Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Austin]

[kiwiboy_nz_99]

Your post is about children with learning disabilities no?

Anyone got any advice about what I should do with myself?

[Len8]

I was in an English camp this summer, and had the lowest level class. In spite of being the lowest level there were kids in the class who were quite fluent. I guess they just clamed up when it came to the level testing, or weren't intereted. We had to do a mini drama production, and some of the kids who hardly said a word started to get really interested, and were all of a sudden very willing to speak. The opportunity to perform in front of a large group was very motivating.

Anyway I had one kid in the class who could speak, but couldn't comprehend reading material. He was given a major part in the production, but no matter how hard we tried we couldn't get him to memorize his lines. You can usually find a way to get normal kids to lear n something. For example threaten them with no lunch, or dinner.etc., and after a while with a little cajoling you can see progress. This kid just couldn't do it. The rest of the kids whose parts were connected to his were a little tired of him too. In the course of the procedings I was told he was retarded, but by then I'd figured that out. Of course on the night of the production he had to read his part, and as was to be expected no one was able to understand him. It turns out that his parents have a lot of money so they were able to inflict him on me and the rest of his classmates. His classmates treated him like he was a little weird too.

Any one know what kind of problem he had? It's something I've never stopped thinking about since the camp.

[kiwioutofthenest]

I used to teach kids with learning difficulties how to read, dont get me wrong im no expert, i have dyslexia but was lucky as i love to learn and hate to loose, my younger brother has it worse and didn't learn to read until he was 10.
The obvious letter switching is a tell tale sign, I don't know if this would work in Hungal but how i used to pick up if a kid had dyslexia is put a mirror against a page in the book and get them to read in the mirror, if they find it easier to read the mirrow image than the original page i took it as a sure sign.

To overcome the phonics barrier i pick a word for each letter like run for R then when i say R they all have to get up and run around the room, or clap for C then if the kids that have trouble translating letters into sounds they tend to remember what they have to do. This is good for kindy. Or you can use words they already know like Kimbob for K Baboa B.

It is difficult here as you don't get much one on one time with the kids but every little bit helps.

EH - great post

[Derrek]

Had a kid last year at my school that was a DEFINATE OCD case. He would do this funny thing with nodding his head randomly in succession, and couldn't control it. I really felt sorry for him. I think the mom finally got him some help. It seemed to stop eventually, and the boss' daughter said she thought he'd gone to see a doctor.

[RedRob]

What's OCD?

On a similar note, last year my wife had a kid in her 6 year olds class that wouldn't respond to anything ever, he just liked to collect stuff that was the same, one day was eraser day, then pencil day whatever, he'd just grab bunches of like items and walk around class groaning and gibbering.

He couldn't say a word.....finally my wife was being driven completely up the wall by this kid as he could be quite destructive at times, both to himself and the other kids.

After 3 weeks she sat down with the director to try to figure out what to do with this boy, the answer: Oh don't worry about byungHee....he's DEAF!!! WTF???

I cant figure out which is more amazing, the fact that his mom could see some worth in sending him to a hogwan and not a special school, or that the management didn't think it was worth mentioning to a teacher that she would be teaching a special needs kid.

[anae]

OCD

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder



I am sorry to hear about the deaf kid. It sounds like he isn't getting the support that he needs to be successful. It is possible that his parents are either in denial or can't get him into a school with teachers trained to work with the deaf. I also find that parents enroll kids in hagwons in order for their kids to have social contacts. Ever notice how the playgrounds, if you can find any, are empty after school?

[Ilsanman]

It is an asian thing...parents can not take criticism about their kids.

I teach a boy 4 times a week. total he learns for 6 hours of class time and 4 hours of private lessons. His english still sucks.

I think he's autistic. Today we were playing memory, and he kicked my ass 3 times straight.

He also is totally hyperactive, more so than a kid of his age, and he also has a super short attention span. Even his korean is not up to snuff for someone his age.

I have a tough time teaching him. I used to play games with him all of the time. It was cool, until recently, when his mother began to get concerned about his lack of progress. I expect to not be teaching him much longer, as his mother will blame the hagwon, and move him.

So is the Korean system.

[gajackson1]

On average, about 1 in every 5 people has SOME kind of 'learning disability,' if that makes anyone else feel any better (i can try to dig up a source for that; I ran across that while doing my BAT work in my Master's program).

I tend to side with a lot of the other posters above - first, MOST students are in hak-wons under duress - certainly NOT because they have a burning passion to learn English. That creates apathy, which expresses itself in a number of ways that imitate LDs.

Second, while I agree with Austin that many people DO recognize such problems (true LD kids), most are NOT willing to admit it or able to deal with it. Talk to any non-overproud Korean public school teacher, and they will tell you the same. It is a shameful thing for all involved, and it is easier to deny those problems than to cope with them, in their eyes. Remember, newborn murders and abandonments were not uncommon in the recent past, based upon obvious physical or mental problems.

