Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Who's Your Daddy?]

Mainly thinking about elementary school here.

Do you think the PS camp has an educational English value or is really just babysitting?

[ttompatz]

[Seoulio]

+1

The school considers it babysitting (on average) and will bend to a pushy paenst will no matter how irrational

BUt A good teacher does what they can for the most part

[Oliver]

Just part of the job. I dont see it as babysitting. Job is to teach English for a couple of weeks. Try and make it as fun and interesting for the students as possible.

Ideally it would be nice to have a summer break but Korea is education mad.

So yeah, I guess it does have educational value but like ttompatz says, the idea is to be more fun than regular English.

[Ukon]

A few English camps are run pretty hardcore with serious high standards(and hopefully much higher pay)...

[Seoulio]

[SpiralStaircase]

We have a fairly good setup here. Being an 'academic' high school, students only have one week of vacation. The rest of the four week vacation period is school as usual (with the exception of Saturdays).

Native teacher is asked to select 10 students that have shown particular interest throughout the semester. Students recieve golden tickets (My co-teacher is a fan of the Office) Native teacher plans for 5 daily outings along with an hour study period to prepare students for outings.

Native teacher is given a wad of cash.

Native teacher takes students swimming, bowling, game room (board games), movie theatre, and finally to the restaurant.

Students = happy.
Parents = happy.
Principal = happy.
Native teacher = very happy.

[oldfatfarang]

- Babysitting disguised as English teaching.
- English teaching disguised as babysitting.
- English teaching to teach English.

Take your pick. They all work in Korea.
Personally, it's no secret that my 2 camps this summer vacation are designed to keep the POE happy (GET must work normal contract hours).

My kids are into their 10th day of camps and are they are tired. There's no pretence about them learning anything now. We are just all going through the motions. Way to go POE - you're killing my kids enthusiasm for English - and you're demotivating another GET. But hey, that's OK - plenty more where he comes from.

[Xuanzang]

[Summer Wine]

On my first day, when I was suddenly notified that I had to continue the afterschool program (the camp comes later) I asked the 2nd grade teacher "why are the students still coming to school if its supposed to be vacation?", she stated outright that we are baby sitting them.

So I have taken that to heart and am trying to make the time more activity filled, game orientated and I don't sweat it if the kids aren't being too motivated.

I know why they are here and so do they, the school is a good place for them to spend thier days where they can meet with friends and stay out of thier parents hair.

So, I am taking it pretty relaxed. So the boys want to play starcraft in english and then spend all that time asking me questions about the names of the charcters, etc. Thats ok with me, those boys just used more english in the last 20 minutes than I have heard from them in the past 2 months.

I had 4th grade girls drawing pictures on the board, following instructions given to them in english by thier friends. They seemed to enjoy it and were quite artistic. The two girls who wished to spend thier time doing maths puzzles that would stymie most high schoolers in my country, I am ok with that. They participated part of the time in english and part of the time, I learnt that two 4th grade elementary students are doing times tables that blow me out of the water.

I learnt today that my fifth grade student can multi task while playing starcraft. If I was the Korean Government, I would start putting all my money into UAVs, the kids can do computer actions at an amzing speed compared to me in my day.

[kiwipenny]

We are always gonna have something to complain about in this country and even if our current situation is better than our last we will still find something that we'd like to change about the school or program etc.....some people wish they were teaching less and wish they had a break and some wish they were actually teaching and not just babysitting.. I've been in both situations and every school is different I guess .

I just finished the last day of actual studying(luckily just doing whatever I wanted to keep kids excited about English) in camp.. and my 6th graders were well behaved ..but.. no enthusiasm.. and yes.. they were pushed to join camp .. not because they wanted to... so we played a little game called SNOWBALL FIGHT ... Love it!

For all the teachers that need something to wake up the kids and take time out ...get some blank paper and write down some key words or phrases on each sheet. I was studying jobs with the kids and I wrote on each page 'I want to be a _____. ' or 'I want to be a pilot'etc. Simple but at least they get to say/read something. Kids get into two teams and throw the snowballs at each other( sheets of paper scrunched up ) repeatedly until they get tired or until teacher says stop... then each team, counts how many they have and then reads out the words on the sheets or makes a sentence with them. It is always a hit with even the worst behaved kids because they get to throw stuff and it doesn't hurt so it is pretty safe ^^

I found this game on MES English and there are heaps that you can do with any topic you are studying.

Sure makes the babysitting/teaching etc a lot more fun~ ^^

[Grantasmagoria]

Babysitting? Not in the least! And how typical of a foreign teacher to only think of him/herself. Think of those poor Korean housewives...how do they ever survive all the shopping, TV watching, bowling, and coffeeshops.

[sonicmatt]

my favorite is when they tell me I will have a conversational class for 2 hrs. They tell me this about 3 days before it begins so I scramble to find conversation materials,ideas, etc. Only to find when the students that walk in the door are some of my lowest level and barely speak the most basic of phrases. then when i say something about it, it is somehow my fault that I didnt prepare adequately enough.

[The Gipkik]

Yes, English summer camps are sometimes no more than glorified babysitting sessions. It depends how well the school has organized the camp--and in Seoul, many schools organize the camp before your arrival. Therefore, you've got a schedule and you've got the lessons that you've prepared, but things always seem to go wrong. Some classes appear and disappear and you're left with all this extra time--and with a class that has already completed the lesson for the day. Extended snack breaks and you name it. Naturally, you make do, but without any additional warning it can mean babysitting. Not exclusively, but there were plenty of times when it was clear that a significant number of students didn't want to learn any English, didn't have any English language ability, and were brought to the camp as a way to keep them "busy."

[Summer Wine]