Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Atavistic]

[htrain]

[thegadfly]

Nope -- vanilla-hued American here, and I am comparing students to students in both countries -- an hour is 60 minutes in both places, I imagine?

As I stated, an hour of homework for some of the kids I taught might be to read a 30-word paragraph, write 5 sentences about it, and study the meaning/pronunciation of 3 words. Other kids might be able to do that same work in 10 minutes, so their homework would be different...but add up to about an hour.

Kids that can't read? Sing the alphabet song five times in a row, every day of the week (5 minutes a day, 7 days, 35 minutes of homework a week right there). Copy out the alphabet 3 times a day in your notebook, every day (again, 35 minutes). OK, now color the cat, hat, bat, mat, rat, and flat gnat (under the flyswatter).

I'm not here to make choices for other people's children. *I* would not subject my own children to the schedule that these Korean parents do, but then, I may decide things for my own child with which other people would disagree. Heck, my brother wouldn't let his toddler son play with his sister's dolls...if I ever am lucky enough to have a toddler son, I may actually BUY him dolls...and trucks...and legos...and cooking sets...and chemistry sets.... My kid, my choices, and I would thank you not to interfere until and unless it is abuse. These schedules that Korean parents impose are grueling, but are not child abuse.

You asked how much homework I give, I answered. I gave this much when I worked at Wonderland, even. Yes, it got complaints, yes I was told to back off...until the first batch of kids that had been doing my homework entered some English contest in their school and did way better than was expected...then I was asked to write the curriculum.

Atavistic,

When do I expect them to be kids? When their parents choose to let them be kids -- these are not MY kids. I would NOT impose this schedule on MY OWN KIDS. Then again, I would not make my own kids eat brussel sprouts, either. Some parents do. If am a cook, and am asked to serve brussel sprouts to kids, who am I to say, "naw, let me give them something else." These kids have parents that love them and have their children's best interests at heart, probably much more so than any teacher could hope or care to. If they do something that seems misguided to us, one has to allow for the possibility that it is WE who are misguided.

Honestly, I would gladly trade the problems with Korean children for the problems of American children -- I haven't yet met a 14-year-old mother or father in Korea, but I have had over a dozen kids that young with kids in the states. Haven't met a middle-school drug user here, but have taught entire classes composed of those kids in the US ("alternative" school, ya know).

Maybe keeping them in class until they are too exhausted to get into any mischief is a good thing? I'm not saying it IS, I am not saying it ISN'T, I am saying that it is POSSIBLE...maybe the K-parents have an idea the US-parents ought to follow....

[thegadfly]

Atavistic,

When I was in high school, I was allowed by law to work up to 24 hours a week at a part time job (McD's, in my case). I actually worked 36 a week -- got a slip from my parents. Does that set off your alarm sensors? I had a car to pay for, gas to buy for the car, and doodads and geegaws to purchase -- I was also a computer geek, and that commodore 64 was EXPENSIVE! Does this sound like a horrific schedule imposed upon me? High school classes -- college prep track, not basket weaving and bowling -- plus 36 hours at McD's...oh yeah, I played a varsity sport every season -- soccer (Fall), wrestling (Winter), track (Spring)...two hours a day, five days a week, meets/games on Saturdays, usually about 5 hours all told, travel to, from, and meet itself.... So 15 hours of sports, 36 hours of "part-time" work, my actual classes, plus the homework the school gave at the time...wow, kind of looks like the 60-100 hours a week that K-kids spend in school...'cept it is NOT the norm to work a part-time job here -- the attitude is that school IS the kids' job.

Tell ya what, NOW I wish I had spent an extra 36 hours a week studying instead of flipping burgers to pay for my hoopty...well, maybe and extra 30 hours, still need a few hours for the cash to date...and had my parents INSISTED that I study, and given me an allowance to compensate for not having a job, it may have been a better thing in the long run....

