By the Way, You're Teaching Adult's English This Semester...

This semester I have to do a class on Teaching Parent's English. You've gotta be kidding, right? What do I know about teaching Adult's English when I'm only finally getting the hang of teaching/co-teaching elementary school students? I've taken language classes and I'd like to think there's a level of teaching qualification in the the teachers who teach them. But okay...

Sure, when this was dropped on me, I'd heard of it before. The Korean school system goes to arms with throwing NET's random programs like these, such as Teaching Teacher's English, Video Broadcast, Storytelling class...  What I just mentioned was my last semester add-on schedule. Now, a Parent's English class? A couple of fellow EPIKers had to run this kind of Parent's English class last semester and most of them felt it was pretty easy. They were told by their co-teachers that no one actually expected them to teach the parents. No, just conduct a class which opens up discussion where the parents can talk in English... assuming they had some kind of formal education of English beforehand.

A week and a half before my first Parents English class:
I was told I had to produce a semester-long schedule (from week #1-24) of subjects I'd be teaching in my class.  (Whuh?) 
- The schedule could be loose and flexible to change but I had to submit it by the end of the week...and it was already Wednesday.

Fine. Then I was also told that I needed to find a textbook to teach from. (Double-whuh?)
...and I had 2 days to find one so the school could order it for the parents. (Triple whuh?)

Level of the Parents?
-  No one knew. But it would range from Beginner to Intermediate. I'd have to find a way to teach multi-levels.

How many parents would attend my class?
-  No one knew. They had yet to send out a notice to the parents.

How long is my class?
- Once a week, 100 minutes/class!

All, a week and a half before my first class.


DYNAMIC KOREA!

What do you say to that other than ... "Uh, okay?" I ran to Kyobo books to the English Learning section and found textbooks galore-- student textbooks with accompanying teacher's guides to teaching the chapters. Yay and Oh my God, I could spend hours going through them and I did... to finally choose: First Choice by Ken Wilson & Genevieve Kocienda.

It had all the subjects which would be useful to learn for a survival command of English without a loss of modern applications and pop culture interest. Great, I was set. Fingers crossed.