Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Alvin Stardust]

I have a few wall posters inside and outside the classrooms (in Korean):

'Turn off your cellphone before class begins'

I tell all my learners that this is a strict rule. Korean teachers will not put up with it (as mentioned in previous posts). Turn it off! Don't put it on 'rumble' or whatever, turn it off. I'm sure they can survive for 50 minutes without it. I'll give every learner one chance, but after that I'll stop my class if one goes off. No silly 'fines' or whatever. It's impolite, rude to other learners (plus the teacher), and it often shows how they treat English classes with a foreigner. They are not doctors or nurses 'on call'. If they're waiting for a very important phone call, they shouldn't be in the lesson on that day/time.

Korean teachers will not put up with it, so why should you? Respect for the other learners and the teacher please!

[jaebea]

I like lawyertood's approach. I think it's pretty smart and it's a good deterrent... :D

I'm interested to hear how well it worked though.. :)

jae.

[Real Reality]

Schwa,

But don't most foreign teachers have to be pushovers. You want a new contract, don't you? Do you want to receive a nice pay increase?

At my university, the students opinions and comments count very heavily toward having contracts renewed. You should have good comments. And, you should score higher on the numerical (objective?) evaluation than the Korean professors. Even if your score is equal to the Korean professors, you should start arranging things to leave. No new contract.

Remember this article excerpt:
Foreign professors do most of the heavy lifting in terms of course loads, devoting themselves almost exclusively to teaching. Nevertheless, they tend to be treated as hired hands, without academic standing, and lacking the possibility of career advancement or tenure. They must submit to yearly contracts (compensated at a rate only 60 percent of their Korean peers) while walled off from the permanent Korean faculty who benefit from travel, research funding, sabbaticals, etc.
http://joongangdaily.joins.com/200206/14/200206142349223599900090109011.html

[Mr. Pink]

[IconsFanatic]

[Harpeau]

A few things to remember:

Last semester, out of 6 classes and 250 uni students, maybe 4 phone calls rang during the whole time. Money makes them think before doing something stupid.

We usually would just take the money and split the clas into teams and play a geograpgy quiz~ winner winning juice.

[Gollum]

[ajuma]

I do the same as lawyertood and it works great! I stand over them and say "Say 'hello'!!" Usually they're really embarrassed (and the rest of the class scrambles for their phones!) and it doesn't happen again. (Well, maybe one more time towards the end of the semester!).

Alvin Stardust, some of us DO teach doctors, nurses and businessmen. They HAVE to take calls, and most of them are polite enough to step outside to do it. (Me holding the door open is a big hint!). Now, if I could just get some of those people on the bus to be as polite!

[Dawn]

Rule out our academy is that all cell phones are to be turned of before class. If a phone rings in class or if the student pulls it out and starts playing with it, teacher confiscates it and passes it on to the director. On first offense, the student can get it back at the end of class after a serious chat with the director. On second offense, the student gets it back only after the parents are contacted and consent to its release. (Some actually ask the school to hold it for a week or two before giving it back.) To my knowledge, we've never had a third offense.

All this is tempered, of course, with common sense. When the father of a couple of our kids got deployed to Iraq a few weeks ago, we didn't make an issue over the dad's calling in the middle of class to let them know he'd gotten there and that he loved them, etc.