Job Discussion Forums

[ohahakehte]

during my year in korea i never had any big problems adapting to korean culture except for at work. i found koreans at work to be inefficient at best and nauseatingly bureaucratic, dictatorial and crazy at worst.

probably the number one thing in korea is to never make the parents of the students angry even if that means saying that the slowest, most disrespectful and unmotivated student is a korean Noam Chomsky. if it wasnt for meaningless euphemisms on report cards like "high energy" - rude - or "sometimes distracted" - never fucking pays attention - i would never have survived cuz i always had to beef up my opinions on the students' performance.

also extremely aggravating was the way my supervisor and coworkers would dither forever over the most trivial details. the main thrust of an activity or lesson or whatever could've been the stupidest thing ever but we had to have a big debate over a kid's expression or whether or not we should add +'s and -'s to letter grades.

how does japan compare?

[Glenski]

Are you talking about high school or hagwans?

In HS, the teaching format is pretty much the same as it has been for years. That is, Japanese teachers present the grammar in lessons that are mostly separate from a native teacher. Public schools can have foreign assistants, usually from the JET Programme, but not in private schools. J teacher classes are teacher centered, and the whole idea is to provide lessons that get the kids to pass college entrance exams. The English on them is gruelingly tough, and many times the questions have arcane or rarely used grammar points. Memorization is key. Native teachers are there to provide oral practice mostly, so they design lessons for listening and speaking, sometimes alone and sometimes with J teachers.

Grades are inflated, but some teachers don't know it. Read what I wrote on the teacher forum.