Korean Job Discussion Forums

[abigolblackman]

Background: 2nd year with SMOE, changed schools between contracts [elementary school --> middle school. I wanted a different experience.] I was and am the first NET at both schools. My current school wasn't in the richest area, but my current school is not only in one of the poorest and sleaziest districts in Seoul, but is also one of the lowest school academically in Seoul [and that's WITH inflated grades].

The score: When I first arrived at the middle school, I was told the usual, the Korean teacher runs the class, I assist them, I teach conversation and pronunciations. I talk, students repeat. I teach from the book exclusively.

The first day of class, I show them that I am the powerpoint/multi-media master. I look at the book to see what it's trying to teach, and adapt it into an original powerpoint presentation that teaches everything the book is trying to say, but correctly.

The KETs soon realize that I can handle the lessons independently. We never have lesson plan meetings. I just come in on Monday with my USB, teach the full 40 minute class, and peace out. We rarely talk to each other outside of, "Hi". I was fine with this arrangement, until about a month ago, after the 3rd grade final testing period.

I have no idea why the final test would be 2 months before vacation, but there are many things I don't understand about Korea. Anyways, after that testing period, student's went crazy[-ier]. They wouldn't listen to the KT, let alone me. I started dolling out punishments left and right and the students just relished in them. They are done and know it.

All the KTs started showing movies in all the 3rd grade classes (every subject.) My class was the only one in which students were still "learning." I would come into class and kids would just say, "movie, no lesson, 영화!" After awhile, the 1st and 2nd graders started getting the bug even though their final test was 3 weeks out [this week now]. After one week of that crap, I stopped making powerpoint materials. I started teaching from the book, playing hangman for about 20 minutes, and generally put as much effort into my lessons as KTs were putting into theirs.

Oh course my school isn't feeling the new and improved big ol black man, and has asked me multiple times to be sparkling, to understand the students, and to make powerpoint materials, even though the BOOK IS DONE.

At this point, I have made enough materials over the past year and a half to prove that I have done my best to teach these kids a language they refuse to learn. At this I'm coasting until vacation, and even after the new year [and school year] starts I don't know if my attitude will change.

Am I in the wrong? Should I teach these unintelligent, lazy, apathetic kids that don't want to learn? Should I put effort into creating materials that go unappreciated? Does the integrity of the job matter that much? I'm still teaching, but not to the best of my ability and I'm at a point in which I don't care whether these kids learn anything at all [I understand that many of you may have already reached this point ages ago.]

abigolblackman

[nomad-ish]

i wouldn't worry about it; the third years are a handful after their finals. the schools do this so far ahead of vacation because the kids have to apply for their high schools. the korean teachers like us to continue "teaching" after the finals, however even they have admitted to me the kids are crazy after them. i don't teach the third graders anymore, but it really annoyed me when i'd walk by classroom and classroom of movies and still have my co-teachers tell me to teach.

show a movie, play a game, maybe have them do some group work, but don't expect a whole lot.

[lifeinkorea]

This is with a middle school? What you just typed out is what I am going through now with an afterschool program. They go to my co-teacher's classroom every other day and do crossword puzzles, search-a-words, and the occasional movie. Then, they come to my classroom and only want to do hangman.

So, I am looking at my bank account and realizing I have done a lot over the years. Maybe, I should find something else. Perhaps, study something at a college international program. I just don't know what or where.

[Reise-ohne-Ende]

Hey blackman and others.

Alright so, I'm really sorry to hear about how frustrated you are with your classes right now. I can understand why it would be annoying - the kids don't seem to care, and neither do many of the KTs. Here is my advice - stop thinking about who is "right" and who is "wrong". Think about how you can make the best out of the situation you're in.

First things first, I don't care how badly behaved your kids are, it is never appropriate to refer to them as lazy and unintelligent. Apathetic, sure. Undereducated. Unmotivated. Those are all things that can be fixed. Lazy and unintelligent are life sentences. You need to separate the kids from their circumstances and realize that many, if not most, of them would be happy, thriving, eager students if they were in the right environment. Having a teacher that dislikes them won't help anything; trust me, they can tell.

If you had to take a class in a foreign language - say Tagalog or something - that no one in your culture seemed to value, with teachers that didn't particularly like or respect you, and you were forced to keep coming to class months after the last test date, then you wouldn't be particularly chipper or involved either, I'm guessing.

So here are my thoughts. Make the most of your time. Since you don't have the issue of grades looming over your head, throw out the old model of teaching - few people will be attentive during a lecture or powerpoint if they're not going to be tested on it later.

Instead, try some hands-on, experiential learning. These kids are sitting on their butts watching movies all day, right? Not only are they frustrated with being forced to sit through school, but they have all this pent-up energy from sitting still and not engaging their mind. Find activities that let them release that frustration in a healthy way while experimenting with English. Give them a reason to think English matters, and make coming to your class the high point of their day.

One thing you could try is various icebreakers and improv activities - like in Whose Line Is It Anyway. For example, you could do the Party Quirks game: have the students write down suggestions (for example, famous people, occupations, superheroes, animals) or come up with your own. Three students draw a suggestion out of a hat (or whatever) and they have to take on that role. Then, one other oblivious student pretends to be the host of the party, and the three other students show up one after the other acting like their character. The host must then guess who the three characters are. If the host wins, they get to choose the next host. If not, they have to go again. You can play variations on this game with different situations, like The Dating Game, or a particular movie genre (you're all in a horror movie. Go!). The only rule is, they HAVE to speak English!

Another game you can play is have two people tape a piece of paper to their heads that has a famous person, occupation, etc. on it. They can see each other's, but they can't see their own. Then, they must talk to each other as thought that person is the character. The first person to guess their own character wins and can either replace their partner or themselves with a student of their choice.


