Korean Job Discussion Forums

[jmuns]

i just spent an entire week on oral exams. I interviewed every student that I have, and asked them all two questions. I work at a high school for some background, and these are third graders. They were given 8 questions to study two weeks in advance. My coteacher also gave them time in her classes with them and helped them to write responses to the questions. I did not know this before the exam. Then for the exam the studentd are asked two questions at random. The exam is out of 20 points. Anyway, some kids got 0's because they never even opened their mouths, and some got 20's because they took 10 minutes out of there last two weeks to prepare. Long story short i see the grades today that my coteacher gave to the students and not one grade that I gave was the same, they have all been raised an average of 3 points. the kids who got 0's got 10's! when i asked why she said i must understand that their midterm grades are very low and she cannot keep giving them low grades. anyone else have a school where they just make up grades to make the students/parents happy?

[mayorgc]

If the kids get failing grades, won't that just reflect poorly on you?

Giving the kids the grades they deserve might make you feel better, but won't the school admins just assume you're a crappy teacher?

[ticktocktocktick]

My middle school won't let me give less than 4/10 for the oral test. They get a 4 if they don't say anything, and a 5 if they can say I don't know in English. I'm also obliged to give certain number of 10s, 9s, etc for each class. I have to give plus and minus points to most of my kids so the Korean teacher can adjust the grades later on. Last week, I had to retest 10 kids in one class, because they all got 4, and then the average was too low. It didn't matter that this was class 3-9, a holding pen for next years technical high school students. It's annoying, but it all comes from some bureaucrat higher up the chain who hasn't set foot in a classroom since some Korean teacher gave him an A because there weren't enough A students in the class. Go with the flow matey.

[8 years down]

Since they can't fail a grade I don't think elementary or middle-school grades matter at all.

It just looks bad for the teacher if their students all have low scores. That's probably why she bumped them up.

[oldfatfarang]

I'm very interested in how many PS teachers give these oral tests.

My school asked me to do it in my first week on the job, and I had a pretty spirited discussion with a co-teacher about it. End result, I said their test wasn't worth anything because it was only a 'read aloud' test. However, I noticed that the co-teacher still gave the speaking test at mid-terms.

So how many PS GET's actually give oral tests?

[Who's Your Daddy?]

My school made a "level test" that was so easy the students get 90 or 100. I said, "then what's the point? If the lowest students get 90 how will you know their level?" They didn't listen and went ahead with their meaningless test.

The progress checks in the Elementary book are ridiculous:

Put 1, 2, 3 below the picture. They listen to a short dialogue, but they only need here one word (e.g. "soccer") then they choose the "soccer" picture. They don't need to understand any other words.

The kids feel like a genius, but the Grade 3 students could probably score 100 on the Grade 6 "test."

Korean public school English is a facade.

[nomad-ish]

[Kaypea]

Wow, now our tests sound really hard.

I wrote them, basically lifting key sentences right from the textbook. We made them dialogues, 4 lines per kid. I gave the characters super corny names, hoping the KTs would change them, but no: 2nd graders get Sunny and Sammy, 3rd graders get Jack and Jill... poor kids.

The kids have to memorize (no reading), but they get 7/10 points just for trying. They get 8/10 for either: completing with a bunch of mistakes, or doing it perfect but not completing. 9/10 is for completing with a few mistakes, 10/10 for perfect.

I don't have to grade them, which I'm happy about. But, I have to babysit the class while the KT listens to the test, so I think I'm going to give them wordsearches, or let them sleep, read, drool, etc... unless if anybody has ideas for more productive teenage babysitting ideas.

[hapigokelli]

I teach 1st grade at a girls high school. I have 40 students per class.

We have 2 speech tests per semester.
No matter what happens I am required to grade as follows:

10 A's
20 B's
10 C's

It's ridiculous because some classes should have 15-20 A's and some don't deserve any at all. That's the way it goes in Korea...

[mayorgc]

It was explained to me that when an NSET arrives at a school, the admins expect the English grades to rise. If the grades remain the same, the NSET basically has had zero effect on student grades. The Korean teacher looks bad but so does the NSET

[nomad-ish]

[jmuns]

the grades have improved for the students who want to learn. not every student failed the exam. there were plenty of studetns who got the grades they deserve and those were high grades. its just crazy to think that you can take a test, not answer one question, and get a 50%. it doesnt look poorly on me that a kid has managed to take english class every year since grade school, yet can't answer a simple question he had two weeks to prepare for. thats on him and every teacher he had up until i came here less than a year ago. there is no native teacher in korea that can honestly say they have raised every grade in their class, and that every student learns in their class. that is just not true, or possible.

[Hardy Boy]

My students earn stickers, candy and game day.

Gawd I love teaching elementary school aged students. In small classes they learn so much with so much fun.

I wouldn't take any job where I had to put scarlet letters on the students. Their lives are judged enough as it is. Pile the tests higher and deeper?

Continual performance evaluation should make formal tests and grades unnecessary. Occasional shifting of highest level performers to better classes and lowest level performers to slower lower level classes is all that's needed. (I often think hagwons are perfect for english language learning - but only when I've been at a great hagwon, not the hellish ones).

[mayorgc]

[ippy]

It pretty much comes down to this: does the mark you give them in any way adhere to a national/prefectural criteria of assessment. That is, does it matter and is it measured against marks outside of the school. I suspect it doesnt and i suspect that your mark is nothing more than a personal informal log of the students abilities. That is, it doesnt really matter

I dont say this to be a jerk, but to remind you that sometimes teachers might have a different priority than giving the students an accurate and objective measurement of their abilities. Sometimes they may want the student to think theyre progressing, or that they have at least some chance of moving forward. A student can feel quite happily free from responsibility if you give them a flat zero. "zero? so i dont know anything? thank god, its too late now! so i guess i can stop even pretending to give a crap"

Let me illustrate why it happens:

I do try to be fair to all students (for instance i made them all do a quick reading test today on section 4 of the healthy eating and physical fitness (page 37) of middle school english 3. But honestly, words like nutrients, protein, carbohydrates, and minerals are a bit of a stretch for students from my bottom class who struggle through words like 'higher' and 'balance' so i cheated and made them only do the second half of the paragraph and marked them on their ability to read that passage (whilst the top and middle class have to read the full thing). The marks generally still reflect their abilities (5 Es, 9 Ds, 5 Cs, 5 Bs, and 2 As and three students present but considered special, so dont take any tests - i have the results right here), but in a sense the As, Bs and Cs might really be closer to aspirational marking rather than an objective assessment. Still, it does perform a valuable function

Its honestly nice to tell one or two kids from the bottom set that they scored 20/25 and thus an A even though the people in my top class would have probably got a B for the same passage... but they dont know that, so no harm no foul, plus it keeps them motivated which is probably the primary function of non essential testing at the end of the day. Well, primary if you are using it to give the studnets feedback. If its just for you and the coteach so they can see the students objective ability, well its a totally different story. The truth is, youve given the coteacher objective results which has allowed them to know the students level fulfilling one function, and s/he has adjusted them a bit to fulfill a different function (feedback and motivation).

Alternatively, if s/he is just covering her back with the parents, thats a bit skullduggerous unless of course its always worked like that (inflated grades) in which case youre 'objective' mark is actually not as accurate as you think it is