Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Yu_Bum_suk]

Does this happen during every exam period? A teacher surrounded by a mob of students all complaining about something on the exam? It seems to happen especially to the younger teachers, either because they're not very experienced at writing exams and / or telling students to piss off. One of the new, younger teachers has had a crowd of students around her all lunch period and as I write this I can hear a second older teacher telling them off and to go away.

Thankfully I won't be around for the English mid-term, he he he.

[jinks]

I'm teaching a culture program to a class of 60 freshmen students. I made up 4 versions of the mid-term test - only 10 questions - but, they are English majors so I was tough on grammar and spelling. When I returned the graded papers during class, the students were furiously comparing papers with each other and demanding to know why student A got 2 points and student B got 2.5 (out of 3) for similar answers. It was exremely tedious. However one student pointed out a classmate's similar answer that pulled in a slightly higher grade, but when I looked more closely I realised that I had given points for an incorrect answer (grammatically fine, but wrong). Anyway, I immediately deducted the wrongly attributed points and adjusted the grade accordingly. As soon as the other students realised that grades could go DOWN as well as up, all the clamouring stopped.

[DJTwoTone]

When I used to work middle school, it went like this...

Students complain about the test... K-teachers come to me and ask what the correct answers are... I make the judgment... No arguments... IF they're hogwon teachers say I'm wrong, I extend a warm greeting to them to come in and debate the topic, if they don't come... There is no debate, my answer is final.

But that didn't happen after the first test, because they had me check the tests before they printed them... And all was peaceful.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

[Yu_Bum_suk]

[mountainous]

It's beneficial to allow the student to explain his/her answer. It gets the student to think about the question. Sometimes the student will understand the right solution after giving it some thought...especially in science class.

I am all in favor of test corrections, provided that the students work alone and don't copy each others answers. Do it in class on the day they get their tests back. On the day of the test them know in advance that they will have an opportunity to improve their score.

This approach minimizes the quibbling and rewards students that are willing to do the work.

[R. S. Refugee]

[Binch Lover]

[mnhnhyouh]

[Easter Clark]

Happens every time. "Teachuh! Whyyy? Dippicult-euh! You no teach question!"

The hard part is convincing the students that we did indeed cover the material, but they were too busy sleeping, looking in their mirror, or talking to their friends in Korean to notice.

The worst is when their homeroom teacher comes to me saying an entire class thinks the exam is unfair because I didn't give them enough "hints" for the test-- especially when on review day, I gave them some of the exact same questions that would appear on their test!

When the mob comes my way, I tell them to pay attention next time and they won't have this problem.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

Here's an email I got from a former student who's just started her first year of university. Welcome to the real world:

How r u?

My mid-term exam is done.

I was confused cuz it was my first exam in Univ.

In highschool, teachers told student about exam and question, but professors didn't tell student about those.

It was a subjective question at all.

Is highschool exam done?

[ytuque]

Yu_Bum_suk,

Even after having a foreign teacher, your former student can only write at this level?

[Yu_Bum_suk]

[ontheway]

Every test period I have middle and high school students and their mothers bringing their grammar tests to me. Another one came by on Friday.

The mother of a 3rd grade middle school student brought her daughter's test to me. This mother also happens to be a Korean English Teacher and she thought some of the questions had some problems: that her kid had picked the correct answer, or maybe there was no correct answer.

So, I looked over the test. The mother was correct that the questions were bad. There were actually far more problems than the ones she had found. Several questions were so bad that there was no correct answer. Some had errors in the question itself that made answering the question impossible: errors in logic, math, spelling, grammar, non-existant and mixed expressions.

The unbelievable part is that the Korean middle school teacher who made the test claimed that a native speaking English teacher had reviewed the test (her school has at least 6 on staff). If any native speaker reviewed this test, then that teacher should be fired immediately. I don't believe her story, but some evidence exists that shows it could be true: a few corrections were hand written on the test. However, some of the "corrections" changed correct items into incorrect ones, so I wonder.

It's a shame that Koreans that are completely unqualified to teach English at ANY LEVEL are allowed to teach, make tests, and grade students in an area that is so important to the future of these kids' educations, to their admission to institutions of higher learning, to their future jobs and careers, and to Korea's international standing in the future.

It's even worse that this happened at a school that pretends to be good at teaching English, charges five times the going hogwan price for its poor program, and has native speakers on staff.

[crusher_of_heads]