|
Korean Job Discussion Forums
"The Internet's Meeting Place for ESL/EFL Teachers from Around the World!"
|
| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
earthquakez
Joined: 10 Nov 2010
|
 Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2011 7:48 pm Post subject: |
 |
|
| Your endorsement of trolling and your attacks on respected posters on the cafe have been noted by more people than you think. Facts do not cease to exist simply because your refuse to accept them. |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
methdxman
Joined: 14 Sep 2010
|
| Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2011 8:18 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| silkhighway wrote: |
I'm a fence-sitter as always. It's very hard for a foreign teacher to be evaluated with any meaning. What are the benchmarks of success? And who evaluates those benchmarks? Your co-teacher of course, since virtually all communication is done through them. Therefore, your assessment boils down to entirely your relationship with your co-teacher, who may bring their own bag of issues to the table or may have an agenda inherently not in line with yours.
So basically, one bad assessment means one bad experience. I'd evaluate what I could have done differently (maybe nothing), and shake it off. 2, 3...4 bad experiences, I'd start considering a new line of work. |
If your assessment depends entirely on your relationship with your co-teacher you better make that one of your priorities from the beginning. I don't understand why people don't understand this.
I don't know how many of the teachers here have worked a corporate job (I'm sure MANY will in the future) but it gets way more cutthroat than this. If you wanna get promoted there are so many political levers you gotta deal with to make sure you get promoted, get raises, etc. Secondly, to change into better jobs, a lot of it is just connecting with people and getting them to want to do favors for you.
The number one factor in terms of job happiness is a person's relationship with their boss. People take it for granted, but that's usually the biggest reason why people quit jobs in the west. Same thing here in Korea.
Co-teacher is a tricky situation since the person is not really your boss, but still... making your co-teacher feel comfortable, not trying to step on their toes, collaborating, making them the star of the show should be your priority. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Kurtz
Joined: 05 Jan 2007
Location: ples bilong me
|
| Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2011 9:18 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| methdxman wrote: |
| NYC_Gal 2.0 wrote: |
That's terrible. I'm sorry to hear it.
*pat pat* <===heartfelt
As a wise person once said: onwards and upwards.
Screw that miserable hag (figuratively) and get a better job while she lives her miserable life with her miserable family. You're too good for that school. |
I
When you start blaming others for your professional evaluations you will never get anywhere in the professional world. It's not about finding another person to evaluate you or whatever. That's not addressing the root problem.
Succeeding in the professional world is all about making strong, meaningful connections. If you have failed to do that, you have failed to do that, period. Everything else is just an excuse or a "he had it in for me" whine.
The point is that you will be evaluated at your job until you retire. Even if you're CEO of a company you will be evaluated by the board of directors. This is life. There is no such thing as people that are just out to get you for no reason. If they are out to get you, they have a reason to do so whether it be fair or unfair. But if you did not try to mitigate this in anyway, this is your failure, period.
You will also always be evaluated by your peers either formally or informally. You also have to handle your reputation quite skillfully amongst your peers because their official/unofficial opinion will also form part of your global company reputation.
The days of "Hey I'm a hard worker and I was evaluated unfairly" are long, long, long, long gone. It is YOUR responsibility to handle your reputation. If your reputation is damaged it is YOUR fault either through your work ethic, results, communication, or relationship-building.
(For the OP)
Seems like you knew what was coming. Chalk it up as experience, I'm sure you will be able to find another job just fine.
It sucks when you try to build a relationship with your boss/evaluator but can't. It's usually the person's who's higher in the hierarchy responsibility to establish the rules of the relationship.
What did the evaluation say? Was there some truth to it? |
This thread is about the professionalism of evalautions. What you and languistic are failing see, and what earthquakez and oldfatfarang are TRYING to make you see is that the PROCESS of evaluations is not professional at all in certain areas of EFL in this country.
I see the phrases "getting along with everyone", "building relationships", making "strong relationships", "networking" and "complaining about getting shafted" being trotted out which has NOTHING to do with what this is about. It's about professional evaluations, being apraised as a good or bad teacher, without judgment or emotions, not how well you've sucked up to your fellow staff members.
