BadakokoNAT!

It was good meeting everyone again yesterday. Generally I felt that the meeting generally went better than the first one. I am so glad that most of the teachers were very much involved in sharing their ideas. This is what makes BETI Book Club good. I love listening to you and giving my own opinion.

Thank you very much for your input on how to teach reading activities. I found that very valuable and hope that one day in the near future I will be able to share some of your ideas with teachers from other schools.
Here is a summary of what you came up with:

Tips on teaching reading, without translation, to mid/high school students in Korea
1. Provide target questions with answers which students to scan for while reading. This gives them a purpose to read.
2. Pre-teach vocabulary.
3. Use of software packages.
4. Post reading: students formulate questions, which can be randomly drawn and put into exams. This enhances autonomy and motivation.

Apparently, one of our club members was involved in formulating one of the software packages for teaching reading. If you have read this, may be you could leave a comment so other members can ask you more about it.

Improvements
As the host of the club, the most important thing is to maximise pleasure among the most number of people. To make our club even better, I would like to quickly talk about things I think went well and things that I think will need a little change. If you have any ideas, I would love to hear them here.

In terms of things that went well, I think we were generally going the right direction to have more "activities"
in the club, and to change the grouping.

The main change I would like to propose for the next book club is to lengthen the discussion part of the book. Next time, we will have no more non-book club related to topic to talk about. I will be passing a number of little cards around for your groups to write discussion questions on. Then we could shuffle them and discuss from these.

Member centerness
Later on I would like to ask for your input on what kind of book we could choose for the next book club, along with any suggestions which you might have. I wonder if this is best done by a questionnaire because it is more discrete.

Food
Feel free to bring food just enough to share with your own small group. There is no need to be too generous. But if you are... we will all thank you!

Any comments, feedback? I'd love to hear them.

First meeting

Yesterday was the first day of the BETI Book Club. I am glad that by far most of the members came. The first meeting was run in a way which I would have run it if I were running a Book Club, say in England. I hope by doing that I have answered one of the major questions raised by the members.

At first we talked about whether a book club would work in a middle or high school. Here are some of the main ideas.

1. A number of members have experience in running book clubs at school.
2. A book club with open discussions is very difficult to work in schools.
3. It is very difficult to run it in an academic high school.
4. When choosing a book, the content should not be too mature. Teenagers should be able to relate to it.
5. There are software programs available for schools to rent. One of which was jointly developed by one of the members of the group

Also, there are a few things which I have learned that may help our Club to run better in the future

1. Choose a book that is easier (see books with lexile 780L here) and has bigger words.
2. Host takes more control with the discussion by providing guiding questions
3. Negotiate how how snacks should be brought in.

Did you know? When people eat together they bond better. This is why food is essential in most book clubs. I simply would not join one if they do not have food. I am truly sorry that the institute does not have a budget to provide it :( Thank you very much for the trainee who shared the mandarin with everybody else. Thank you. May be you could just share them with the people in your group next time.

If you have anything to say, please do so by adding a comment!