Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Chris.Quigley]

I was inspired to start this thread because of the "hangman" debate.

Lets start with the resources we are given in the PS system.
Whats the most important resource that they give you?

Time

Sadly, I was only given around 35 hours with each student(class) over the course of the entire year. Since each class was 50 minutes long, you can actually shorten that to around 29.2 hours.

Now lets see what else they give us.

Multi-level classes and one multi-level class will be at another level than other multi-level class. IE, you will have one class with 10 kids who speak English fluently and 30 kids who can only say, "Fine thank you and you." Then you will have another class with 2 students who speak English fluently because they lived in Canmore, Alberta for 3 years, and you will have 38 students who have a basic grasp of English grammar and vocabulary.

This makes lesson planning a nightmare. Why? Because for many of you this is multiplied by around 20.

However, many of you do not give up even though this is the case. Your efforts are admirable really.

So, given an impossible situation, how do you go home at the end of the day feeling good about yourself as a person and as a teacher?

Personally, I had two goals, neither of them were "by the end of the year my students with be at the intermediate level" or "by the end of the year they will all be able to score 50 points higher on the TOEFL test."

My goals, maybe this sounds cheesy and stupid to most of you, were to change the attitudes of my co-teachers towards foreigners and to let the kids know that there was more to life than school. I also hoped that I could develop a good enough relationship with my students that they would know if they needed help with anything, or someone to talk to, that I would be there. (I think I was successful with this because 1 year later I still get emails from many of them).

Blasphemous? Yes I agree if you are a hardcore teacher. However, we have to work within the confines of what we are given. "Theres more to life than school" thats not something a teacher should teach their students right?

What were my lessons like? Many days I brought my guitar and we would sing songs in English together. Other days we would play games like BAAM or Big Gun Little Gun (Thanks EnglishMatt for those lessons ^^). I did a few lessons on Canada: Terry Fox (Canadian Hero), Hockey and Canada's aboriginal people. I also invented my own games like TAXI where students gave directions to a group member to pick up and drop off passengers. Did some of my lessons suck? Yup! They did! Did I sometimes play 20 questions or hangman to fill they last 3 minutes of class? Yep I did!

But at the end of the year, I feel that I came close to accomplishing many of the things that I set out to do in the beginning. Yet, I beat myself up most days because I thought "I am a crappy teacher." But what is a teacher anyways?

Making great lesson plans and a curriculum that flows from one class to the next are great. Though I question how much one can accomplish with around 30 hours in a year. When someone would suggest to me, "just go to Seoul and buy a curriculum book and work from that." I couldn't do it. Why? Because I knew that 90% of the students in each class would either find it too easy or too difficult. However, none of them found singing Yellow Submarine from the Beatles too difficult or too easy. None of them dosed off when we played Mafia. They all got pretty involved, and some of them used a lot of English when they argued with me about the rules in Big Gun Little Gun. (Funny how anger can motivate them to actually start speaking.) I also knew that buying a curriculum book would make accomplishing my two goals more difficult.

In the eyes of Koreans, it's the entertaining, fun-loving, yet responsible and caring weiguk, who is usually the most successful. (Doesn't hurt to be a good teacher also) This is what they want. So why not give it to them?

I don't know? What do you think makes a good teacher? Do you agree with my assessment? Are you appalled at my teaching philosophy?

[some waygug-in]

Depends what you mean by good.


There were few that I met in the elementary school system that I thought were good in the sense that they were effective in delivering lessons and having the students participate.

One teacher in particular comes to mind who made his own little video lessons, powerpoint lessons and music lessons. He had to fight with his co-teacher quite a bit to be allowed to teach his material, but he was not afraid to step on her toes a few times to get his point across.



Many were "good" in the sense that they kept the Korean staff happy, but I'm sure that like me and you they did not feel very satisfied at the end of the day.

[Chris.Quigley]

I guess that the reason I never felt satisfied was that I knew that my lessons were not really teaching them anything concrete.

I knew that most of the time they were having fun and that the co-teachers were satisfied with the lessons(most of the time). I was lucky that a few of my co-teachers cared enough to give me constructive feedback (I mean criticizing me because they wanted me to improve.)

But yeah... When it came to an actual curriculum... I was an EPIK failure in that regard haha... (sorry stupid pun)

At the same time, some teachers who have awesome lessons that actually teach students something, end up not being renewed or their students and co-teachers hate them...