Evaluations should be about having your ability as a teacher assessed in an objective and professional way, not about how well you've kissed ass to appease your Korean co-worker(s). You should be shown the criteria which you'll be evaluated on which must be shown beforehand, the lesson to be evaluated should be done and then your score discussed so that you can improve your weak points. A further evaluation should be done later on in the year to see if those weak points were addressed. If those weak points were not improved, then perhaps that should serve as grounds for not being re-signed at that school.
The person doing the evaluating must be as objective as possible. This shouldn't be your co-worker. I believe in building relationships with co-workers, however, I've worked with some horribly resentful people and it appalles me that they have had a major say in if I was to be re-signed or not. My current co-worker's introduction to me was, "Hello, I'm Miss Kim, you earn more money than me so you have to do more work than me". Now, THIS is the person who is assessing me!?, do you think that person would give me a balanced and fair evaluation of my ability to conduct an English class? She also brings to the table a life a living with her parents her entire life, an open resentment that I earn more money than her and have a more interesting life in general than her, yet she's meant to give me an open minded and objective evaluation?
Other "evaluations" I've had, and I've had many this year, have been from my elemenatry students, clipboard, suit wearing ajosshis who couldn't say a word of English to me other than a stuttered hello, my two co-workers and a woman from the local MOE who did seem to know what she was doing.
NONE of the results of these evalutions were shown to me, there has been no feedback at all, and I have been kept in the dark all year to how I have been going. This as happened for the last three years.
No-one is saying they don't want to be evaluated, but people are perhaps wanting to be evaluated in a fair manner, not to the whims of people with possibly serious resentment issues and to those who couldn't speak English if their life depended on it.
I find it a little ironic that Koreans' complain about the standard of English teachers they get here when their own public school system is farcical to say the least.
In summary, the game is kissing ass; to say it's not is an absolute lie. After three years my lips have become brittle and sore, no more; pity it has taken three years to realize this but better late than never. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
methdxman
Joined: 14 Sep 2010
|
| Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2011 9:56 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Kurtz wrote: |
| methdxman wrote: |
| NYC_Gal 2.0 wrote: |
That's terrible. I'm sorry to hear it.
*pat pat* <===heartfelt
As a wise person once said: onwards and upwards.
Screw that miserable hag (figuratively) and get a better job while she lives her miserable life with her miserable family. You're too good for that school. |
I
When you start blaming others for your professional evaluations you will never get anywhere in the professional world. It's not about finding another person to evaluate you or whatever. That's not addressing the root problem.
Succeeding in the professional world is all about making strong, meaningful connections. If you have failed to do that, you have failed to do that, period. Everything else is just an excuse or a "he had it in for me" whine.
The point is that you will be evaluated at your job until you retire. Even if you're CEO of a company you will be evaluated by the board of directors. This is life. There is no such thing as people that are just out to get you for no reason. If they are out to get you, they have a reason to do so whether it be fair or unfair. But if you did not try to mitigate this in anyway, this is your failure, period.
You will also always be evaluated by your peers either formally or informally. You also have to handle your reputation quite skillfully amongst your peers because their official/unofficial opinion will also form part of your global company reputation.
The days of "Hey I'm a hard worker and I was evaluated unfairly" are long, long, long, long gone. It is YOUR responsibility to handle your reputation. If your reputation is damaged it is YOUR fault either through your work ethic, results, communication, or relationship-building.
(For the OP)
Seems like you knew what was coming. Chalk it up as experience, I'm sure you will be able to find another job just fine.
It sucks when you try to build a relationship with your boss/evaluator but can't. It's usually the person's who's higher in the hierarchy responsibility to establish the rules of the relationship.
What did the evaluation say? Was there some truth to it? |
This thread is about the professionalism of evalautions. What you and languistic are failing see, and what earthquakez and oldfatfarang are TRYING to make you see is that the PROCESS of evaluations is not professional at all in certain areas of EFL in this country.
