Korean Job Discussion Forums

[wylies99]

You should be so lucky- my hogwan wants us to put on a show for the kindy parents with singing and dancing. DANCING! A one hour "show" with mommies there, sitting on fold-out chairs. It's not exactly the "Great White Way"- Broadway, if you catch my drift.
Okay, I understand that Korean parents are nuts who have no real idea if their kids are actually learning English; but does singing AND dancing qualify as learning English?
It has reached the point of insanity largely because my Korean kindy co-teacher is treating it like a genuine Broadway production. The "power" has gone to her head. She actually yells "Action" and "Cut", and "Line" (when the kids forget) and has "understudies" for the "lead roles"- yep, it's gone to her head. Will there be Broadway talent scouts in the "audience"? I don't think so.
All they're going to do is sing some of the usual songs- "Muffin Man", "I can Sing a Rainbow", and the rest (you KNOW the rest), but she has them dancing through the songs, too. DANCING! Plus, there's some short plays they're going to perform that are better left "undiscovered."
But wait- there's more! The school is ordering outfits for the big numbers! I recommended some traditional Korean outfits that couldn't possibly upset ANY Korean mother, but they're going with some sequined outfits that SCREAM "JonBenet Ramsey twirling a baton." No gay men in Korea, eh? Then who imported sequins?

I just want to SURVIVE until this is all over. SURVIVE, aka, LAY LOW.

I can just picture a Korean mother chatting with other mothers at Lottemart- "My son didn't learn a single English word at that school, but he looked FABULOUS in his little outfit as he danced through "The Elephant Song." Mothers will flood the place with new customers, I mean new students.

[goodgood]

I've been through a number of these. Hell on earth. Just make sure you are Hitler, and the kids learn their parts.

I was way too lax with one of my classes- I mean, they get bored as hell doing this stuff every day- and, ooooh, it was nasty when they blew it on stage. Trust me, BE HARD ON THEM!!!

It's a colossal waste of time, but in the end the kids seem to really enjoy it, even though they've just been tortured for months to learn their parts. Why they like it, I have no idea....

[grainger]

Sounds like my Christmas play.

Two months of wasted effort and the mothers complain about everything.

"Johnny has too many lines."

Two days later.

"Johnny has to few lines."

Everything in this country seems to be a high pressure pagenet. All the mothers want to make sure their kid is the one that shows up all the other little kids. They will pressure their kids into memorizing their lines. Freak out if they can't. Mothers will actually cry over this.

And it's all a reflection on your school. So your director will probably spaz. Take it seriously because the western idea of a school performance with all the kids goofing up and running into each other and - oh how cute. Is completely non-existent here.

[tomato]

wylies99, I hear what you're saying, but it will take more than this to shock me.
I already had my shock when I saw dance numbers with sexy outfits put on by a church-sponsored
어린이집.

I have also seen a program put on by an English school, but taking place at the church which the director attended. It also had dance numbers, and some of the dance numbers had sexy outfits. Like you, I wondered how much English they were learning from the dance numbers.

[oneofthesarahs]

Definitely make sure they know their lines. Parents in America expect plays to be full of cute little mistakes, kids tripping over the set, hats sitting askew, etc. But in Korea mothers expect nothing short of PERFECTION.

Trust me, I played director to a production of Aladdin recently. If there is a hell, it's trying to corral 50 some odd kids into singing "A Whole New World."

[Kim Jong Jordan]

Dude, i had to write a koreanized version of pinnochio complete with 8 song and dance numbers with myself singing and dancing and performing it in front of a few hundred parents. torture! F#&%@ hagwons (especially ECC Uijeongbu)! This is why public school gigs are way better, thank God for my change of venue!

[Roch]

[wylies99]

No matter what goes wrong, it'll all be blamed on me, anyway. I suspect that's why I'm "involved" with the production. I'm "The Fall Guy" for this one. It sure as heck isn't because anyone is actually listening to me.



It all reminds me of that "Southpark" episode with the musical about "Helen Keller" and "Timmy" and his turkey.










Needless to say, this will NOT be listed on my resume.

[wylies99]

[tomato]

Here is a well-known music educator who harbors a distaste for this sort of thing anyway:

[spyro25]

bunch of people SCARED of a group of KIDS!

we had a huge 2 hour concert for our kindy at democracy park in busan. there were about 16 different songs and plays on it. the kids loved it and they STILL keep saying the words and singing the songs that we taught them. They loved doing the concert and they were so proud when they had finished it. i felt it was as good as any western kiddie concert. it was demanding on the teachers, but actually the western teachers had to work LESS because all the teaching time was taken up by practicing for the concert.

just do it! you'll probably end up enjoying it in the end!

[wylies99]

Spyro- obviously you have never taught kindy or dealt with kindy mothers. Plus, what does dancing have to do with LEARNING ENGLISH?

[spyro25]

[Toast and Kimchee]

I've taught K-5 General Music for five years in the U.S. and our curriculum actually required us to infuse history, mathematics, science, and social studies into our teaching. Music actually encompasses all of these things.

When you think about it, English is more then form and structure. It is poetry, rhythm, and music as well. Consequently, by having the children perform English songs they are studying English/American culture.

Obviously there are many facets to the English language, as well as many ways to study and practice it. One very important way is through performing (singing, and speaking).

Albeit the dancing is a bit much, but if it raises the kids' enthusiasm with regard to the rest of the performance then so be it.

[wylies99]

Form and poetry- blah, blah, blah. When they get off a plane in US, Canada, or GB, will it be more important that they can dance "Swan Lake" or actually be able to speak the language? I'd guess the latter.

This performance stuff is EDUTAINMENT without the education. It's all BS.