[some waygug-in]

[andrewchon]

One thing I was not prepared for was the 'talent day'. One day a year, students put on a show for parents: singing, dancing, making music etc to show that the money wasn't wasted. I was very embarrassed on the talent day because I was the only teacher who didn't have something on the show. Pity, because one good performance from your students can leave a good memory for all and forget about the 364 days of trench warfare.

[jrwhite82]

No one ever said your approach to teaching was wrong. All we were saying was that there are many better options to use besides hangman to fall back on if your pacing is off. Like you were saying in your post. You only get these kids for 30 hours a semester. That is not a lot. So you should be using every available minute doing something meaningful that adheres to curriculum goals. To me, hangman is not effective. But who am I, I'm not a director at the MOE, I'm not your boss. If they like what you are doing, keep up the good work. But in my opinion as a fellow teacher, I think you could improve your pacing.

Pacing is a big part of teaching. When do you need to move on, when do you need to slow down and reteach something? How will I cover all of this in a way in which I can reach all my students in only 40 minutes? The more you teach, the better you get at it. When I first started I would very often finish early or not have enough time to finish. As you practice, you get used to the time you have and then before long, you start getting classes where you finish your last sentence and the bell rings! I love when that happens.

The one other thing I want to say is that you should be designing lessons that adhere to the curriculum goals. Not a goal that you made up. First look at your curriculum guide. It tells you the goals for each unit. Then make a lesson objective that will accomplish that goal. THEN you can incorporate your music, games, and activities to get the kids motivated and learning. Using music, games and activities are great. You should read up on Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligence. You will find that a lot of what you are already doing is backed up by his methodoligies. The more you vary your instructional approach to include different learning modalities, the more students you will reach. The better their behavior will be. And the more they will learn. The more areas of the brain that your involved in learning the stronger the lessons will be remembered.

Hangman is not firing those neurons.

[PatrickGHBusan]

[Who's Your Daddy?]

[Lastrova]

If you sincerely like people and work to fit in, you're more than halfways a good teacher here. Often, a lot of good stuff follows from these fundamental characteristics. Easy going, punctual, creative, hard working, quick thinking, NOT self-absorbed, and you are a golden teacher.

[some waygug-in]

[tanklor1]

I want to apologize first off because I'm going to ignore the "in Korea" part of the question.

I don't now what makes a good teacher. I wish I did know. I've spent three years in hagwons where I was spoon fed curriculum and told to adhere by specific rules: no games, get the books finished and keep them happy.

That's pretty much how you go about it in hagwons from my experience.

Last year, I switched to public and was given a book per grade and told that there was only one book. I was told to make lessons fun with the aid of games, activities and such.

Essentially, I was given the book and told to run with it. At first I was hesitant to adapt to the public way of doing things. In hogwans games are almost always strictly forbidden but in public they were common place.

I felt like a hypocrite for resorting to games. But I made a conscience decision not to fight it; after all this was a real school unlike hagwons.

It took a while but I started to see what public school is trying to get at. I learned how games were useful, how class projects can inspire creativity and how far students will take things if you let them.

I don't know what makes a good teacher, I know that I still have a long ways to go before I reach my ideal definition but I've learned that sometimes it's good to heed the advice of colleagues.

[Privateer]

The words 'successful' and 'English teacher in Korea' do not collocate well.

[some waygug-in]

In answer to the OP's question here's the best approach I've seen or heard about;

Marry a Korean, get your F visa, this will allow you to do private teaching and will also open some doors for you with university jobs.


Other than that, it's still all a crapshoot, good schools/bad schools etc.

[Chris.Quigley]

I guess...

You guys do things your way. I'll do it my way.

I think you misunderstood my question.

I didn't ask, "how to be a good teacher." (I would agree with you otherwise)

I asked, "how to be a successful teacher in Korea"

Koreans don't want you to teach them a curriculum. The curriculum that you made up has nothing to do with with the Suneung (University Entrance Exam.) For this reason high school students will purposely ignore your class unless it is entertaining, interesting and engaging.

I "taught" at a Korean private academy in Vancouver. I learned there that being successful in Korean eyes meant making them like you. Teachers that weren't liked got fired. Teachers that were liked got raises. You've got to play the game the way they want you to... Or you will become jaded and frustrated pretty quickly...

Unless of course you are lucky and are actually in a situation where they allow you to be a real teacher. But, I would argue that 95% of us are not in that situation...

[PatrickGHBusan]