Korean Job Discussion Forums

[tob55]

Having worked at the same school for the past three plus year, I felt it was good to point out some of the obvious changes in students I have seen. Feel free to comment on the atmosphere of your students during this first portion of the new school year.

1. My students (high school) are not the best speakers, but they all have some ability to speak in English. This is way different than the first three years when I had large numbers of students who could not even put three English words together in a sentence.

2. There appear to be more students who show greater disrespect to the KTs this year, more than ever before. I have had a couple of students who openly challenged the teachers in front of several others. The Kts are working on these students right now with various forms of punishment.

3. The students in my classes appear to have a better language base than any of the previous three classes entering the high school. It is obvious that something in the middle school is happening to increase the level of language comprehension.

4. My Co-Teacher is much more relaxed now that we have been working together for three years and it appears to her that making a fuss over things that either don't matter or will not change is not worth losing sleep or respect by getting upset and angry.

5. The administrators seem to work for my benefit much more than they have during my last contracts. They have actually asked me for advice about different things that can be done to improve the interaction in the classroom. (Not just in the English classrooms, but other classes as well)

There is more, but all in all, I see some good changes with my school this year over the past several years. There is great benefits for sticking it out to see the improvement at your school, but too much of the time, people get irked about something and then don't look past little things. 27+ years of work as a professional teacher in the USA and here in Korea, and this just might turn out to be my best and most productive year in terms of level of comfort and satisfaction with the work conditions. Not that it is perfect, but I am happy. How about your situation?

[Scouse Mouse]

I have noticed a huge difference in the first grade this year compared with those of last year. Last year, none of the students had seen a foreign teacher before, but this year around 30% of them had a foreign teacher in elementary school. This shows in their English ability, with a lot more opening up in the classroom (even during the first few lessons with me). The Korean teachers have noted that the students all seem to be able to understand the gist of what I am saying... Last year, I had to have almost everything I said translated by a co-teacher, but this year I am having no problems.

[KYC]

I find that I am the one that's more relaxed

I used to get frustrated & flustered when the korean teachers 1) didn't show & help with the class 2) show up and leave after 5 minutes and 3) kids were just out of control.

I'm more calm now. The kids are still pretty wild, but I don't lose my temper as often as before. Maybe it's because I only have a few more months left hahaa

[Yu_Bum_suk]

I'm quite happy with both my new middle and high school students this year so far, but the year's still very young. For the first time all of my new middle school students have some experience with foreign teachers from going through our school district's English camp, and I think some of them are a bit surprised to find out that my style's a bit more strict and formal. We'll do plenty of fun activities as the term goes along, but for the first month I'll keep it pretty serious, as entertaining = optional is what usually happens in the minds of Korean kids when it comes to learning.