I see the phrases "getting along with everyone", "building relationships", making "strong relationships", "networking" and "complaining about getting shafted" being trotted out which has NOTHING to do with what this is about. It's about professional evaluations, being apraised as a good or bad teacher, without judgment or emotions, not how well you've sucked up to your fellow staff members.
Evaluations should be about having your ability as a teacher assessed in an objective and professional way, not about how well you've kissed ass to appease your Korean co-worker(s). You should be shown the criteria which you'll be evaluated on which must be shown beforehand, the lesson to be evaluated should be done and then your score discussed so that you can improve your weak points. A further evaluation should be done later on in the year to see if those weak points were addressed. If those weak points were not improved, then perhaps that should serve as grounds for not being re-signed at that school.
The person doing the evaluating must be as objective as possible. This shouldn't be your co-worker. I believe in building relationships with co-workers, however, I've worked with some horribly resentful people and it appalles me that they have had a major say in if I was to be re-signed or not. My current co-worker's introduction to me was, "Hello, I'm Miss Kim, you earn more money than me so you have to do more work than me". Now, THIS is the person who is assessing me!?, do you think that person would give me a balanced and fair evaluation of my ability to conduct an English class? She also brings to the table a life a living with her parents her entire life, an open resentment that I earn more money than her and have a more interesting life in general than her, yet she's meant to give me an open minded and objective evaluation?
Other "evaluations" I've had, and I've had many this year, have been from my elemenatry students, clipboard, suit wearing ajosshis who couldn't say a word of English to me other than a stuttered hello, my two co-workers and a woman from the local MOE who did seem to know what she was doing.
NONE of the results of these evalutions were shown to me, there has been no feedback at all, and I have been kept in the dark all year to how I have been going. This as happened for the last three years.
No-one is saying they don't want to be evaluated, but people are perhaps wanting to be evaluated in a fair manner, not to the whims of people with possibly serious resentment issues and to those who couldn't speak English if their life depended on it.
I find it a little ironic that Koreans' complain about the standard of English teachers they get here when their own public school system is farcical to say the least.
In summary, the game is kissing ass; to say it's not is an absolute lie. After three years my lips have become brittle and sore, no more; pity it has taken three years to realize this but better late than never. |
Dude, I 100% agree with you that in an ideal world that evaluations should be fair and impartial. But humans inherently are not, so the evaluations are just b.s. Trust me, it's like this in most work environments. If your boss loves you, he will always give you a good evaluation. If he doesn't like you, he will find every reason to give you a bad evaluation no matter how well you performed objectively. This is reality. It sucks, but it's true. If we were all judged fairly by God in this world, people like Dick Cheney would have been thrown into a pool of piranhas.
How's this for envy comparisons? I make double what a person my grade at my company makes. Double. And I'm about 4-6 years younger than the avg. person my grade is. I didn't do military service either so I'm sure there are a few men at my company who think that I haven't graduated to becoming a real man, yet. How about this? I make more money than my boss. He probably knows it too since nothing is really confidential at any company. No Korean likes anyone who doesn't wait his or her turn.
I think you took what the teacher said too seriously and your knee-jerk reaction to what you said has probably set you on a course to where she will evaluate you negatively. You should have used it as an opportunity to engage her in conversation instead of being taken aback. I do agree that what she said was what most Koreans probably think, but it doesn't mean that she's resentful necessarily. They will become resentful, however, if certain conditions persist but people aren't just resentful "just because". Koreans have lots of prejudices, but you can break them down easily.
No person is unreachable and it's on you, through whatever means, to get people on your good side. Is it easy? Probably not. It's not easy for me either, but I get it done, and it has nothing to do with the fact that I'm Korean. My Korean sucks. And there are plenty of gyopos out there who will cry about being mistreated by Korean employers.
I would be DEAD here if I said from the very first day, "These guys are just playa hatin'". In the real world you have to always manage your reputation and your relationships very, very well. Pride and all these other matters need to be put aside in most cases if you want to reach certain goals.
Finally, again, evaluations are impartial everywhere. Don't expect ANYONE to give you a fair evaluation in any professional setting. It does not exist. Excellence will get you noticed but relationships are the only thing that matters anywhere. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Kurtz
Joined: 05 Jan 2007
Location: ples bilong me
|
| Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2011 11:15 pm Post subject: |
|
|
WOW, I didn't get a "you've been here four years so why don't you leave; oh I know, a certain someone is on vacation; anyhow....