You could probably play improv games until the school year runs out, there are so many, and kids usually love them. If you get bored with that, though, there are other things you can do. Choose a slightly subversive story book (like The True Story of the Three Little Pigs or The Stinky Cheese Man) and have old-fashioned story time, complete with voices and all.

Or play a game show, like The Match Game, or a board game, like Pictionary or Charades.

All of these things require using English. It's not as academic as you're used to, sure, but they will absorb a lot more than you realize, and you'll all have a lot more fun. Let me know how things work out. I really hope you get to feeling better about all this!!

[Fishead soup]

Try powerpoint Games. Check out
EFL Classroom 2.0 Baam Last One Standing, Fling the Teacher, Translit

[Captain Obvious]

[nomad-ish]

[abigolblackman]

@Fishead soup & Reise-ohne-Ende

Hey guys, those are in fact great recommendations. To clarify, when I say powerpoints materials, I mean lectures AND games. I have many games I have developed myself that work wonders if only...my kids were not lazy and unintelligent. I'm not one to throw these word out so seriously, especially when referring to children, but I speak the truth.

Forget about English, let's talk Korean, their own language. Just to give a few examples, my 3rd year students don't know Korean words such as "대학교" [college], "참다/인내하다" [patience/endure], and on more than one instance, I have been told that kids misspell "I/my" ["네" instead of "내"].

With the games/activities, my kids won't/refuse to understand the instructions even after the KT explains the activity. Even when they are willing to play, they will just get the answers wrong, not for lack of trying, but because they seriously know nothing.

Examples of laziness. Maybe it's more a form of destruction. Of course students don't bring their textbooks, but beyond that, they rip apart their textbooks, WHILE IN CLASS! They just tear out whichever pages is in front of them and do whatever with it.

@Captain Obvious

Indeed you are the obvious. You are right, 45 minutes.

abigolblackman

[Reise-ohne-Ende]

nomad, you're right of course about the lazy thing...I think there's a difference between *being* lazy and *acting* lazy though, and the way the OP just lumped it in with unintelligent made me uncomfortable.

There are definitely people in Korea who value English, but there are also, from my understanding, teachers who see NET's as an imposition that don't know what they're doing. And while English can help you with career stuff, there's still a kind of love-hate relationship with the West, and learning *anything* academic is not exactly something teens value in general.

It's in contrast to countries like Australia, where if Aboriginal people don't learn English, it can dramatically hurt their quality of life.

[Reise-ohne-Ende]

That does sound like a really awful situation. Is that like the Korean equivalent of the ghetto or the sticks, in that these kids just haven't been exposed to a way of life where education was important?

It doesn't make sense that a group of kids would all be mentally deficient unless you were teaching special ed. So I'm wondering what environmental circumstances might make things this way?

Lol now I'm imagining you trying to teach with textbook pages flying and children gnawing on the desks like the humans in Invader Zim ^^

[detourne_me]

I know too well the post-final blues.
I provide the materials for my 3rd grade students to keep learning English past finals, but I leave it up to them whether they practice it or not.

For example my lesson plan for the next two weeks is "Making a Travel Brochure"
I have a number of Travel books written in both Korean and English.
I have a lot of B4 paper.
I get the students into groups and give them each a different travel book.
The students make a mind map (brainstorm) ideas of "Where to stay?", "What to eat?", "What to do?", and "What to see?"
Then I ask them to build itineraries for a 3 day vacation.
Finally students are to fold the B4 paper and make a pamphlet out of their itineraries.
Great students make nice exciting presentations, OK students draw some pictures and add sentences like "See the Empire State Building", "Eat pizza in Little Italy".
And Well bad students barely get past the front page. Oh well, at least they've completed a brainstorming session in English.

[oskinny1]

Hey Reise, how long have you been teaching in Korea? You sure do seem to know a lot about how the students act and how much value is placed on English here.

[abigolblackman]

@nomad-ish

Thanks for the back-up. One thing though. My kids don't study. I know I said my kids grades are inflated. I mean their grades of Zeppelins. I talking top of the class is around 50 [out of 100 of course.]

How do I know they don't study? When I first moved to this area of Seoul, I didn't have Internet [I thought I was moving, a promise my school broke...]. I used the PC방 quite often, and who else did I see but ALL my students (I teach 1st, 2nd, and 3rd years.) My apartment not being far from the school, this can't be that surprising, but any PC방 I went too at anytime, every computer was filled with my school's students, not even other local school's students. They wouldn't even be playing games, they would just watch their friends play.

I can see where everyone is coming from, and I want to keep the positivity flowing. In American I was a fitness/dance/gymnastics instructor. I could whip a lazy/apathetic kid around in 2 weeks. I even had a Korean boy and his sister. neither of which spoke a lick of English, listening to me and following commands and having fun. But I really feel like I have been hitting my head on a brick wall with these kids for the past 4 months [that last month being a metal spiked wall].

[nomad-ish]

[sunnata1]

My understanding is that the final exam that was 2 weeks prior to the end of the semester was actually the entrance exam for high school.

Your grade 3 students should still have final exams for their final grades at the current school.

Of course, since their grades don't really matter (placement would probably have been determined by then) no one really cares at this point.

In my school all the teachers are still teaching. I think this is an issue with your principal.

What should you do? That's up to you of course.

I would try to create some sensible activity that incorporates all the English they should have learned into a conversational format. Give them the opportunity to utilize everything in a logical setting.

I'm not talking about 'Today we are going to the bank.'

Rather, how about a lesson plan where they role-play going to a concert and meeting an English speaking girl? Or, putting them in group and having them design an computer game for English speaking players.

In short, get them to apply what they've learned but keep it related to something a 15 year old boy is interested in - computers and girls.