Korean Job Discussion Forums

gazz · Joined: 13 Oct 2008

I know many people reading this message will have been teaching in Korea for at least 6 months now......

So the question is: Now with hindsight what do you wish you were taught before you taught your first class?

What made you most nervous about teaching?

Eg:

Lesson planning, class control ect ect?

At the same time any one reading who is about to come to Korea what are your feelings on this matter? What do you WANT to be taught?

It would be easy for this thread to turn into a anti blah blah blah thread (which I�m sure it will) but it would be helpful to gauge a wide range of opinions for some work that I will have to do in the next few months (for free by the way Smile

.

You never know your post might make a difference! Smile

(To some anyway)

PS - hag people are welcome to respond but I am more interested in PS people.

Thanks for your insight.................

A list would be most helpful:

1.
2. ect ect.

The title is TEACHING by the way not ' I wish i knew about the exchange rate' - ' I wish I had somewhere to live.'

Or I wish I had a Co-teacher that could speak Englisheeeeeeeeee Shocked

nomad-ish · Posted: Fri Feb 13, 2009 9:06 pm Post subject:

i'm at a PS. i wish i was told in the beginning to not take teaching so seriously here. yes, make a lesson plan and teach a decent class, but don't expect much improvement when you teach over 30 classes of 40-45 students each, sometimes not even seeing the kids every other week. if classes don't go according to plan, don't sweat it.

cruisemonkey · Posted: Fri Feb 13, 2009 9:42 pm Post subject:

I wish I had been taught to never look surprised/'jump', when in the middle of a lesson, a pane of glass on the classroom wall next to the hallway suddenly shatters (boys middle school). Wink

losing_touch · Joined: 26 Jun 2008 Location: Ulsan - I think!

Yes, I wish someone had told me that I really shouldn't care so much. I should do my job to the best of my ability and not take it to heart when the progress of the students isn't aligned with my training and expectations.

gazz · Joined: 13 Oct 2008

nomad-ish:

Yeah I can understand your feelings.

When I came to K land - I asked to be put in a large school (knowing the classes would be large), just for the challenge and to improve my teaching.

My local Co-ordinator also stressed that I would be of more use in a large school and she 'got me a place in a large school.'

Then the list was lost! (after a piss up) and now I teach in a school of around 60 kids!!!!

Whereas the poor person who got 'my school,' straight out of uni has classes of 35! Rolling Eyes

Korean planning for you, ESP when I pleaded to have large classes!!!

Now my class sizes range from 2 kids per class to 10. This is PS by the way!

An easy life but too easy...... Except the staff and kids at my school are awesome! I must be one of the lucky ones from the K last minute 'culture.'

But any way a list from some would be useful.
Surprised

Viaje · Joined: 03 Feb 2009 Location: Indebted, USA

I wish I knew what I would be doing before going to Korea, as I have never taught or taken Tesol or anything.

I can't imagine teaching 45 students or even 35, and its easy to see that they wouldn't learn very much.

I wish I knew if I would receive any training at all, where I was supposed to get the lessons from, what the textbooks were like and what the students would be tested on and expected to learn.

I wish I knew how the school, superiors and co-teachers or even peers would judge me, again what is expected of me.

I wish I knew how many classes I would teach. Someone mentioned thirty and I thought in ps you teach only 22, unless you are getting overtime.

I wish I knew what computer skills I am presumed to have, or what I will need. Iheard of power point and don't know what that is.

nomad-ish · Posted: Sat Feb 14, 2009 1:29 am Post subject:

22tea77 · Joined: 22 Oct 2007 Location: United States

There was really nothing that I could have been taught BEFORE I entered my first class that would have made things go smoother. All I needed to know for this job was learned AFTER I first set foot in a classroom. No one could have enlightened me, explained it to me, or prepared me.

My advice, don�t worry too much about what you need to know before you enter the classroom, instead, concentrate on just how adaptive and flexible you will be once you arrive here.

No one can tell you now what you will need to be taught beforehand, that is something that you will have to teach yourself once you�re here and in the thick of it!

Good luck!