Korean Job Discussion Forums

[thu_tinh]

Mine are getting out of control and none of the Korean teachers at the moment can control them.
All they want to do is watch movies. I want to show them movies to avoid the headaches but the Korean teachers have been telling me I have to teach. But I can't teach when they are constantly running around screaming, tearing up the worksheets, hitting and so much more! I am losing my voice to trying to talk over them.

[nomad-ish]

[xCustomx]

It's the second graders who cause the most problems for me. I think I'm at the point where I'm seriously considering whether I want to continue at a public school or not. Perhaps I should try working at an elementary school though, because I vowed never to go back to a hagwon.

[thu_tinh]

[Smee]

Try and get a copy of the English textbook they're using. Half the time I use the course textbook and base lessons off it (for 1st and 2nd grade, mind you). I do whatever lesson they just finished, so on the one hand they're vaguely familiar with the materia, but on the other hand they haven't really learned it. Maybe they translated it or answered comprehension questions in Korean, but there's a lot they missed. I find that having the course book in front of them makes it a lot easier to focus, rather than typing out worksheets or doing something completely different. Going through the reading---listen and repeat, phonics---works to settle my students, and I also will put questions on the overhead projector and have them listen and repeat (to help them ask and answer in a complete, grammatical sentence). Once you hit the basics of the lesson you can do other thematically related activities.

Some of my classes are very chatty, and I feel bad for the few students who want to learn something above and beyond the text (when we do pair work I make sure to chat with them). But I find doing something out of the book also covers your backside, as at least if you've redone the reading, dialogues, and or sentence drills at least you've accomplished *something* rather than trying something completely different and watching it fail (been there many times, done that many times).

I get my coursebook from the lost and found, and have an always replenished supply, as a few students each day leave it behind. When I can't get it from the lost and found I go to the school library, where there are a few copies. I would also make clear to the coteaacher that your class is not study hall or goof-off time. If the students don't chit-chat in the Korean teacher's class, they shouldn't be doing it in yours. My coteachers understand that, thankfully, but it can be tough.

[melvaughn]

I've had classes so out of control with nothing done about their behavior and absolutly no consequences for their behavior that I just stopped wasting my time teaching or talking over top of them.
I went to class, got out a book, read for 45 minutes and walked out while the kids did whatever. Neither the co-teacher or director said a word about it. They didn't care. As long as I was 'in' the classroom that's all that mattered to them. I also gave word searches for six months every day in one class and again, no one cared!!! Pretty crazy, but still better than yelling, screaming and losing your voice to no avail! They were the type of kids that should have been LONG removed from the school. They knew they could do 'whatever they wanted' and the director wouldn't care. It didn't matter if I kicked them out, sent them to the corner, made them hold a chair, the next day they'd come back even worse!
I had a few students throw my tape and c.d player out the window (of a two-story building which could have killed someone) and all they got from my director was a 'stern five minute talk' and then I had to continue teaching the same class!

[xCustomx]

I'm curious how you guys view kicking students out of class? I know it's our job to educate them, but sometimes they are such a*holes and show a total lack of respect for both me and the co-teacher that I just kick them out so I don't have to see their faces. They obviously don't have any interest in learning, so why should I waste time trying to control them?

[melvaughn]

I use to kick kids out only if they were so disruptive that I just had to get them out of the class so I could continue with the lesson. But after all the teachers started doing this, our supervisor complained and made a rule that it was no longer allowed. We also got in trouble a few times for yelling at the kids since it hurt their feelings and then they wouldn't want to come to the school anymore...hence..why I had no choice but to resort to reading books in class and ignoring the kids.

[jaderedux2]

I am pretty lucky as mine have been with me since grade one but essentially the year is over for them. The only thing that matters now is that high school test. They have little interest in what is happening now. Especially the ones trying to get into advanced schools. Their last semester tests mean almost nothing.

The scores on their exams plummet and I have to be a hard a$$ to get them to study. My job is to slog thru the curriculum and I do, but I try my best to make it fun interesting and but the rules don't change. We all survive but some just barely.

My classroom, my rules.

Jade who really is starting to sound like her mother.

[cruisemonkey]

When I walk into class, I have the class prefect rise, bring the class to attention and they all bow to me (thanks Yu Bum-suk).

If they talk or are otherwise disruptive, they are sent out into the hall to kneel with their hands over their heads... or (depending on the severity of the infraction), 'do' an A-frame.

If they are sleeping, I walk up beside them and slam my open palm (hard) on the desk beside their ear. They wake up looking like this - - and I tell them "No sleeping in my class."

[Fishead soup]

[Fishead soup]

[Yu_Bum_suk]

[normalcyispasse]

[ulmaeri]