Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Ya-ta Boy]

Today was the end of our first-6 week session and the end of a truly magic class. Everyone gets one from time to time, if you stay in the game long enough. Each class has its personality and some are more enjoyable than others (and some are classes from Hades) but all are distinctive in one way or another. But once in a while, once in a blue moon, you get a magic class. This is the class that you can do no wrong in. No matter what you try, no matter what you ask of them, no matter what blunder you make, they just laugh about it and ask for more. They are the class where the members �fall in love� with each other within the first couple of days and start ribbing each other for any mistake and no one gets upset. This is the kind of class teachers in neighboring classrooms complain about because the students are laughing all the time and their students can hear it and wish they were next door.

This is the class where on the first day, you say, uh-oh, Mr. Moon can�t make a sentence and we are in the lower advanced section. Then in a few weeks he tells a story about his favorite place to go when his parents got divorced and he needed some quiet time and the other guys spontaneously hugged him. This is the kind of class where Mr. Jung announced on the first day of class that he�d gotten married three weeks before, and three weeks later had to tell everyone that his wife was a couple months pregnant and was having morning sickness�and he had to put up with the ribbing about sex before marriage. This is the class where the guy who�d spent 3 years in the US as a little kid referred to his English as Kindergarten English. Mr. Oh was called Question Man because he always had a good question about vocabulary or grammar. Mr. Jo has the most expressive face in Korea--when you explain that �incident� and �accident� are different, he gets so excited that his eyes pop. This is the class where you ask pairs to debate globalization, Mr. Jung makes a new friend with someone he thought he had nothing in common with. This is the class where every one of them try NOT to move to the advanced class (because they know the assigned homework is useless�just translating magazine articles) by deliberately doing poorly on tests so they can stay together�and they miscalculated and will go to lower level classes. And they just laughed about it and said they�ll study hard and try to come back at the next re-assignment.

The atmosphere at Dave�s has been so poisonous of late that I didn�t want to post anything about the class. I decided that I would tonight in honor of a great bunch of students. There will be the typical cynical, negative crap that gets posted in response to my stuff, but I decided to ignore it because I think the people at home waiting for their visas need to hear that there are some wonderful times ahead.

In the next few days I hope to have the time to copy and post some of their essays on the An Ajosshi Story thread.

[cunning_stunt]

Good for you . I just had some really cool winter camp classes . I blew 100 bucks on pizza for them at the end of it as a thank you for making my job so easy and enjoyable. They will be my new students next year so it's all looking good . No shame in enjoying teaching man...

[blaseblasphemener]

the cynical stuff has it's place, but most teachers at least got into the game because of what you were writing about (aside from the money).

good on ya!

[nobbyken]

Excellent, here's to another great year for you.
Keep up the good work man, inspirational.

[caniff]

That was cool, Ya-ta Boy. It also got me thinking about some class ideas. Cheers.

[Ya-ta Boy]

[Aurora_Redwinters]

What a nice and refreshing read here.

[Ya-ta Boy]

A short story about my all-time favorite student:

Dong-Joo is a dumb jock. He can't help it. That is just the truth. He is a very nice guy with big muscles bulging out all over the place and can't string an English sentence together to save his life. He was my student about 5 years ago. We were in a beginner class. I worked my little fingers to the bone teaching "This is a pen." "Is this a pen?" "That is a door." "Is that a door?" He couldn't get it. I came in an hour early and did extra classes with him. After 16 weeks or so, he was scoring about 50% on 'this' and 'that'. It just didn't compute for the guy.

Now, when I go back to Jinhae to visit, he always comes to the dinners and I chat with everyone and struggle with him over, "How are you?" But at some point in the evening, he sneaks up behind me and picks me up. As I said, he has muscles--I don't look like and I'm not nicknamed 'KFC Man-Grandpa' for nothing. ('Grandpa' is the new addition. ) It's his way of showing respect and affection for trying to help him. The first time I was startled. After that, I came to look forward to the experience. It's pretty fun. You should try it.

You don't have to be successful with Korean students. You do have to be 'passionate' about trying.

[thegadfly]

Cheers, Ya-ta Boy! That's the kinda stuff that lasts ya through the lean years....

[Hyeon Een]