I understand your point but forgive me if I'm looking too much into what you wrote, but parts I felt were a little patronizing. I've had better jobs before than as an English teacher in a Korean public school so I know about life in general and about getting in with bosses and such. Also, I'm to believe you're employed as a professional outside of EFL and treated as such so perhaps your examples of your experiences in the workplace aren't so relevant to this EFL in Korea setting. I'm not trying to say what you wrote is useless, but I think it's apples and oranges.
What has irked me the most is how you're kept in the dark here, you really do have no idea how well (or badly) you're going, and then at the end of the year, you're possibly thrown out of the country with no plausible explanation at all. I'd rather not bring "Koreaness" into this as that could be seen as racial, it's about how things are not professional here in EFL, especially with these evaluations.
Sure, it was my choice to come here, no one was forcing me, but for someone having a degree and a decent work history, and to be possibly more or less deported for no reason (once you're sacked, you gotta leave on an E2) due to my Korean co-worker seems less than fair, more like ludicrous. Is that a simple case of "that's life", well maybe so but considering we're out of our own countries, it also seems more than a little harsh.
I'm the first to admit, I don't like sucking up, it's not in my nature; I realize this ain't Kansas and no, I don't have a sense of entitlement but I'm forced to believe the evaluations I've received here lack any semblance of professionlism at all, nada! What's worse is the appeasement is being done in an entry level EFL job; I'm hardly a CEO here. To add insult to injury, I'm doing it for a resentful brat.
Resentful brat! I hear you say; she's TOTALLY impossible to talk to, believe me I've tried. Even the other day I asked her about health insurance, a simple, innocent question, "what are you complaining about now!" was the reply.
You're more or less totally dependant on your co-worker here. At home, evaluations were done by a manager or a boss; not people I literally worked side-by-side with and who wouldn't garner a creeping animosity inside of them due to my everyday actions or be incensed by something I said due to a lack of understanding as a result of poor English comprehension skills. You've got to be SO damn careful about what you say here; everyone slips up from time to time.
For the record, if I wanted to re-sign at this job I'm 99% sure I would be OK; my co-workers know I'm dependable and I'm not on my knees like many here, still, it wasn't a nice position to be in.
Teachers here don't expect 100% objectivity in their evaluations, I realize no evaluation is done without some kind of negative bias, but hell, I think they should be able to do better than what they currently are and give some kind of guidance along the way rather than a thanks for coming and cheque's in the mail, but sorry, we don't require your services anymore.
Anyways, time to get a suntan now. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
earthquakez
Joined: 10 Nov 2010
|
| Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2011 11:59 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Kurtz, while methadone or whatever their name is managed to sound like a normal person in a few sentences, English teachers here really are talking to a brick wall with this fellow. He doesn't teach English and supposedly works for a Korean company but is probably one of those trolls from the misfit K websites around the place. 
To get some real talk going on evaluation when normal, organised people regardless of nationality do it correctly there is a basic pattern of the kind you referred to.
Back home (UK) I worked for both public and private employers in a number of areas and experienced peer evaluation and managerial evaluation. Everybody involved was given training sessions to make sure that the point of the evaluations was clear, we had information and discussion about biases and how to achieve a level of objectivity when as human beings we tend towards subjectivity, we discussed assessment methods etc. Assessors had to justify their assessment - none of this lazy multiple choice so dear to Korean teachers.
In Japan. I worked for the last five years of my time in Japan as a corporate trainer at two big J companies (famous names). My employers at both companies evaluated me professionally and with respect. At no time was anybody involved directly with the process who did not have a certain level of English themselves.
The students were given talks about how to assess, and company personnel with fluent English watched a number of my classes. Different level students had different assessment sheets with different evaluatory emphases, again because my Japanese employers didn't do this half-arsed and lazily the way so many Koreans do in the school system.
