Korean Job Discussion Forums

[bogey666]

I had a little conversation today with my current coordinator/co-teacher who's in her mid twenties.. a bare 2 years into teaching (her English is excellent btw)

and I asked her if it was true (as one might think by reading all the posts here about barely English speaking Korean co-teachers, etc)

because at my school that's never been the case. my coordinator last year who left (also a co-teacher) , her English was also quite good.
my other 2 co-teachers - I wouldn't call their English excellent, but it's not bad... I can certainly easily communicate with them .. but they're older.

the point my current coordinator made (and I'm curious if most of you agree, especially those who have bad English speaking co-teachers) is that this is typically caused by an AGE divide - meaning Korean English teachers in their forties and up, though their reading and writing skills may be decent, their spoken English tends to lag.. and often significantly.

but in her opinion this isn't an issue with younger teachers (twenties and earlier thirties). She said at her training in Pajoo City (I think GEPIK has a training center there) the prospective English teachers there had to conduct classes entirely in English under the watchful eyes of their teachers/handlers who according to her were all native Americans.

and she said the level of English of her co attendees was very good.

so - those of you who bitch about the bad english of your Korean co-teachers.. are they old/older????

[Xuanzang]

Mine is 45 and spend paid time abroad by SMOE. However, she still pronounces symbols (shimboleus) and finished (as finishee) in the Korean Konglish style. I suppose her communication skills are so poor because she never had a native co-teacher before.

There`s a young home economics teacher at my school (fresh from the SMOE training program) but she`s quite introverted and doesnt like English smalltalk with me at least. Like with a car, it comes down to the amount of wrench time they put into it. Some teachers continue with their English after the English bootcamp and others just let it slip away.

[Misera]

My handler was my coteacher (grades 3 & 5) last year and her English was great.. the other coteacher (grades 4 & 6) had ok English but it was lacking enough that she taught maybe 90% in Korean and the kids referred to her as the English teacher that doesn't speak English. I still liked her though because as a teacher she was good, just her own English abilities weren't at a level where I didn't need to simplify to the extremes.. But for her, it was somewhat of a temp job while she was pregnant.. she was a homeroom teacher previously and actually did not want to teach English. Handler is in her early 30's, other coteacher was in her late 20's.

A temp temp teacher (grades 3 & 5) I had for about a week and a half because of an AWOL temp coteacher had good English.. she was in her mid-late 40's. She understood everything I said.. She only really substitutes. She's currently substituting a 3rd grade class because the teacher was injured or something.

Current coteacher for grades 3 & 5 has fairly decent English skills. She comes off as not having high English speaking ability but she's actually above average. She doesn't need me to repeat my instructions or really anything else (I do simplify my phrases for her though). She's somewhere in her 30's.. I'm not sure exactly how old... she's tiny and has braces......

The temp coteacher (contracted through May) for grades 4 & 6 now seems to be able to ramble on and on about stuff but only if she starts the convo. That doesn't mean I fully comprehend what exactly she's going on about though. If I ask her anything I need to rephrase it maybe 5 different ways until she maybe gets it (but 80% of the time she really doesn't). It's like her speaking ability is better than her listening ability. Her listening skills aren't low because of the lack of exposure to native speakers though.. she's taught at other schools with native speakers. She's having trouble carrying out any of my instructions.. to the point that the students understand before she does (the 4th graders...). She's in her mid 30's.

So it's not about age........ there just really are bad/low English ability coteachers.

Though at my school, no one wants to be an English teacher. Except.. the bad ones. Others are forced into it/transferred in.

[bogey666]

[Big Mac]

My main co-teacher is 34 and has severe difficulties communicating in English, but somehow we are able to get our points across. It takes a lot of work sometimes though. She cannot, and is actually unwilling, to teach her classes in English.

My Grade 3 co-teacher is about 23 and just graduated from university. I cannot carry on even a simple conversation with her and have to communicate with her through my other co-teacher, who as I said has trouble communicating in English, but is much better than this girl. She also teaches her classes entirely in Korean.