[Atavistic]

[thegadfly]

Atavistic,

I never said anyone shouldn't assign homework -- and no, if other teachers assign homework, I do not back off. I do my job to the best of my ability, which includes assigning an appropriate amount of (imho) useful homework. If parents do not want their children to do that homework, they can contact me through the school -- and if parents do NOT want homework, I do not give it. I have had that happen ONE time -- the parents in a particular class did not want the kids to have homework...so I didn't assign any.

I have also had many h.s. classes where the kids never did the homework. I still assigned it, but I made sure it was enrichment work rather than core-skill work...since I could not rely on homework completion, I planned the classes as if there were no homework assigned.

My rule of thumb may not be your rule of thumb -- I am not saying you need to follow it. The thread was asking about how much we do assign, and I answered...then it seemed to talk about how/why assign the amount, so I explained how and why....

In the US, I actually worked in a district that limited the amount of homework assigned to 2 hours a week per class -- so as a high school English teacher, I could NOT assign more than 2 hours of homework a week. Thus, 6 classes in h.s., kids got no more than 12 hours of homework a week. In high school. You know, to prepare for college.

Of course, in college, I received about 4-6 hours of homework per hour of class, but then, I took a lot of chemistry and biology classes, and those labs can really eat up the time. I guess rewriting and revising papers for English was a huge time-sink too. Reading a couple hundred pages a week in my textbooks also bit into my social life -- so in the scheme of things, I actually think I am kind of moderate.

[yingwenlaoshi]

Where do yo find time to correct all that homework? Do you bill your school for it?

Let's say you have 8 students per class and you teach 30 hrs/wk. Let's average out your homework to 1.5 hrs per hour of study. That's 240 hours of class time which would be 360 hours of homework. Let's say only a third of it is stuff you have to check. That's 120 hrs. Let's say you spend only ten minutes on each of the students' hours. That's 20 hours.



I don't get it.

I'll tell you what I do. I do the best damn job possible while I'm teaching. If they have some homework that I should check, I do it in class. I can only suggest what extra work that they should be doing on their own if they want to improve their English.

Now if I were paid double what I'm being paid now and asked to be part of some homework-giving task force then I might do it. For now, six hours of teaching a day plus my OT is enough for me.

[htrain]

We're back to apples and oranges again. When I worked at the grocery store every day in high school I was making money. When I played sports I was out with my friends having fun and burning off energy. These are different settings with different "work" and a complete change of pace from each other. I only used my brain in school; stocking shelves and playing football aren't even in the same galaxy as foreign language and calculus.

Studying for every minute of every day in between sleeping and eating does not make a well-rounded person. I had a 3.9 GPA in high school and did less than 1/4 of your suggested homework routine. But I'm also super cool and graduated when I was 17. I also got 8 hours of sleep a night.

[yingwenlaoshi]

I really don't see why a kid should be doing anymore than a couple of hours of homework, in total, a night. Even an hour is enough. Or a half hour.

I asked some middle school kids here. One said she studies maybe a half-hour a night. More during test times. And she's one of the best students in her school. If I gave her a bunch of homework, she wouldn't do it. If I gave her a hard time about it, she'd probably switch schools or something.

[jajdude]

I think some teachers can make the checking and correcting of homework, explaining things, a big part of class. In some cases homework can even be the center of class, not an aside, but where key learning and teaching can happen. If grades are given, homework could be a big part of it. Writing parts of homework could be graded like quizzes.

Sounds OK to me if it works for some that way. Sounds like it could work.

No question many kids are overworked though. It's just not realistic to bust a ten year old to stress limits.

Ever notice how heavy some small kids' bookbags are? It would be an interesting comparison to have (average) child weight vs. bookbag weight for different countries.

[thegadfly]

Ying,

No, I don't "bill my school" for checking homework -- checking homework is part of being a teacher -- was going to say, "part of being a real teacher," but that phrase causes all kinds of freak-outs.

I do not check homework in class, unless nearly every student has done it wrong (and I know that because I collect and check the homework outside of class -- when I see they all have it wrong, we have a mini-lesson on it the next class meeting).

For me, homework is a big part of my assessment process. It shows me what I need to spend more time on in class, what I can speed through, and what I can skip outright...a "learn by going where I need to go" kind of thing.

