Korean Job Discussion Forums

[passport220]

At my boy�s middle school why does it seem like the kids who are always in trouble have a higher level of English ability than the average student.

It is the kids who are always on morning garbage detail (punishment) that I say good morning to and have a word with. The ones who are forced to kneel outside of class always have something to say. If they are regularly getting whacked by a stick or made to kneel in the teacher�s office and write a statement about their bad behaviour�it is likely a student I know and speak to.

I think the Korean teachers are puzzled by the fact that I always talk to the �troublemakers� (as the K-teachers call them). I have given nearly every student in the school a speaking test twice. The students I speak of definitely have a higher than average English ability. I am not saying they are the very best speakers� but if I were to grab a random 12 students and match them against the top 12 �troublemakers� I am confident the �troublemakers� would come out on top.

Has anyone else noticed something similar in their school? If so�hypnosis?

[jdog2050]

[RACETRAITOR]

I would guess maybe because those troublemakers are less serious about studying, so they have more life experience than their classmates. This assumes that they don't necessarily have better language skills, just a lot more to say. To me that makes a lot of difference. It's easier to teach someone with low skills who has opinions than high skills who is shy.

[mikekim]

I think this is a case of confidence.

Girls with confidence are usually pretty, popular, and super-flirty because they know or believe they can act/flirt/do whatever they want and its cool.

Boys with confidence are asshoels. They will start fights, create cliques/gangs, and do whatever they want for attention. Most likely these dipsthis are just able to speak better to you because they have more confidence.

It takes a lot of confidence to speak English, much less talk to a foreigner. If you are a good teacher you should be able to create a calm and confidence building environment to unlock all your students abilities. If not its bully teaching for you.

[mikekim]

Also top students don't give 2 sh!ts about English speaking ability. If its not for marks its secondary for their immediate needs, which is getting good grades for scholarships or good high school entrance. Don't think delinquents are better at English simply because you talk to them more.

[seoulsucker]

I agree with the whole confidence thing. In addition, they're not afraid to take the punishment that comes along with making mistakes. The highly developed, intensely nurtured fear of failure that is omnipresent in Korean education is a serious detriment to students' ability to open up and just chat in a foreign language. The troublemakers don't seem to give a shart about making mistakes or looking bad. Good on them.

[tiger fancini]

It's confidence, as has been said. I had a similair experience in my last school, which was also a middle school. The 'bad' students were the ones I knew the most about, the ones who actually talked to me outside of class time and were not shy about approaching me. The 'good' students tended to be bookish, nervous, and would never dare approach me to ask me something outside of class time. In fact, in class they were also petrified about speaking too. I guess thats just the dynamics of teacher-student relationships, particularly when the students are a young age. I'm sure I'll remember my bad students more than my good students in years to come.

[kimchi_pizza]

1 part confidence and 1 part intelligence. There's that chance that those "trouble-makers" are actually pretty intelligent. They find the lessons easy and boring and then they cause trouble. I've seen that several times where my most troublesome students are the brightest. If I don't keep that student adequately challenged then I'LL have hell to pay. Sometimes I gotta give'em their own little lesson in the corner of the classroom, "I want you to do this, this annnd this." Then I can conduct my lessons for the rest of the class.

I have a special needs boy that will actually memorize the SOUND EFFECTS and the narrator of his tapes let alone the English conversation so when he comes to class, he's bored outta his mind! "Turn to page 37...Beeeeep!" Good kid, but is he ever a challenge. At least I never have the need to play a tape 'cause I got a human tape player in class, "Ummm, Tony....if you could please..."

[oneofthesarahs]

I used to have a student who fits that bill perfectly. His spoken English is among the best in the class, but he's also a complete terror. Fittingly enough, his English name is Damian.

Generally he just enjoys being a pest and bothering the other students around him. He is part of a pretty big class, so it's one that tends to get noisy when we're doing games or group work with or without his efforts to derail everyone. Once we were playing a word game, and Damian was particularly out of control. I had already pulled him out of the game once, and was telling him to be quiet every 5 minutes. (Which he would, but then 5 minutes later he'd start berating his classmates again. To his credit, he was insulting them in English.) However, he was easily being the most creative of his classmates, and was the reason his team was winning.

My boss, who had been walking by, heard some of the noise in the classroom and popped her head in. She's a terrifying woman, and the threat of being sent to her will usually calm the most unruly student. "Any problems?" she asked. No, I assured her, we were just playing a game and they were getting a little excited. Then she asked me if any PARTICULAR students were causing problems. She was looking straight at Damian as she said it. No, just the game. We'll try to keep it down.

He looked at me with a look of awe on his face. "Teacher, why??" he asked. He couldn't believe I hadn't sent him out with the boss. "Because you're smart. And you're doing a very good job with the game. Now, let's be quiet for the rest of the class, okay?" He just nodded, totally dumbfounded. He's never given me significant trouble since that day.

[passport220]

I really don�t have a firm theory as to why the ones labelled �troublemakers� tend to be better than average English speakers at my boy�s school (for me it is only noticeable with the boys).

The confidence angle makes sense to me. Oh, yeah the kids do tend to be very bright. I wonder if people with natural language abilities have a harder time fitting into the ridged S. Korean school system. I am not saying there is correlation - I am not qualified to make this judgement and don�t mean that to bash the system, just trying to figure it out.

[Treefarmer]

a kid i teach today who i thought was a total *beep* until today was the only one who did the work i set, i think it's boredom, if you challenge them to use their brain then they often stop being troublemakers

i think one smart kid who is a handful is worth 10 dull kids

[mikekim]

[LuckyNomad]

It's the same case in my boy's middle school passport220. The best english speaker in the 3rd grade is also a troublemaker. I figure the students who are trouble makers are not stupid, they've just gone nuts after years of a rigid school system, so they're just trying to keep their sanity by acting out.

I think they participate in class more because it's the only time they get to talk during class. I generally let them say anything as long as they use proper grammar. And they do come up with some pretty funny/messed up stuff to say.

Last year, the third graders who were "supposed" to clean the teacher's coffee room everyday, were a group of "not so upstanding students." I would talk to them for about 20 minutes everyday during cleaning time. By the end of the semester they weren't better than the A students, but they were better than everyone else.

[TheUrbanMyth]

I'm awed you have troublemakers in your classes to begin with....

[Jizzo T. Clown]