Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Whistleblower]

Well, the voting for a new president is going to start very soon and the same old BS is being used to sway voters. This Presidential Nominee has decided the English Education needs to improve and that he is willing to get Koreans to fluently speak to foreigners in Korea.

I wish I could have a chat, in English, to this Mr Lee fellow. I wonder if he is fluent as his vision entails?

More English Dreams

[spliff]

That's great news!

[Optimus Prime]

MORE after-school programs?

That's impossible! Why, a bunch of people here on Dave's claim these are illegal and will be imminently shut down!

[Boodleheimer]

i'm sure it will work like magic.

[Jizzo T. Clown]

Hagwon owners will never let that happen.

[garykasparov]

Political talk to gain votes from the Korean people. It's cheap.

[HBC007]

If he is elected and follows through with his promises, then it would be a good thing. For too long, English hagwon owners have been concerned with entertainment at the expense of education. Thus there are a lot of hagwons which are playlands for students. The one in Incheon that I used to work at was a stellar example of this. The management was constantly dumbing down the courses, and when its' head office revised their program --they complained that it was too difficult for their students. Any attempt at discipline on the part of the Western teachers was constantly undercut.
If you look at other hagwons, the math and science ones and their teaching styles how many of them are run like English hagwons--very few.You will not see students running through the halls and treating their teachers with flagrant disrespect.
The other interesting proposal that he made was to introduce an English teacher certificate to help Korean teachers improve their proficiency. There is nothing more dispiriting than to have to teach a class with someone who cannot communicate for more than three minutes in English.
It is time to move to results oriented English teaching. Those of us who teach English should be evaluated by how much the students learn (and do they learn) instead of by how entertaining are you in the classroom.
Remember that Lee Myung Bak as mayor of Seoul embarked on projects that could be completed quickly and show results--the lawn in front of City Hall and Cheongyecheon.

[mindmetoo]

Parents reduce your private education spending by sending your kids to hagwon half the amount of time. They'll learn exactly as much.

[Juregen]

Even though all of this sounds nice, i do not believe that those efforts alone will reduce spendings on hagwons.

Korea is a very competitive society, whatever the level of the high school is, mothers would always want their kids to be better then all the other kids, especially the affluent ones. The only way to do that is to send them to after school programs.

Not so affluent parents, who want to upscale their kids, will also send their kids to hagwons. Just to be able to catch up.

What is required is for the mothers to become more sensible in their decision making, and try to understand the real value these after school programs could give.

In other words, the quality of public school has nothing to do with the after school education. It is the marginal effect of after school programs relative to the public schools that have far larger incentives for the parents.

Because in the end, the kids have to do One Big Exam, as it were, to enter in on of the top universities. And this is the source of academic competitiveness in Korea, the university entrance exams.

That is all.

[some waygug-in]

Also worth mentioning is the attitude that many Korean parents have regarding hagwans. I've asked some of my adult students why they send their kids to hagwans that they know are bad and here is what they said:

We want our kids to be kept busy, and out of the PC rooms and or off the streets. It's not so important for us that the kids are learning, but more that we know where they are and are safe. We don't want our kids running around and getting into drugs or gangs like they do in Western countries

I'm not saying I totally agree with this, but there does seem to be some truth to this.


In otherwords, hagwans are veiwed as a form of daycare service and a way of keeping kids out of trouble by keeping them busy.

If it's not the English hagwan, it's the math hagwan, music hagwan, or Taekwando hagwan etc.

[Pak Yu Man]

In the future, every city will have an English village with Russians running around acting like clowns.

Job of the future...where do I sign.

[mindmetoo]

[mindmetoo]

[htrain]

I heard exactly what the homie above said. One of my adult students said lots of kids' parents feel guilty that they work until late at night so they have to have somewhere to keep the kids.

I told my adult class I was a latchkey kid and grew up going home and doing my homework alone and making my own dinner since the time I was 12. One student actually cried and said that she's so sorry I have such a bad mother.

[Boodleheimer]