Japanese personnel fluent in English talked with students at each level about their assessment of my teaching, there were feedback talks, students told the personnel things they wanted to see more of or couldn't quite get, or thought was not necessary. This was told to me personally, I explained my perspective etc. I always had very satisfactory to outstanding evaluations.
In Korea at my last public school this is what some students wrote (high school):
" _teacher speaks mostly Korean in class." In fact I had to ask my co teacher when he turned up to stop speaking Korean to the students because this was an English class and what we were doing was well within the capabilities of the students.
"_teacher sleeps in class". I have never slept in any class, anywhere, anyplace, anytime, even as a student.
"_teacher is never on time for class". This came from students who were made to stand outside when they came late for class, for 5 minutes.
These are just a few examples of the nonsense written. If I had let my classes come late, not bring texts or pens, sleep, play, caress each other, talk on their hidden phones and text on the same, I doubt these comments would have been made. I also scored poorly on multiple choice questions from those students.
Koreans generally want to look as if they are doing something to raise standards but as is the cultural bent, much of this is purely superificial.
As long as we are in Korea we will be subject to the general sloppiness and lack of professional objectivity in Korean schools and hagwons but we don't have to refrain from talking about it because some people of Korean background with low self esteem can't handle it, or other foreigners who like to be competitive in the wrong way like to try and score points off others. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
liveinkorea316
Joined: 20 Aug 2010
Location: South Korea
|
| Posted: Tue Jan 18, 2011 12:43 am Post subject: |
|
|
There are several common methods of reducing the subjective bias in evaluations of staff members that are extensively used in the West that are non-existent here:
1. Multiple independent evaluators. In the case of a public school teacher this would mean your coworkers from different schools or from other places where they are unlikely to actually know your co-teacher personally but yet they worked with you for some period of time. Also from students of different levels or schools. Remember that this is an evaluation that determines someone being fired so it is not too much to ask.
2. Giving the person who is evaluated a chance to rebut or respond to any negative comments about them before the evaluation is submitted for final review.
3. Chance for the person being evaluated to evaluate the person who is evaluating them. Kind of like a reciprocal evaluation. This is another chance for the teacher to point out any personal issues where the evaluator might not be honest or telling the whole picture.
4. The person who is evaluating you can lose their job. But as we know in Korea teacher at publis schools is a life job so the co-teacher has no fear of being completely crap to the foreign teacher because their behaviour is NEVER going to be judged let alone have any consequences.
When you take these factors into account, without even considering the crazy lazy K-teacher out there you start to see why sometimes the Foreign teacher has ALL the cards stacked against them and all it takes is one PMS fuelled off-day and the foreign teacher better pack their bags whether they did something or not.
We are after all talking about a PUBLIC SCHOOL system that SHOULD have alot more respectability about it than a Hagwon.
But Methodone has spent the last 2 days trying to convince us that every workplace should be down at the level of a bad hagwon. Well if that is his standard he sets for the public institutions of Korea Gof help the rest of the country. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
rookiecdw
Joined: 28 Jul 2010
|
| Posted: Tue Jan 18, 2011 1:18 am Post subject: |
|
|
...kjk .
Last edited by rookiecdw on Tue Jan 18, 2011 8:08 am; edited 2 times in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
methdxman
Joined: 14 Sep 2010
|
| Posted: Tue Jan 18, 2011 1:22 am Post subject: |
|
|
| liveinkorea316 wrote: |
There are several common methods of reducing the subjective bias in evaluations of staff members that are extensively used in the West that are non-existent here:
1. Multiple independent evaluators. In the case of a public school teacher this would mean your coworkers from different schools or from other places where they are unlikely to actually know your co-teacher personally but yet they worked with you for some period of time. Also from students of different levels or schools. Remember that this is an evaluation that determines someone being fired so it is not too much to ask.
2. Giving the person who is evaluated a chance to rebut or respond to any negative comments about them before the evaluation is submitted for final review.
3. Chance for the person being evaluated to evaluate the person who is evaluating them. Kind of like a reciprocal evaluation. This is another chance for the teacher to point out any personal issues where the evaluator might not be honest or telling the whole picture.
