Korean Job Discussion Forums

[aphong420]

Alright, this is the second day and still.... no one's told me anything about a schedule or what I'm suppose to be doing. I usually like working harder than is neccesary (the first few months) to put on a good impression ... but I'm pretty sure all that anyone's seeing me do is browse the internet.

Any suggestions? Anyone else in the same situation?

[Summer Wine]

Yes, me. I came in to find out I have no classes this week.

[rothkowitz]

Take up smoking.Take a longer lunch.Have a quick stroll around the neighbourhood to familiarise yourself.Leave a little early.

Heaps to do.

[wylies99]

You mean there's a lack of-
organization
structure
communication
common sense

from the management? I'm not exactly shocked.

[ilovebdt]

Me too. I had to laugh this morning when I asked my new supervisor about my schedule. No one had told her that she had to draw one up for me.

ilovebdt

[Jacquie]

I got my schedule - which I start next week - 7 classes all week, none on Friday (so far). I am thinking of making a little website or something...perhaps doing an online/correspondance degree....

[aphong420]

Apparently my school is all about "ask and ye shall recieve". I finally got my schedule..... I teach 20 classes - 5 more than the next closest teacher. Luckily, I'll have a co-teacher with me in every class, with split duties.

Now what to do with this boredom. I don't officially start teaching until next Monday.

[ilovebdt]

[Summer Wine]

I have a schedule. It was pretty nice and then it needed to be changed (according to the education board) to give me more hours. But the Korean english teachers decided that rather than giving me 2 more hrs of 2nd grade classes, they would give me 2 more hours of workshop a week for english teachers.

Admittedly they mentioned that half the teachers can't make it to the workshop and that it may include other teachers who speak english but don't teach it. So I have some serious thinking about how to approach this in a way that will get the koreans speaking more and me speaking less.

Its rather a funny situation here.

[Boodleheimer]

i'm going to get my schedule on a day-by-day basis this week. fun!

[formerflautist]

I was told this afternoon. My students caught me playing online Poker. Oh well, give me a schedule and I'll plan something.

[lastat06513]

for the first 3 years of teaching in Korea, I was only told what time to start teaching and what kind of classes to teach (IE, they are intermediate students, advance students, etc.)- nothing else to go by other than a textbook shoved in my face and they said "teach from this."

For the first seven months, I was like "What am I going to do?"

I would talk to them, make them laugh, everything and I was losing students....

But I learned several important things about teaching from watching chinese English teachers on Channel [V] (the show was called "Go West", awesome show), through that I got to know what I should do to teach.
Then I went on a blind date that went bad, where the B**** went on a tangent about how bad English teachers were in Korea and they should teach this and that (no kidding! I WAS listening to HER IDEAS)

So I started talking to my korean counterparts in school and got some ideas, then I got some ideas while going on interviews (took bits and pieces of each interviewer's school methodology and added it to my own) then attended several KOTESOL seminars, listened (thats the key to being a good teacher, listening to what other say about your teaching and tweek it), and watched how people taught their classes, some I incorporated, some I threw away until I got what I had...

First thing- time management

You should do your own time management. Pace yourself as you go along in class. If you think you are spending too much time in class, speed up. If the students are losing interest, do an activity to reinforce it to make it interesting.

Make your own schedule- plan what you want to teach, to include all activities, lessons and exercises for when they are needed and when you want to teach them, don't depend on the school to tell you those things.
Find some words or phrases and build activities, songs, what-have-you around them to help your students reinforce what you want to teach them.
Being an adult teacher, I always made a schedule and gave it to my students on a week-by-week basis (though I would make the schedule 3-months in advance~ but that is just me) and it would show what we would do each day- and because the schedule only showed the main objective, it was loose and flexible to change as I see fit (which is good if anyone is a college teacher)

So, I had a schedule as to what I am going to do and when I am going to do it.

There is something good and bad about being a teacher in Korea. The bad thing is that many ETs/FTs don't put in alot of effort in their work. But the good thing is that if a person puts in even alittle effort in their work, they can be seen as "the best teacher in the world"....go figure~~