Korean Job Discussion Forums

[NM14456]

I know some similar threads have been started but this issue may have its own slant.

I�ve been running an extra evening class and have had good attendance according to some co-workers (17-18 out of 20 or 21 students usually show). I went into it with expectations that were a bit higher than the day class but mostly found the evening class to pretty much parallel what I had in the daytime. I began to see the usual percentage of kids who just come because their mother or father or homeroom teacher has forced them into coming � participation was hardly guaranteed in the class. The classes have also been as mixed as the day class which means getting everyone involved is a trial and error process.

Two to three weeks ago, we went through a period (in the day) where everything was getting interrupted by tests, teachers who insisted some of my class time be put aside for students to study for tests and then a couple of days were lost for school wide activity days. On a day when no students showed up (night after a day set aside for practice tests) another teacher admitted their class only had 1-2 students and that attendance was really low for a lot of teachers. My attendance has remained very low even though I�d brought it up to my Korean co-teacher and the head teacher. They eventually told me that most of the teachers have to make calls to the student�s houses and hound everyone to come in. The implication was that teachers would lose money if enough students didn�t come to the extra evening classes.

Today, my co-teacher was asked to help me by calling the students to remind them to come in and I�ve talked with a few today that I saw that they should start back the next class. Just before I leave school my co-teacher tells me that 4 students said they stopped coming to the evening school as I showed too many videos. I have used more class time with a video clip (Mr. Bean type stuff) and worksheets over the last month or so � some of it to make it lighter for the kids during test periods and a week when everyone seems more unfocused. Frankly, it sounded like an incredibly lame excuse and she could have seen through it. I don�t even like doing the eve. classes really and wouldn�t care if they cut it. I explained what I�ve been doing and recommended that if the students didn�t feel like the classes met their needs, I would understand why the school might want to cut the class. I think my co-teacher was shocked at the reversal on it and immediately started saying how immature the students were etc.. She said it was �really sensitive� about keeping the evening classes. I pushed it a bit more and said I just didn�t think it was right to charge students for something they didn�t feel was worth their time. She still looked semi-shocked and said we could �talk about it later� as it was time to go home.

I�m just wondering what similar experiences people have had with evening classes, kids not showing up etc�..any thoughts on what else may be going on is appreciated. If it�s vague to you, it�s certainly vague to me�..

[sallymonster]

I teach afterschool classes at my middle school.

An afterschool program that parents pay for is pretty much a hagwon within a public school, and they have many of the problems normally associated with hagwons.

Ever heard one of those hagwon horror stories where the teacher kicks a student out of class (or sends him/her to the director's office) only for the kid to come back with a lollipop in hand? I have major problems with behavior in one of my afterschool classes, and this is partly due to the fact that I have virtually no disciplinary support and the students know it. I tried getting help from a co-teacher in the class before, when a student tried to sneak out of class, but the co-teacher took the student's side. I tried kicking the worst kids out of class, and that worked great for one day, until the school/parents stepped in and put a stop to this practice.

I have a different afterschool class that's government funded, and guess what, I have backup for discipline in that class (never needed to use it, just mentioning to the class improves behavior), and they're much better behaved despite the lower level of English.

My school is great in many ways, but because of this issue I'm going to start gathering my documents and prepare for the reality that I may soon need to look for another job.

[NM14456]

[anamika]

I'll just chime that high school students seem to give up on these kinds of classes very easily, and not to take it personally. Apart from the factors you mentioned, you've probably already noticed that losing one student almost always equals losing two students (or more). That's to say, often a student wants to join the class, but won't do it without the security of a friend being there. So they rope a friend into joining, but if one of the two stops coming, for whatever reason, the other will stop coming too. The same thing can happen for groups of three or four - and it can snowball pretty quickly.

This doesn't help you much now, but there's a CYA technique that can be helpful on the first class - though it would work best in cases where students drop like flies very early in the semester. Make an anonymous survey form, write at the top the kinds of things you say on the first day of class ('I'm here to help you, I really want to see you succeed', etc.), then ask them questions like 'What is most interesting about learning English?' 'What's most challenging...?' 'What would help you to improve the most?' etc. If students drop, and an administrator questions what happened, you at least have something tangible in the survey forms to point to, e.g. 1) you made a specific effort to tailor your class to the students 2) many of the students could only provide one word answers and could not form any sentences to answer your questions (read: their English level is so low that they won't benefit from an after school class much).

Just a few thoughts. Good luck with the rest of the semester - I was in your shoes about a year ago.

[lifeinkorea]

[Fishead soup]

From what I understand is that evening classes are for keeners. That's why I use more intensive materials like Andrew Finche's" Tell Me More". If the kids don't like it "SO WHAT They can drop out. Better to lose your after school class than baby-sit a bunch of sleepy Starcraft addicts.

Learn to say "So What!!!!!!!". It's really empowering.

Save all your Mr. Bean stuff for after exams . That's when you'll really need it.

[NM14456]

[NM14456]

[NM14456]