Both of them are able to understand written English fairly well and are also able to send me e-mails that somewhat make sense.

We have recently split our classes between high level and low level students and I divide my time equally between both classes. I teach entirely in English on my own and they teach entirely in Korean on their own. Despite their lack of English skills it seems to be working.

Many of my high level students have mentioned to me that they don't think the Korean teachers can speak English very well. I don't tell them that they can actually speak better English than their teachers!

[bogey666]

I'm a little surprised by these responses.

bigmac, et al - are you out in the boonies somewhere?

or within the Seoul Metropolitan area - including GEPIK?

[Big Mac]

Yeah, I'm out in the boonies. I'm in Seosan City, Chungcheongnam-do, population of about 150,000.

[Otherside]

Last year I had a great co-teacher, her English was poor to terrible, but she was a good teacher and we managed to communicate. She was mid 40s, and didn't want want to be an English teacher (she wanted to be an Art teacher- quite a famous artist in Korea btw, but my school was too small to have a seperate Art teacher so she got both roles).

New co-teacher is a much better English speaker. She's in her 50s and recently went abroad on a sponsored trip (she was the oldest teacher on the course). Whether she's a better teacher is up for debate, and I've had my issues with her, but as an English speaker she's quite good. She obviously goes against the gist of what the OP is saying, but I'd say she is the exception rather than the rule.

[Xuanzang]

[LostinKSpace]

I have four co-teachers one who can communicate really well and three who struggle to put more than a sentence together.

[Otherside]

[oldfatfarang]

I've taught with about 20 co-teachers in public MS schools, private MS HS schools, and on camps etc (in Seoul and in the countryside). They all spoke beautiful English - and could communicate on just about anything. Naturally, they were also gramma gurus.

However, I notice the 'older' teachers are very reluctant to speak English in class/in front of students. We can talk about anything (in English) in my office/school grounds - but in class, they only speak Korean.

Why? The kids laugh at their pronunciation. It's all about 'face.'
I know how they feel - some students just about wet themselves when they saw my attempts at writing Hangul: "Ha, Ha, baby writing etc."

So I guess I've just been lucky having co-teachers with excellent English skills. It must be tough trying to co-teach when you can't communicate with your partner.

[Darashii]

Previous co-teacher was on top of her game. No problems communicating. Majority of the ones before her at my previous schools were also pretty darn good.

Current co-teacher is unintelligible, even for the students.

[eac02]

All 5 of my co- teachers are over 40. The youngest one, who is my handler has the best English and she is actually interested in improving. As for the other 4...
1 might be okay but her pronunciation is so bad that half the time I don't know what she is saying
2 have decent English to pretty good English but don't talk much
and the last one, who I really dislike, has bad English. In fact I have never heard her speak English aside from when she says "I need to translate" in class. Her translation is always wrong too, the kids never end up doing what I said.

Currently we have some student teachers at our school though and they all have excellent English.

[littlelisa]

I'm in a slightly special case as I teach in an immersion program. For my class (total of 34 grade 1 students), there are two homeroom teachers; I'm one, and my coteacher is the other. We don't teach together, but we each teach half the group and then switch.

So my coteacher doesn't actually teach English at all. She teaches hangeul, hanja, and other Korean subjects, and I teach language arts, math and science. However, her English is alright (not great, but alright) and she can communicate with me in English. We also sometimes speak in Korean because I'm trying to improve my Korean. She helps me with Korean and I help her with English.

We get along well together and joke around a bit, and she would never undermine me or my decisions.

I think she teaches well and I respect her and her teaching very much.

Her son, who I see occasionally, is very well behaved and sweet. Always polite to me.

I feel lucky to have such a great coteacher, even if I'm not ever teaching with her at all.

I'm not sure of her age exactly, but I'm pretty sure that it's somewhere in her mid thirties. Her son is also in grade 1, though in a different class.