OSU-PNU 2006

Beginning July 14, I, along with three others, will be teaching conversational English in a new TESOL certification program at Pusan National University in Pusan, Korea. My advisor at The Ohio State University is one of the coordinators of this program and solicited interest from the graduate students in the department during Spring Quarter. Upon hearing about the opportunity, I was very excited because I lived, taught and studied in Seoul 1o years ago, so I thought this would be a neat kind of homecoming.

Today Dr. H, Lisya and I met to preliminarily begin planning the curriculum for the course we'll (along with two other teachers) be teaching at Pusan National University for a month this summer. The kinds of issues we discussed included how to help the students build a foundation of spoken English with different types of materials and activities. Dr. H told us about a popular movie in Korea about teaching English - Please Teach Me English - and how it highlights the differences between student expectations and teacher expectations. Because not all of the teachers could make this meeting, it was kept pretty short. Another meeting is scheduled for Monday. By then, Dr. H wants us to think about possible lesson units, a list of topics for discussion, and possible resources to use in teaching these topics. While we were meeting, in my mind, I was going through a list of possible sources - Teaching Pronunciaton, Keep Talking, Pronunciation Pairs, Whadaya Say - as well as possible activities - jigsaw activities and current events.