We had a thrid collective meeting with the Ambassadors from six schools. The list of school ambassadors attended is SJA Jeju, KIS Jeju, NLCS, Gyeonggi Academy of Foreign Languages (GAFL), Cheongshim International Academy, and Kyungpook National University High School (KNUHS).
The main agendas of the meeting were,
- How to lead the Lesson
Some of the schools already started their trial lessons. As the ambassadors have different characteristics of their own, their teaching style also varied. I actively encouraged the ambassadors to use the collective townhall meeting as an opportunity to share the resource and discuss the best way to deliver the column method to students.
The SJA ambassador appreciated the value of practice - he explained the method shortly for 10 - 20 minutes and let students figure out how to best utilize the column method on their own. Some students struggled to understand the method at first, but they eventually found several ways to take advantage of what we’ve given them, also aiding to the development of column method.
In contract, Cheongshim ambassador used a relatively strict way of teaching method. She picks out an extract that best first the column method, creates a model answer and ask students to compare their answers to the model answer. The students learned quickly and there were almost zero misunderstanding about the column method, compared to some of the SJA students struggling at first.
Their teaching style also reflects on the attitude and mood of the school. When I first approached the SJA, they were more than happy to spread the skills to their peers and further persuade the school staffs as they saw the advantage and good intention behind the column method. Cheongshim International Academy is known for strict rules and rigid curriculum, almost that of similar to the regular Korean school, except for the fact that the curriculum is based on English.
It was truly interesting to discover the synergy made between ambassadors and the distinct characteristics they hold that is closely related to their background.