Korean Job Discussion Forums

[tanklor1]

Hey, I'm starting a public school job next week. I've spent a few years in the hogwan system but this is a different type of monster. To the public school vets: have any advice to share. I'll accept anything no matter how trivial. Thanks.

[oldfatfarang]

My 2 cents. PS is all about survival. Your survival. Pace yourself, you have a year's lessons with large classes of mixed level learners. Perhaps good co-teachers, perhaps bad.

The good thing is the kids really want to like their native teacher. Just be friendly and these kids will try to learn Englishee with you.
Good luck.

[ttompatz]

[Fishead soup]

For the first couple of weeks you're gonna be listening to tons of BS. First your Principal will talk about how well behaved his students are. Then your Co-teacher will talk about how busy they are and would you mind teaching the class alone sometimes/always. They are all basically trying to wash their hands of you. If you can't speak Korean don't agree to teach the class alone. It's difficult if you speak Korean. borderline impossible is you don't.

First they will allocate what kind of teacher you are. I find these fall in three catagories.

(1) Walking Talking Tape Recorder. This simply means you model the dialogues from the textbook. This can be really boring and not very effective. On the possitive side it's dead easy to do.

(2) Dancing Monkey- Check out Arirang T.V. there's a guy called Issiac who does this really well. This just means playing lots of games and edutaining the students. The one down side of this is it quickly leads to
Burn out.

(3) Real Teacher- If you are lucky enough to get into a school that has a good quality English multi-media room and Co-teachers that really care you can swing this if they agree to cut the big classes in half.

Pick your battles well. Don't sweat the small stuff. If someone gives you bad advice SNIP them Smile Nod Ignore Proceed.

Lesson Plans- Ask you co-teacher to give you a copy of the template.
Write in that template and save. Then write over it. What's written is not important. They just care about grids with fancy headings.

Open Lesson- Dog and Poney show. Public school is all about appearance.
Substance doesn't matter.

Enjoy your holidays

[Countrygirl]

Don't show anger with your co-teacher if you're angry with, say, the Principal. It will dampen your relationship. Of course it's alright to disagree but do it calmly and firmly.

With each new co-teacher I've had, I try to find a teaching rhythm that works for us. But if the co-teacher is lax on discipline, I'll take responsibility for it.

For me it took six months to find my way. The first day I taught grade 6 I vowed I'd be gone in a year. I'm now into my 3rd year and sad that I'll be leaving soon.

BTW, in between all the gripping there is good info on these boards. Use your free time to find info to help you.