4. The person who is evaluating you can lose their job. But as we know in Korea teacher at publis schools is a life job so the co-teacher has no fear of being completely crap to the foreign teacher because their behaviour is NEVER going to be judged let alone have any consequences.
When you take these factors into account, without even considering the crazy lazy K-teacher out there you start to see why sometimes the Foreign teacher has ALL the cards stacked against them and all it takes is one PMS fuelled off-day and the foreign teacher better pack their bags whether they did something or not.
We are after all talking about a PUBLIC SCHOOL system that SHOULD have alot more respectability about it than a Hagwon.
But Methodone has spent the last 2 days trying to convince us that every workplace should be down at the level of a bad hagwon. Well if that is his standard he sets for the public institutions of Korea Gof help the rest of the country. |
Haha it's comedy hour at Dave's ESL Cafe. Methodone.
As harsh as this sounds, some of you (not naming anyone specifically) just don't know when they rub people the wrong way at the work place or in life in general (Uh oh, I feel another comeback from the comedy team!) I don't know if you can learn this kind of self-awareness, but it is necessary to have in life but especially so when you live in a different country. That's one thing.
Second point: people will react accordingly to the system in which they exist. Is the Korean system perfect? No, and far from it. It seems that the ESL teacher is at a severe relative power disadvantage, which can partly explain some of the slights that people feel.
But it has nothing to do with people being Korean. That's just a really obtuse way of looking at things.
Eventually, something will have to give. If the system is really unfair to the ESL teachers, they will eventually leave for other countries. When Korea finds that it cannot attract anymore ESL talent, then the Minister of Education will do some top-down sweep to find out what the problem is.
But right now, there are just way too many English teachers and the system is probably flawed. They have no incentive on changing anything. You're a hagwon owner and making decent money and have a crapload of English teachers to choose from. There's no worry about retaining good talent, so there's no incentive to have an air-tight evaluation system.
This has nothing to do with how Koreans are. This is how the market system works. It's easy to blame all these things on how Koreans "are," but frankly it's a terribly weak assessment of the situation.
The solution to this problem has nothing to do with Koreans becoming civilized as many claim has to happen. This has to do with the innate characteristics of the industry. Nothing will change until some other country becomes more competitive in terms of attracting teachers to their countries, etc.
I work in an industry (insurance) where Korea is the 7th largest market in the world yet competition amongst companies for agents is so fierce. Man, these agents are treated like kings right now because all of the companies are fighting like crazy for their services. The industry will evolve here much like it has in other countries and as soon as either the market stops growing or the supply of agents dwindles, something will give.
Just do a Porter's 5 forces analysis of the industry and consider yourself, as a supplier. You will see that you have no power or influence in this ecosystem and that you guys are all basically interchangeable. This is not passing judgment on anyone's ability to be a teacher or what not, but it's just reality of the industry.
You're like the supplier of nuts and bolts for Boeing. You will make no margin selling to Boeing, you will be Boeing's bitch, because Boeing can switch to any other supplier the next day for commodity parts, and all sales will be based on Boeing's terms. Boeing controls everything.
Is Boeing evil? No, this is big business, baby. Boeing has shareholders that want management to squeeze out as much margin as possible, and that includes squeezing suppliers as much as possible, as they should.
The difference here is that ESL teachers here make pretty good money. And you know what the supplier to Boeing does when it's not worth being in the business anymore? He exits it. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
liveinkorea316
Joined: 20 Aug 2010
Location: South Korea
|
| Posted: Tue Jan 18, 2011 1:30 am Post subject: |
|
|
Actually methodman we were talking about a GOVERNMENT INSTITUTION not a private business. Governments are not fully bound by market forces and if government institutions allow its members to systematically rip people off and mistreat them then it reflects terribly on Korea and Koreans. Period.
As already stated many times, your analysis works in the free market but when a Korean government institution treats people badly it reflects badly on Korean people.
People have very few bad things to say about the Jet programme even though it competes in the same market. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
liveinkorea316
Joined: 20 Aug 2010
Location: South Korea
|
| Posted: Tue Jan 18, 2011 1:39 am Post subject: |
|
|
I guess what Methodman is saying is actually very damning to Korea even if he doesn't realise it.
