Korean Job Discussion Forums

[air76]

It cracks me up to no end when I am walking down the hallway at the university with a coffee, or coke, or ramen, or cookie, or candy bar in hand, and a student (sometimes one of mine and at other times not) will run up to me, stick out their palms and whine "gimme, gimme, gimme" or "me, me, me"....20 year old "adults" begging like homeless bums or hagwon children for a swig of my 2% or a bite off my choco-pie.

[Hyeon Een]

That's pretty hilarious.

I don't get that at my uni though =( If a student runs up to me in the hall it's usually because they want to explain their latest absence (best student last semester: He had a cold, followed by swine flu, follow by pneumonia, it excused him from 12 weeks of class out of 16.. or so he thought..)

I don't get the starving 20 year olds though. Are you accidently in N. Korea or something?

[air76]

I hardly doubt that they are starving.

I just find it amazing how childish most of my students still behave. Last week I brought in a few board games to several of my classes as we have 2 hours classes 3 times a week and I figured we'd do something a little lighter for an hour....and the "kids" went absolutely bonkers berserk, as if they'd just won the World Cup. I was like, "Seriously? You're THAT excited about playing Scrabble and UNO?"....and this wasn't just one class, all 3 classes that I brought the games to behaved in the same manner.

I know what you mean about the absences as well....my university's policy is that if they bring a doctor's note then they are excused...no questions asked. Of course a doctor's note is simply a copy of their prescription and not necessarily a note from a doctor saying that they need a week off of school. So you go to the doc, get a prescription for Tylenol and an antihistamine and then just take off as many days as you want.

Every once in a while a kid will be missing for 3-4 classes in a row and then I'll get an email from admin saying that I need to excuse the following list of students for the following reasons...and the list usually looks something like this:

Name 1 --- eye
Name 2 --- hip
Name 3 --- lip

Nothing like getting a week off scott-free with a sore lip or dry eye.

[coralreefer_1]

First I want to start this post off by saying that I am not a teacher, but rather a student at a Korean University, so I really have no experience nor make a claim to understand such staples as classroom management. With that in mind however, I have to wonder if the situations you described have more to do with how you present yourself to your students..rather than "them" being childish.

Being the only western student at my university who can speak Korean at a high enough level to take and actually understand full lectures in Korean has presented opportunities to view the university environment in a way that may be a bit unique around this forum, as I am not in a GSIS program surrounded by other foreigners.

That being said..I have walked down the hall with many professors of numerous occasions (practically after each class) and students over the 4 years I have been at this university..and I have NEVER seen the students do such a thing to a Korean professor, nor could imagine them doing so. Of course this is probably due to the fact that students are taught from a young age that foreign language instructors are not to be held in the same regard and are not deserving of the same level of respect as Korea Professors..(an idea that I find quite offensive)

In any case, I was forced to take (as required for graduation) two semesters of an English course a few semesters ago. Actually, when I tried to register for that class initially using the school website, the class was already full which would require a special permission slip from the office, and basically begging the instructor face to face to allow me to join the class even though the roster was full. At that time when I went to the department office to get the contact info for the instructor, the desk people looked at me with a grim look of pity and sadness. Why? Because that teacher, who was actually a quite pleasant young lady from South Africa..had instilled a reputation among the students in the department that she was not one to be messed with. They looked at me like I was crazy to be asking to join her class after the deadline, and basically told me directly before I called her that there was no chance even though that is exactly what they told me I had to do! I can never imagine a student begging her for food, and certainly not asking to take a sip from her coffee cup or soda can.

My point is..she presented herself in such a manner that students treated her in much of the same way they treated a Korean professor. Now I'm sure in their minds they did not think of her in the same way, but in her class, and in face to face encounters with her..they would adopt the same sheepish body posture and speak in the same respectful tone of voice as they did with the Korean professors. Part of that was probably due to the fact that not only did she show herself as someone who was not to be fooled with, but her class was REQUIRED for graduation, and they all knew that unlike the other professors, she would not hesitate to fail a student.

So I have to wonder (and again, I mean no offense to you or your teaching style) but I wonder if perhaps the way you have presented yourself to your students and the reputation you have developed among the student body (for sure they tell each other which classes and professors are easy to deal with or not) may be a reason some may see you as more of a "friend" whom they can beg food from.

Just a thought..no offense intended.

[jugbandjames]

You're playing board games with students in a college class? And how much are they paying for that?

[blackjack]

[Hornet166616]

[jugbandjames]

Okay, I can see your point about Scrabble, and thinking back to my Conversational Spanish class in college, we basically just talked about Mexican soap operas the whole time, but that class was just an easy A. I still think it's more appropriate for an English club or something.

[air76]

I will agree with the poster who said that part of the explanation is that my demeanor in class is more relaxed and fun than their Korean professors. However, the function of these conversational English classes is for the students to enjoy speaking English and to practice speaking, and not to listen to me lecture about grammar. So, if being more relaxed and fun encourages the students to speak then this is a success. That being said...even if students behave differently towards me than towards their Korean professors (which I actually prefer as I hate being bowed at and hate being called professor) this is not an excuse for whining like babies for me to buy them ice cream whenever I go into the school store. Plus, I know it's not just me because a class complained to me last year because their Korean professors buy them ice cream and the foreign professors don't.

I taught at a camp this past winter at a different university and I will admit that the students didn't behave this way there, even though the camp was more relaxed and more fun oriented. It seems odd to me that students from different schools would behave SO differently, but it was definitely the case. My university is tiny, so maybe that has something to do with it.

With regards to the board games...again, the purpose of this class is for the kids to practice, practice, practice, and not to "learn" the material from the book per se. Students were instructed that if they were not engaging in English conversation while playing the games that they would have the games taken away and we'd study from the book. Furthermore, as I mentioned before, this was for 1 hour, when we have 6 hours of class per week. So out of 24 class hours thus far, 1 has been spent playing board games. The school encourages us to take the kids outside (during class), show them movies from time to time, and so on. At the end of the semester each class has a school-sponsored cake party...so yeah, the university has made it known that playing games and similar activities from time to time are definitely part of the curriculum.

At any rate...I am not sure why I am spending so much time defending my teaching methods. The purpose of the conversation classes is for the kids to converse, and this is what they do in my classes.

[ACT III]

[Captain Obvious]

The immaturity's hilarious, but better too excited than too sleepy.

[asutrack]

Perhaps we work at the same University. I often think I am teaching middle schoolers but then that would be being disrespectful to the middle school student!

[air76]

[Goon-Yang]

[languistic]