Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Bulsajo]

[william beckerson]

[Homer]

Good point Canadian teacher. Post-graduate work in TEFL will give you more skills and more knowledge on theaching and combined with a real desire to teach can make you a better, more effective teacher.
However, you should not throw all hagwon working teachers in the "not real teacher" bin. For some of them its just a job for realtively easy money thats true. But, for others its a way to begin a new trade, that of teaching. There are many ways to become a good teacher CTeacher and education is not the only one. Work experience counts for something.
This work experience to be truly effective would preferably have to be combined with a degree in education later on.
As for Hagwons, you are also being to categorical. Many hagwons are not really concerned with education but SOME are. The quality of teaching at a given hagwon also depends a lot on the teaching staff there (Korean and Foreign) and their willingness to put some effort into their teaching.
Some harwons are run by directors who really care for their students (not the majority of course, but some) and are able to think medium to long term. Hagwons can be decent jobs and you can be an effective teacher in one as long as you put some effort into it and have the proper support.
That being said, of course a whole lot of hagwons are not the best places to teach at, there are many flaws in the system. Also, many foreigners teaching at hagwons don't give a rat's ass about teaching or their students and are just out for an easy paycheck or will not put any effort into making their places of work better but rather will just complain about how bad things are at their institute.
Finally, CTeacher, perhaps you should not be so quick to label all foreigners teaching at hagwons as bad teachers and not as qualified as you are. There are many people with Education degree's who can't teach well and who are just plain bad at their jobs. Teaching requires many things. Education being one of these things of course. But, it also requires basic communications skills and the ability to transmit knowledge in a way that the students can assimilate and many with degree's, even post grad ones can't do this.

Side-note: Matko: Really now...thank you so much for slinging mud my way. It just proves the point doesn't it? There is no need for me to explain my views to you since in the end you will just give me a knee-jerk response and throw a few not too creative insults my way...so lets just nevermind allll rightie then?..good

[VanIslander]

Shut down a hagwon.... or let it shut itself down.

I've thought recently that one of the benefits of the downturn in the Korean economy may be the weeding out of bad hagwons, where, according to capitalistic principles, the strongest survive. Only, Koreans tend to stubbornly perservere in times of hardship, suggesting that the deepest pockets survive.

It gets especially hard on hagwons to teach well when the money tap is only trickling.

My hagwon has been pretty good in the past in refusing students, shifting students to other times and dropping students who haven't fit into the scheduled classes, because their level of English is too high or low for, say the 5 o'clock classes.

But now we have a relatively new owner/director, in a sluggish economic climate, and since he's settled into the routine he's beginning to take an "anything goes" policy toward maximizing short term profits even if at the expense of longterm reputation.

How can I teach basic sounds to a single student when everybody else in the class is reading and writing?

[jajdude]

I think the hagwon scene is not so good. Good intentions may not produce good results. Hard for kids to take it seriously. Foreigner speaking a foreign tongue after regular school is out and the kids are burned out or need to burn off energy. But still there may be enough success with hagwons to keep the industry going for some time. There are still perhaps 20-30% (or more?) of kids who are improving their English from attending hagwons, even if it takes a long time, like a few years or more, and a lot of money to show the results. But that seems hard to improve upon anyway in a country where English is not needed most of the time, and rarely used outside a classroom.

[The Man known as The Man]

[humanuspneumos]

Sometimes I get the impression from the foreigners who tell their story day in and day out (at clubs and here) that there's need for one more spacer on the poll-

Most are bad and some are good.

But then I run into the folk who say, "Love it!" and then bump into his/her friends who said Miss "I love it" was just screaming at the top of her lungs last week about,.... So- I don't know anymore. Selective memory? What? Inabiliy to remember that they were just screaming the week before?

All I know is that I decided to make my own list and prioritize what constitutes a good school and ranked this list for myself in terms of importance to me:

* Pay - on time
* Bonus
* Apart.
* Boss
* Shift (split or not)
* Students
* Freedom
* Location
* Facility

Anyway- what's garbage for one man is treasure for another. I guess that's why it's almost impossible for teachers to come together in a school on the same note because everyone is looking for a different note on the score paper. If I don't care about bla, bla, bla, - then you're a whiner if you do. But- oh- look out- if I really care about bla, bla, bla, and you just don't get the point or show no empathy. That's why apologists here really bug me because if you take away their particular banana- then it's an issue- and everyone around them are still considered whiners. Hmmm- maybe I'm like apologists after all in some small way- hypocrisy.

Interestingly- I find most teachers deeply feel the need for all 9 to rank above 7 out of 10. And more times than not- if any one should rank 1\10 for a long time- people fly to pieces.