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shantaram
Joined: 10 Apr 2007
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 Posted: Tue Oct 09, 2007 3:53 pm Post subject: Go more flastly! |
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| I have told the kids that if they use the words "bali" or "quickly, quickly" to me, they are going to be helped last, and I will help them as slowly as I possible can. Most of them have stopped. |
This quote from another thread has inspired me to vent what might be my last bile about working in Korea (having finished working there a month ago).
My co-teacher (whom I loathed) would occassionally tell me, "More quickly!" or "More flastly!" when she felt the need to assert authority over me. This is a 21 or 22 year old girl bossing around someone who is ten years her senior. These barked commands would come at fun times, such as when descending from a mountain with nothing to hang on to, on my day off.
She used it as a parting shot. The new wonomin had arrived, I'd just been introduced to him and was going to show him his new home (2 minutes walk from the school). I was doing this in my own time, having officially finished my contract and being free to go. However, my co-teacher thought it would be a good time to instill discipline in the newbie, and fired at me, "Go more flastly!" as we were walking out of the school gates. She was driving there. So, I walked more slowly. I arrived at the flat and showed the new teacher around. Ten to fifteen minutes later, I got an aggressive call from my co-teacher demanding to know where I was. "I'm in the house, where are you?" I told her. "I'm outside the house, where are you?" "No, you're not outside the house." However, she was adamant that she was outside the house and that I was holding her up from her urgent appointment with her mother (boyfriend). Then it dawned on her that she was at the wrong house. After 12 months of me working at the school and living only two minutes away, she still hadn't figured out where I live, because she couldn't have cared less and never made an effort beyond disingenuous displays of affection- "I'm your fliend". She finally arrived at the house, where we were waiting for her. She told me she hates me. I wish I had said, "The feeling is mutual." Or, "More flastly!" or something. I just shot back at her "Why is it my fault you can't find the house?", shook hands with her and was rid of her out of my life. So funny that she couldn't even find the house after rushing me along like that.
I tell you what, this "hurry, hurry" thing is the ultimate thing that p*ssed me off in my time in Korea. |
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Juregen
Joined: 30 May 2006
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| Posted: Tue Oct 09, 2007 4:47 pm Post subject: |
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These kind of "Bitches" you will find anywhere.
It certainly is not to be generalized for entire Korea tbh. |
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kiwiliz
Joined: 20 Apr 2006
Location: New Zealand
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| Posted: Tue Oct 09, 2007 5:15 pm Post subject: |
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These threads relating unpleasant happenings with co-workers makes me appreciate mine even more. All my co-teachers are great..all 8 of them. I am very very lucky!
3 of them change next year...I am holding my breath now.! |
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Dome Vans
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| Posted: Tue Oct 09, 2007 7:01 pm Post subject: |
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| kiwiliz wrote: |
These threads relating unpleasant happenings with co-workers makes me appreciate mine even more. All my co-teachers are great..all 8 of them. I am very very lucky!
3 of them change next year...I am holding my breath now.! |
I second this. All mine are really good. It takes a bit of time to get used to each one but when you understand each other it's nice and easy from there.
Hope the new three are good too!!!! |
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icnelly
Joined: 25 Jan 2006
Location: Bucheon
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| Posted: Tue Oct 09, 2007 9:20 pm Post subject: |
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| kiwiliz wrote: |
These threads relating unpleasant happenings with co-workers makes me appreciate mine even more. All my co-teachers are great..all 8 of them. I am very very lucky!
3 of them change next year...I am holding my breath now.! |
Yeah, def. agree. I feel genuinely happy when I compare my position t some of these: my main CT/handler actually, like really ACTUALLY speaks English, and she is also very interested in English education.
Shantaram, what are you off to do now? |
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Dome Vans
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Oct 09, 2007 9:23 pm Post subject: |
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| My co-teacher is reading 'Charlie and the Chocolate factory' at the moment and asks me questions about the language used. Maybe I direct him to the BFG next and see how many more questions I get. |
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shantaram
Joined: 10 Apr 2007
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| Posted: Tue Oct 09, 2007 11:32 pm Post subject: |
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icnelly, I'm teaching English to international students in my home country. It's great. It's really challenging, mainly because I have to think about my own poor use of the English language and try to speak and write more accurately. To be honest, I miss many things about Korea, but being hurried along is not one of them. While it's not good to generalise, I think it's safe to say Korea has a culture which is concerned with the speed at which things are done, above other factors. However, not everybody would be as rude as my co-teacher was, that's for sure. As the poster commented in the post directly after mine, you get sh*t in any country, and I've had a tonne of it already back here. The place where I am teaching is surprisingly disorganised and there has been a lot of power politicking (which has died down now due to a management reshuffle).
As far as my co-teacher being any worse than any of your co-teachers, I think a lot of it depends on how sensitive you are to other people. I was quite sensitive to the way my co-teacher treated me. It meant she could never show me up in class in front of other people, which she tried to do quite often. In fact the people watching the open classes commented that I had handled a potentially embarrassing situation quite well (the teacher grabbing a puppet and mimicking my voice with it- while clearly quite pissed off, I let her go ahead and make a fool of herself, then moved on to another topic). These kinds of situations happened every time we had an open class. It made me become constantly on my guard when teaching with her. You might not notice it if your co-teacher treats you poorly. I'm not trying to make anybody paranoid, but I think teaching is quite a competitive profession and I'm not surprised Korean co-teachers act up sometimes and put down the native speaker in front of their peers or out of frustration. Hell, what am I trying to say. My co-teacher was a moron. You guys are lucky. |
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Young FRANKenstein
Joined: 02 Oct 2006
Location: Castle Frankenstein (that's FRONKensteen)
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| Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2007 12:48 am Post subject: |
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| kiwiliz wrote: |
| These threads relating unpleasant happenings with co-workers makes me appreciate mine even more. All my co-teachers are great..all 8 of them. I am very very lucky! |
I thank Khrist I don't have ANY co-teachers. |
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