Honestly? I spend too much time checking homework. I could also, very easily, spend much MORE time than I do checking that same homework.

Htrain,

You may or may not be "super cool," but if you are happy with yourself, that is great -- confidence is important.

Honestly, I don't care about grades -- how much did you LEARN in high school while earning that 3.9 GPA? I would bet very little. It is not very common to have a teacher push you to the limits of your abilities, then ask you to do more. I got good grades too, and no, as I student I never had to do what I make my own students do now. I didn't learn all that much in high school. Now, college -- I learned a lot there...also busted my arse there. Correlation is not causation, but there is such a thing as compelling circumstantial evidence, as "when you find a trout in the milk...."

You're right about the sleep thing -- and every time a parent asks me how his or her little snowflake could become a better student, I tell that parent, "let the kid sleep 8 hours a night. Let him/her have a day off a week. Give him/her some time to play. There are such things as diminishing returns and loss of productivity. An hour of study for a well-rested kid is better than 3 hours for an exhausted kid." I tell 'em, but I don't think a K-parent has listened to me yet.

It isn't apples and oranges -- never has been. Students are students, teaching is teaching, subject matter doesn't. (Matter, that is).

Being "well-rounded" is a cultural concept, arising from the Greek attitude toward education. In the US, you were probably given more peer-accolades for that cash you made and that football you played than for your 3.9 GPA-- no one said to you, "ONLY a 3.9? Oh, so sorry for you -- so close to 4.0!" Here, most K-parents and K-kids could give a rat's arse about being "well-rounded." It may become part of Korean culture, but if/when it does, it is because it crept in with other western attitudes.

[sadsac]

I am anti homework. My students suffer enough with useless Korean homework without me adding to the burden. The other point is, if a student doesn't understand the assigned homework, who do they ask? It just creates an extra level of frustration and displeasure at learning English. I never did it when I went to school and I won't inflict it on my students. The boss gets the call and she tells them, I never give homework. The Korean teacher can give them homework till it comes out their whazoos. Not this little black duck.

[Juregen]

[htrain]

I am not saying I don't take my job seriously, because I do... obviously so or I wouldn't have posted this, but here is my next question.

How many of you hagwon types consider yourselves "real teachers?"

Honestly, I don't. I consider myself more of a coach. Someone the kids can look to to not beat on them, not load homework on them, make English fun, and practice with. When the kids use the stuff they've learned on me and practice with me and get excited, that's when I feel I'm making a difference. I'm not trying to be the kids' 9th boss. I like them to come to my class with decent English, and allow me to perfect their pronunciation and teach them how to speak in whole sentences.

In a traditional capacity, I feel my job is far from a "real teacher." It's not that I don't take my work seriously; I know my role, and I know this is the way (for me at least) to be most effective in the children's lives.

[thegadfly]

Juregen,

No, I would give you 1-2 hours of homework for each hour you were in my class -- your other teachers would give you the rest of that homework to make it 36-72 hours. If you were in my class 36 hours a week...well, I no longer teach that many hours a week, only 25-ish, so the most you could get is about 50 hours of homework a week. However, assuming that I am your only teacher, you would probably become quite adept at doing my assignments, so for you, my homework might only take you 15-20 hours a week -- a bargain, really!

Posters arguing against my homework amount:

Don't like the amount of work I give? Don't take my class -- simple, really.

In the states, where students can't choose not to take my class, they just have to deal with it -- I am that arsehole that makes 'em work, the fella that they go, "Oh, Geeze! I got thegadfly for English? There goes my GPA (or Saturday nights)!"

As I have said a bunch of times -- this is the amount of homework *I* give, since the thread was asking, "How much homework do you give?" If you want to give more or less, then give more or less. Several posters seem to think I give too much homework -- fine, I get that you think I give too much. I think you give too little, but I am not arguing with you about it. I have many reasons for why I do what I do, and those reasons have evolved over my career as a teacher (as have my homework expectations). I am pretty sure you have reasons why you do NOT give much homework...it is just that I have not found any more compelling reason NOT to give homework than I already have TO give homework.