As for me personally, Austin, I work as a teacher for an institute that takes parents' money in exchange for my services. And if, through classroom observation or diagnostic testing, I find a kid DOES have a problem, then it is the responsibility of the school to make sure everyone involved knows - especially the parents and other teachers. In a case like RR's (I've 'found' 2 deaf kids as well), early intervention makes a huge difference. I don't 'expect' hakwons to take care of the problem, but I do think that they should at least acknowledge and address the same.

If I was a mechanic, I should try to fix Old Bitty Betty's car when she brings it in to me all smashed up. But if it is coming into my shop every month, at some point I should ask her 'Hey, are you still ok to drive? When did you last have your eyes & hearing checked?' As my paying customer, i owe that to her, instead of just pocketing the money each time and thinking, 'Eedjit!'

That is one of the things that will move S. Korea closer to the 'developed nation' status. it is not about holding any country to a higher status - it is about holdin YOURSELF and those around you in your community to the same.

Regards,

Glen

[crazylemongirl]

What glen said and also that I don't think we should would up 'back home' as any better on this score. My experince of the system is that you have to be

a) severly impaired (ie peeing your pants, hurting teachers other students etc.)
b) causing major trouble (ie. peeing your pants, hurting teachers other students etc.)
c) having numerous people in the system who will go into bat for you

to get any type of diagnosis let alone intervention. In the end it comes down to money and the education pie barely stretches to cover mainstream kids.

[EH]

I just love this thread. Let me write back to some people.

Lens8:
You asked what might have been the issue with your student. (Note: since I don't know the boy myself, I'm only guessing here.) You did say you had been told he was retarded. While a lot of people use that term loosely, the simplest explanation is that he was indeed mentally retarded. Due to genetics, prenatal/perinatal problems, and unknown causes, there are people who overall have a very low IQ (difficulty with both verbal and nonverbal tasks). The diagnosis in those cases is MR, mental retardation.

However, if the word retarded was used casually, to indicate confusion about reasons for the kid's academic failures (that really bugs me when people do that, by the way), then maybe something else was the problem. I would not rule out plain old apathy on the kid's part. Other possibilities include insufficient reading skills and/or insufficient speaking skills in English. A lack of skills might be caused by lack of exposure, or it might be a lack of language learning abilities. Or both.

One thing I really wonder about is the kid's verbal memory. You said he could speak well enough, but couldn't memorize his lines. Did he have trouble with memory in general? If so, perhaps there was a head injury in his past, especially including a period of lack of oxygen. That might also account for social inappropriateness on his part. Anyway, these are just some ideas.

RedBob:
Yikes! What a story. It is so sad that this kid was known to be deaf, and yet wasn't given any hearing aids. If the parents could afford a hagwon, then hearing aids couldn't have been completely out of the realm of financial possibility for them.

I had a friend I met on a college overseas trip who had severe hearing loss. She was American, born and raised in Nebraska, and no one noticed she had a hearing loss until a couple years after she started elementary school. They all thought she was autistic because her favorite thing to do was to calculate the sales tax on her mom's purchases before the sales clerks could do it on their cash registers. Turned out she was just brilliant but deaf, and with hearing aids she could make that clear. She later went on to attend MIT, earn a Rhodes Scholarship, and then get a PhD from Harvard.

If any teachers out there suspect hearing loss in someone they know, urge the person to get a hearing screening! Screenings only take about three minutes, and they can tell you if hearing is normal or if in-depth testing is needed. Also, if you know anyone who just had a baby, urge the parents to get the baby's hearing tested. The sooner the hearing loss is discovered, the better chance the child has of developing normal communication skills.

Okay, that's my soapbox rant for today.

Ilsanman:
He might be on the autistic spectrum. He also might have a hearing loss. Or he could have a language learning disability.

You're probably right that his parents will move him soon. And it probably won't help him at all to be moved. It's especially common for Korean parents to be unaccepting of a slow rate of progress. But if it's any consolation, a lot of American parents of kids with disabilities are exactly the same way. Oh well. We all do what we can. Sounds like you had a good thing going with him.

gajackson1:
I loved your post.

crazylemongirl:
My experience in the US public schools is the same. Most of the educators have pretty good intentions, but money is stretched thin and most people aren't really sure what constitutes a genuine learning problem. They also have no idea about what should or can be done to solve the problem.

On a side note, one other weird thing that happens in the US public schools is the phenomenon of parents of normal kids demanding special services despite the kids' normalcy.
Parent: "My grandmother can't understand my daughter! Little Suzy needs speech therapy!"
Me: "All of her individual speech sounds are normal, and I can understand everything she says in conversation. Um..."
Then the parent admits that Grandma doesn't actually speak English, and that Grandma is hard of hearing to boot. But the parents still demands therapy for the kid! I've also had a parent demand language therapy for a kindergartener whose language skills were all solidly within the average range. ..And we thought Korea was wacky.

-EH

[rapier]

90% of Korean kids have learning difficulties that come under these medical descriptions:
Lazyitis
waegukteachers aren't to be taken seriously syndrome
nobody can tell me what to do disease
I can get away with anything because there are no punishment disorder
Lack of childhood/ exercise syndrome