Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Easter Clark]

After two years I have resigned myself to the fact that I have not made an impact on the kids I teach. We spent weeks on greetings and responding to greetings before the semester tests. This morning, when I met my class, I said "Good morning," to which they should have responded "Good morning." What I got instead were a bunch of confused looks, a couple of "Fine"s, and one (while laughing) "I'm-fine-thank-you-and-you."

Out of more than 400 students, I can honestly say that I have made a difference in the lives of at least 5 of them.

Hagwons look better all the time.

[Fishead soup]

If you can get an after school class then you have more of a chance to make a difference. The regular classes are too crowded and it all to often ends up being hi-jacked by the co-teacher who only teaches for the test.

[Cornfed]

You might manage to get the odd factoid or idea across, but generally speaking it largely does seem to be a waste of time. Then again, the Korean teaching of English and indeed most jobs these days are probably more of a waste of time.

[bogey666]

[EricaSmile84]

I feel the same way Easter Clark. But then I think about myself as a student and how my French classes were a waste of time.

[Hank the Iconoclast]

meh. I feel for you mate. I try my best but sometimes I feel the same way.

[Kimchieluver]

I feel that way sometimes too. Are you guys building up to your objective? You know like a three class lesson plan. Heck the text book is pretty useless. If you can make it so they at least grab and retain one useful concept, then I feel it is worth it. However, if the teachers don't put your material on the exam, it may all be for not. Anyways, I do my best to get a point across, but sometimes like you have mentioned, it doesn't seem like they even heard about it before.

[Colorado]

I just wonder how long it will take for Koreans to realize that it's a waste of their money as well as our time.

[Easter Clark]

Guess I'm just pessimistic lately. I just passed some 3rd year students in the hall. The first time I taught them they were 1st year students. One girl said "How are you?" I said "Not bad. How are you?" She stumbled for about 10-15 seconds before blurting out "Uh, fine!" Thing is, she was one of the better students when I had her. At least she didn't add the dreaded "thank you and you?"

In my defense, though, throwing 40 kids in a classroom for an hour a week and expecting them to gain anything meaningful is a bit of a stretch. At the very least, I hope these kids will feel comfortable around foreigners in the future and will come to see waegukin as human beings. (five or ten years from now) "I had an American teacher in high school and he was just a regular guy." or something along those lines.

[Fishead soup]

Talking to students between classes makes a big difference. Set aside ten to fifteen minutes here and there where you either walk through the halls and talk to kids or invite them back to your desk and chat with them.

Usually the brighter kids will take advatage of these opportunities.

[bogey666]

[Smee]

1) I'm scheduled to see each class once every two weeks. With holidays, tests, festivals, cancellations, and test cram time, that averages to about five times a semester. Try amounting to much with that kind of face time.

2) I teach from the same textbook the Korean teachers use, which is actually a good idea. I teach the "speaking" parts, the awkward dialogues. With the exception of two teachers, the other coteachers either don't come to class or sit in the back. For good classes that's no problem---though the teachers really shouldn't be f'in around like that---but for the bad classes or the lower level ones, the material is totally over their heads. The teacher "does" the speaking activities with the students by using the CD-Rom, so I guess they feel that's enough.

3) The students learn next to nothing from their Korean teachers. This isn't me bashing a whole nation of teachers, but let's be honest. The students do nothing but study grammar, and are doing fairly advanced stuff for their level, but can't produce a grammatical sentence to save their lives. They're learning relatively obscure stuff but can't remember not to answer "What did you do yesterday?" with "I'm going . . ." It's not simplpy a matter of not being able to produce the language, it's them not having a solid grasp of how the language works. I've said it over and over there's no point in doing advanced stuff if the students---and teachers---don't know the basics.

4) There's little to no interest in English as a communicative tool, plain and simple. English education is an excuse for schools to spend money.

I like most of my students, but yeah, I feel like I'm wasting my time a lot of the time. i try to take comfort in that the students aren't learning anything in their Korean English classes, either, but I take pride in my native language and culture and I hate to see it made a mockery.

[Underwaterbob]

[MollyBloom]

I agree too. Fortunately, my elementary students speak English pretty well already, so when I do teach them something new, they have an easier time remembering it. I can say that in each class there are about 5-8 students that are lower level. With that said, my principal told me to play games and do activities, and just make sure the book is finished by the end of the year.

[D.D.]

I think it is difficult to teach here but I also notice that many students are good at English.

The only way to really hear how good they are is to split them into small enough groups that they are not shy and you can relate to them.

Trying to teach a class of 30 studenst is useless. Having small speaking groups is quite usefull.

I try to help them use what they know rather than teach them new concepts.

They also like to talk about Korea. I gave up trying to push my culture on them and we talk about their culture and lives.

They will talk for hours about pop stars and crap like that. Stuff that is beyond their scope will get the shy response.

They aslo don't like to talk in groups of over 10 students.