Korean Job Discussion Forums

[iiicalypso]

Alright... I am having a bad day. I am in a public high school, and this morning two third graders were drafted by one of the other English teachers to type in a bunch of stories for the school's English newspaper. I don't know these girls, and they are not my students, but I wanted to be friendly, so I asked them "What are you doing?"

Response:

So, I asked again. Another blank stare. Finally a KT "translated" this challenging question into Korean.

My question is, does your school do a good job of teaching English? I think you know my answer.

[kiwiliz]

My schools do the best they can within they system. I am part of that so maybe its me who is not so good.
My reward comes when the kids I teach come up to me outside of school hours and are willing to try and swap a few sentences. I don't mind when they do as I am very pleased that they are willing to try.

[Atavistic]

As well as they can with such shitty rules and books, etc.

My kids answer me when I talk to them outside of class, primarily because I force them too.

[pest2]

The 2 middle schools I work for are great. Both teachers are good and I can see the student making headway regularly.

I work at 3 elementary schools and they all suck. The teachers themselves mostly cant speak English. They use outdated textbooks and methods. a pretty good percentage of 5th graders still dont know ABC.

My middle school teachers complain (rightly) that the new 7th graders coming to them each year know pathetically little and its nearly impossible to get them up to standard.

Part of the problem is certainly the district office, which continues to devote too much time and attention to English at the middle schools. It has been brought up to them again and again, but they refuse to acknowledge it as a problem...

Anyway, I voted with respect to my middle schools, "yes".

[renzobenzo1]

^^^ hey Pest2, sorry for being nauve, but do you work at 5 schools?

[Yu_Bum_suk]

I work for a combined middle-high school. I'd say the middle school does and the high school doesn't really. I prefer teaching high schoolers but I like our middle school English programme a lot better.

[topas]

On the whole, my middle school doesn't teach English very well at all. I realize it has to be pretty difficult on the teachers, though, as the local curriculum is a mess, the classes are to big, etc. And I completely understand where pest2's colleagues are coming from when they complain about the new 7th graders; we're in the same boat. A lot of them can't even read a simple sentence. Of course, at some point I wish my school would start to take a little more responsibility --perhaps expanding upon the sham text book and offering more support to students who are behind (I have even offered to teach a remedial class for them to no avail). Also the exams are a joke. Frankly, can't blame the students for not studying if they aren't going to be tested effectively. I don't think English should be a required subject in schools here, and perhaps the teachers and administrators agree, but I still think it's doing the students an awful disservice if they have to spend 5hrs/week in school studying a foreign language and then go to a hagwon at night to learn it properly.

[Alyallen]

My school does alright. I'm the only teacher and I work a lot. I have remedial classes and after school classes for the more advanced/ambitious students.

It's hard to say since the class is not graded, there are no tests and sometimes classes just don't show up because the class teacher thinks whatever they are teaching is more important. The books are complete and utter garbage. Quite a few students can't spell or write properly but the book doesn't really provide much help.

Unfortunately, the emphasis is more on finished the book than on making sure that the fundamentals are mastered. I like to think that my students are prepared to middle school English but it is totally within the realm of possibility that they are far from prepared.

[Jizzo T. Clown]

I voted "No." Today a girl was asking me about an activity...in Korean. I told her to speak English and she said "Mbuteiyo." I was mortified. I made her stay after class and wouldn't let her leave until she could say "I don't understand."

This happens a lot, actually--"Teachuh, I no English-ee."
My. God.

[pest2]

[vox]

My school does an okay job but there are some fundamental disconnects that make it difficult to make major progress.

We've got one teacher who is a little too provincial in her concept of acceptable idioms - not enough experience or exposure to English, no ESL cert training, but golly she worked at a hogwan and so there's just one way people ask you about the number of people in your family!

We've got one teacher who's more interested in appearing an authority than being an authority in English, and doesn't understand enough English to hold conversations about English. So when a sheet of awkward phrases are presented, more elegant or natural/idiomatic alternatives are struck down, and the ensuing conversation just fizzles out as my point sails off into the sunset leaving my K-teacher a castaway on some island of one word or another I was using to try and make my point.

Still almost all of the teachers have their ground covered on the textbook phrases but the malleability and composition that could follow, well it's just not there. And the club activities, well, they're just not enough. I do my part to make dents and slip in new initiatives, but too often it feels like I'm just hurling pebbles at a great and high wall. Hmm maybe I've had a hard day today, too.