Korean Job Discussion Forums

[michaelambling]

For all of you SMOE, EPIK, GOEPIKASDFJKLOMGWTFBBQ, etc. teachers out there, I have a question. You see, I teach people preparing to become public English teachers, so I want to know what you wish your co-teacher had been taught, but obviously wasn't.

[Elric222]

Please teach them the proper meanings of the word 'communication' and 'co-teaching.'

E.g.1 Give a few of the infinite examples of how frustrating it is to be always told everything at the last minute.

E.g.2 Co-teaching does not mean walking out the room at the first available opportunity.

[ED209]

[cruisemonkey]

Yeah... how to speak English would be #1 on my list!

[nicam]

Yup, English.

I often wonder if the co-teachers teach their English classes in Korean, and that's why the students and the teachers themselves are so poor at English.

When I took Spanish in college we were only allowed to speak in Spanish during class after the first two introductory courses, and our teachers only spoke in Spanish to us, so we were forced to use the language or look whatever we wanted to say up in the book before saying it.

I still haven't heard a good explanation for why Koreans are so poor at English despite the amount of time they spend studying it. Good luck, OP.

[michaelambling]

[nicam]

I'm glad there's someone like you who at least gets to voice these issues to the higher-ups, even if to no avail. One starts to wonder if they have a clue. I guess they do.

Another thing I noticed, and this is a bit random as I know it doesn't fall within your employer's jurisdiction, is that given one FT, a district will place that FT in the middle schools instead of the elementary school, which goes against the critical period for language acquisition. The younger they learn...

[D.D.]

Please choose some good looking ones and let them pass. Hot co-teachers would be great.

In my whole time here I have only seen one nice looking English co -teacher who visited our school just for one day.

[roknroll]

[Rae]

Please remind them of our situation - we're away from home, in a foreign country -- we do not get the same benefits they get from doing things outside of our contract. In fact, if they expect that, we will feel cheated! Pressuring us to work weekends cause the school will lose face to ask another school's foreigner to do the camps isn't right if our contract specifically say we're NOT supposed to work weekends!

Don't resent us for not working those weekends even if Korean teachers have to because we're not Koreans, don't get paid as much as them, and it's not fair comparing apples to oranges.

We have sick leave in our contract! If we have a flu or a cold, we shouldn't have to come to school to infect everyone else - and no, we shouldn't have to go to the doctor to be prescribed antibiotics or get a shot for a friggen cold! We're not Koreans, and using our sick-leave responsibly shouldn't be a friggen drawn-out and torturous affair -- being hassled by a public school for being sick is the LAST thing someone wants to deal with while recovering from a sickness in a foreign country!

We should not and do not need to tell anyone where we are at all times and who we're with! We're not children, and the only people treated like that in the States are criminals or small kids --- it's an insult, especially if our track record is clean!

If we're not paid on time, then they need to help us with this.

If the POE wants to do something freakish and change all the schedules all the sudden without telling anyone, then help us with this.

WE HAVE BREAKS! Let us have our friggen breaks! It's against the fcken law in most countries to withhold breaks! This means don't use us as a human dictionary! Don't constantly ask questions you can easily look up online.

DON'T CHANGE THE LESSON PLAN AT THE VERY LAST SECOND. If you want respect, give it. They're gonna be co-teachers for a whole year -- practically joined to the hip. It makes more sense being pleasant with one another than trying to play games.

Don't micromanage! If it's lunch time or break time, no one likes someone reading over their shoulder!

Try not to be so racist!

[nicam]

Another thought, and this is was addressed in another thread, is how the kids are told to treat us by the co-teachers.

I think sometimes the co-teachers tell the kids to address us informally because they think that we do not have a system of hierarchy in the west. I've even heard of some co-teachers TELLING students that the FT is not a "real teacher" and shouldn't be treated as one. Most times I don't think it's malicious, but an effort to make us more at home and less uncomfortable. However, they do not realize that we in the west have different ways of showing respect for teachers, like titles, and silence in the classroom, etc., and without any tangible authority you have no control. I think this also confuses the kids and sends them the message that you are not someone to be feared and respected and they start addressing you in banmal and stop listening or caring about your class once your novelty wears off.

Oh, one more thing: Several times each day I hear my name from the other teachers amongst a fits of laughter and Hangul. We FTs can understand our own names, and we know they're talking about us, but we don't have a clue what they are saying. This sucks. Also, the giggling. Sometimes when I say hello to co-teachers they just start laughing. I know it's hard to control that response from the students, and I know it's shyness or whatever, but it is rude and immature to us, and it really starts to wear on you after a while.

Hope this helps, OP.

[yeremy]

If you would enlighten me as to what teaching organization GOEPIKASDFJKLOMGWTFBBQ is first, then I will reply in kind. It sounds like the BBQ franchise has started an afterschool program in the public schools, or something like that.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

It would be helpful if you'd remind them to consider carefully the level of students they're helping with when co-teaching, especially for high school. It took a while for my CTs to understand that the kind of participation required of them in a low-level vocational class was a lot different from that of a good academic class. Indeed, in a higher-level class the CT should ideally have to say hardly anything.

I'd also suggest that they take into account the experience of the FT. Someone with experience teaching in Korea will likely need a lot less help than someone without any.

Most importantly, try to teach them how to utilise English as much as possible in the classroom. Teach them the phrase '_________ means ______ in Korean' and '_________ means ___________ in English' and make them use it. You would not believe how much this simple phrase can increase the amount of English coming out of their mouths and how many KETs fail to use it.

[curlygirl]

This suggestion is intended to help the Kteachers help themselves, rather than help us.

Most of us buy books and surf the Internet to find teaching ideas. My co-teachers *cough*, sorry I mean the Korean people who are in the room with me when I do all the teaching are always amazed at the variety of activities I use in class. When I explain how I find my material they often say "Oh, can you tell me which books you use/which websites you use?" I show them and then they don't bother to use the resources.

I would LOVE it if a teacher trainer would show them a variety of EFL books/Internet sites, get each Kteacher to pick several ideas and then demonstrate how they would use them in class (merely pointing the K-horse in the direction of the water will not cause them to drink.) Once they've had a chance to practise adapting material and seen their fellow Kteachers doing the same they'll be more likely to use this borrow-and-adapt-materials method in their own classes. At least that is my hope. In this way we can spare countless students from the bonecrunching monotony of the typical Korean-lead Englishee class.

[lifeinkorea]

I guess the question should be, do the students "need" to speak English? If we make speaking English mandatory for test purposes, then those getting office jobs later in life with only Korean needed will have wasted their time studying English. It's no better than speaking Latin at that point beyond tidbit knowledge of why some of the words they use in their language come from English.

If we want to be most effective with our studies, we should learn how the gears work in a given language. After that, go to the country. Students can pretend there is some big important value in pretending to speak English in a classroom, but then they will leave that classroom 50 minutes later and go back into their native language as a basis for communication.

I don't quite understand why teachers should expect students to be fluent or be surprised when they are not at some standard. Of course, it would be nice, but if you give students the tools to learn then when they are ready they will make use of them.

So, to answer the question posted, what should you teach co-teachers? Teach them to give students a reason to learn without punishment and reward conditioning. Get them interested in their future as well.