Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Demophobe]

[Rapacious Mr. Batstove]

Singing death metal in the noraebang when you go out with your co-teachers.

Telling your Christian co-teachers that marriage is a piece of paper, there is no god and if there was he wouldn't care if you married a woman or a cat.

Telling your Christian co-teachers that you don't believe in organised religion but if you had to choose one it would be Islam.

Telling taxi drivers you are from Texas and voted for Bush

Telling your school kids that eating kimchi causes cancer.

Telling your school kids that Takeshima is closer to Japan, then proving it with Google Earth.

Telling Koreans that Korean food isn't spicy at all and tastes bland compared to Thai food.

[Dev]

[Yu_Bum_suk]

[DRAMA OVERKILL]

[EFLtrainer]

[venus]

Sadly - as it defeats the purpose of most of us being here - I'd have to say English Lessons.

[Demophobe]

[captain kirk]

Koreans don't mix well with the notion of solitude, enjoying time alone. Here's how it goes;

"I drove my motorbike across the country on the weekend. While hiking a encountered a poisonous snake and nearly got bitten. The way home there were countless stars overhead, like the lights of the squid boats I saw off the East Coast near Soraksan".

"Alone?".

It would be more desirable to be accompanied by someone, anyone, even the most boring of companions while going thru the motions of the most tiresome, pedestrian, 'fun', weekend activity. Like 'going to a temple', or 'seeing the cherry blossoms' (a drive-by in bumper to bumper traffic).

"Alone?". Koreans crack me up sometimes.

[stevemcgarrett]

1. Koreans and cuisine
2. Koreans and flexibility
3. Koreans and cell phones
4. Koreans and commercials
5. Koreans and game shows

[tomato]

Here are some questions which I have been wondering about:

▶ On my first job, there were two students who attended a class in which the textbook was a grammar rule book written in Korean. The director quote--taught--unquote the class by standing in front of them reading the rules verbatim. There was no discussion, no testing, no drill, no conversation practice, no nothing.

I wondered why the students didn't merely buy the book and save money by staying home and studying the book.

▶ The South Korean people seem to be a people which places a high value on learning. On nearly every corner, we see either a music studio, a self-defense academy, or an English school. Why, then, do we see so few bookstores and libraries?

▶ Why so many music studios, a self-defense academies, and English schools, but so few correspondence schools?

▶ My Japanese class meets for two hours. During part of that time, we do our written work. Why not cut the class shorter and do the written work at home?

▶ Why does high school meet all day and all evening? Why not cut the classtime shorter and assign homework?

▶ Why are Koreans so surprised when a foreigner tells them that he or she has studied the Korean language without a teacher?

There seems to be a common assumption that learning can only take place under a teacher in a classroom.
Could this tie in with the bugaboo over solitude which Captain Kirk just mentioned?

[samd]

[Sine qua non]

[stevemcgarrett]

Ya know, honestly, I have never encountered a Korean who bent over backwards to help a foreigner but I know plenty of foreigners who have bent over for Koreans, and not to bow.

[jaderedux]

Koreans and religion

Today one of my students asked and I quote " Miss Jade are you Christian, pray to Jesus or are you Maria?" (makes hand gestures of praying)

Apparently many and everyone I talked too think Catholics are NOT Christians.

Jade