Korean Job Discussion Forums

[mrsquirrel]

My pregnant co-teacher came back - minus the being pregnant bit.

My excellent substitute co-teacher has gone to another school.

And in the blink of an eye the classes which were well controlled listened and participated well have dissolved into noisy kids who aren't listening to her at all.

Amazing how much a good co-teacher makes a class go smoothly.

Ah well.

Only 315 days to go.

[KYC]

at least you don't have cocky 1st year inexperienced teachers who thinks they are above you. I can handle the class better than they can, but I guess I don't have their fancy degree & education

[Yu_Bum_suk]

This happened to me twice, though the other way around, when the two English teachers at my middle school took successive six-month leaves of absence. It's not just their ability to manage a classroom; it's their over-all ability to motivate students and get them taking public school English seriously. One of the two had all right conversational English and the other's English was pretty well non-existant, and it really didn't make much difference. In fact, if anything, the one who could speak some English was worse; with the one who couldn't put a sentence together if her life depended on it at least the kids liked (goofing off with) her. In the case of the other's classes, in one term I punished more students in two grade two middle school classes than I did in all my others put together. It was also quite an obvious loss of face for the KETs to have me come along and enforce a set of rules and standards that they apparently weren't or couldn't. In fact one class became the first and only case ever of me complaining to a homeroom teacher about an entire class (and they did shape up after that, thank-you dam-eam saengseongnim). The next term, when my usual co-teacher came back with even better English than she had before, I can remember maybe three or four instances all term in those same two classes. Indeed, even if the co-teachers aren't even attending a lesson, the difference they make is noticeable and marked.

While it's nice to think that we can develop the skills and know-how to jump in and make things work, but the fact of the matter is that their regular English teacher can really make the difference between smooth sailing and a constant uphill battle.

[fromtheuk]

I just hope we don't have a year of threads like 'I can't stand my co-teacher' from mrsquirrel now!

There's another poster on this forum who is guilty of the same thing.......the name escapes me.

[ddeubel]

[yingwenlaoshi]

[mrsquirrel]

[fromtheuk]

Yes, keep reassuring yourself.

[skdragon]

[DrunkenMaster]

[yingwenlaoshi]

[ernie]

after 5 months at a middle school, i've finally found the ultimate attention-getter... no more yelling for me! i grab the heavy leather attendance book and SLAM it against the lectern... i can make kids on the other side of the room jump and it's fun to hear the blast reverberate through the halls! loud AND fun!

[nobbyken]

I get noisy HS kids to come to the front for a few minutes, and do silly stuff.

At that age, coolness and keeping face are vital.
Getting out at the front doing a ballerina dance or getting boys to hold hands, and swing back and forth like lovers makes the class sit up and laugh.

The threat of being the next out the front for 5 minutes, makes them behave.

[mrsquirrel]

Not really about discipline methods. It was an observation on how a the assertiveness and attitude of a co-teacher can change the class completely.

[Fishead soup]