growth happening. Nowhere the class was leading to. Being a teacher who likes to make way more work for herself than necessary, I set out to create some sort of curriculum for the class.

I tried following a book: BORING! The book I was given was all about grammar and parts of speech, and in Korea, they HAMMER grammar. ^^ Unfortunately, a lot of times students prefer this (studying grammar, taking notes, listening to lecture, memorizing) to more project based, critical thinking, and synthesizing information because it is what is familiar to them. Ask them to take notes on a 45-minute lecture, memorize, and write a report for tomorrow: done. Ask them to create an invention to save the Earth, draw it, name it, write two sentences about how it works, and present it at an “Invention Convention”: you want us to do WHAT??

Quite a difference from American schools.

I tried teaching about American culture: pop songs, advertising, holidays, etc. They weren’t having it.

Games, culture, music, book work, activities….I cycled through everything they suggested. So I decided I was going to do what I was interested in instead: poetry.

That’s right…I began teaching my middle school Korean boys poetry. They actually caught on to rhyming better than I thought they would, and they seemed to enjoy the fact they were doing something challenging (and creative). Then I got the idea to modify the Poetry Out Loud competition they have in the states. Poetry Out Loud is a national poetry recitation contest started about three years ago. It is held in an effort to get students exposed to more poetry to enrich their lives. It’s also part of a school’s curriculum, so teachers can have all students participate instead of just a few like with extra-curricular speaking contests. Students memorize a poem and compete at their schools. I thought that it would be great to hold a modified version with my after school kids because A) it gave them a goal to strive toward (these students needed some sort of incentive) B) speaking poetry will help their rhythm and fluency and C) it’d be a great way for me to have some consistency in curriculum in my after school class (plus I knew I’d enjoy helping the students do a speaking contest). Students chose and practiced poems everyday for a month in a variety of ways in order to prepare for the competition. We discussed emotion, and how to display that when reading, physical presence, and practiced difficult words.

Today was competition day. Students at first were really reluctant to do the contest, but as soon as I pulled out the prizes, they were all serious and ready to go. I tried to recruit an audience and guest judges, but to no avail (teachers are busy, and I totally understand that), but I tried to make it as close to a serious competition as possible. I judged the students (based on volume, speed, emotion, and physical presence) as they read their poems using an evaluation sheet. All other students were quiet and served as audience members. Then, at the end I presented the top three with prizes and handed out evaluation sheets.

Here is one student reading his poem. He figured out his poem was more sad and self-reflecting, so he tried to implement that into his reading (I think he did a pretty good job):


I was pretty pleased with how this contest worked. Students took it somewhat serious, and I noticed them putting forth effort (some days more than others), so that excited me. I also noticed an improvement in their fluency, and especially an improvement when reading difficult words. Since I’ve watched these students for a month, I can see improvement whereas it’d be difficult for others. Will they be able to compete in a speech competition in the States? No. But I was proud of their accomplishments and the effort (the most I’ve seen from these students the entire semester) they put in today at the contest. For a first-time competition, I’m happy with how things turned out.