Whereas in the West (and MOST countries) Government institutions are held to a higher standard than their private counterparts; in Korea and I would guess in China they are just as bad or even worse.
This is actually a terrible indictment to make on Korea....one I seriously hope is not true but i cannot help thinking it.
Even in Japan, I would expect that when you deal with a government entity, you can have more faith that they will treat you fairly and hoestly.
In Korea it is really troubling to all us on this forum that a government-run program using taxpayers dollars and carried out by public schools....is many times just as bad as the worst hagwons. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
methdxman
Joined: 14 Sep 2010
|
| Posted: Tue Jan 18, 2011 1:48 am Post subject: |
|
|
| liveinkorea316 wrote: |
Actually methodman we were talking about a GOVERNMENT INSTITUTION not a private business. Governments are not fully bound by market forces and if government institutions allow its members to systematically rip people off and mistreat them then it reflects terribly on Korea and Koreans. Period.
As already stated many times, your analysis works in the free market but when a Korean government institution treats people badly it reflects badly on Korean people.
People have very few bad things to say about the Jet programme even though it competes in the same market. |
The government is the customer here. It doesn't change. You don't think military arms are big business? This is an investment from the South Korean government. They're going to pay X for certain services hoping it returns Y (global competitiveness or whatever the hell they want from this) somewhere down the line. Who pays for this anyway? The people do, through taxes.
Also I was referring to the entire ESL industry in general, which includes hagwons, etc.
In any case, the suppliers (the teachers) have very little power in this industry. I'm not arguing that Korea may get a bad reputation for whatever reason, but so far it hasn't stopped the steady stream of teachers into the industry. Nothing will change until this changes.
And again, this would be the same in any other country with the same industry characteristics.
You cannot compare JET to EPIK. Apples and oranges. I believe EPIK and JET are about the same size in terms of instructors yet Japan has 2.5 - 3x the population of South Korea. This is just venturing a guess but I'm guessing South Korea has way more English teachers per capita than Japan.
To say that no one complains about Jet is probably a gross exaggeration. People bitch about everything.
Last edited by methdxman on Tue Jan 18, 2011 2:08 am; edited 1 time in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
methdxman
Joined: 14 Sep 2010
|
| Posted: Tue Jan 18, 2011 1:53 am Post subject: |
|
|
| liveinkorea316 wrote: |
I guess what Methodman is saying is actually very damning to Korea even if he doesn't realise it.
Whereas in the West (and MOST countries) Government institutions are held to a higher standard than their private counterparts; in Korea and I would guess in China they are just as bad or even worse.
This is actually a terrible indictment to make on Korea....one I seriously hope is not true but i cannot help thinking it.
Even in Japan, I would expect that when you deal with a government entity, you can have more faith that they will treat you fairly and hoestly.
In Korea it is really troubling to all us on this forum that a government-run program using taxpayers dollars and carried out by public schools....is many times just as bad as the worst hagwons. |
Governments don't even treat their own people fairly. Please, let's get out of this fairy tale world. Do you really think that governments in the west are honest?
Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?
What's worse? Getting fired from your public school in a foreign country vs. thousands of people dying because of Hurricane Katrina? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
liveinkorea316
Joined: 20 Aug 2010
Location: South Korea
|
| Posted: Tue Jan 18, 2011 2:12 am Post subject: |
|
|
Two things Methodman:
1. the issue is not Government in general but government institutions. They are different things look them up.
2. All of us here understand the difference between EPIK and JET and EPIK and Hagwons. It just so happens that despite being both government run, people get treated fairer once an employee in Japan. Also people expect Korean governent to work fairer towards employees than private business.
Goverment instituions are expected to follow every law in the statute since they are representing the people who make those laws. it happens that in MOST countries including the USA you can expect fairer treatment from your boss if you work in a State or Federally owned business. Same in Germany, UK, Japan, Australia, Canada, hell even Mexico and Brazil or India. just not Korea. Why? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
happiness
Joined: 04 Sep 2010
|
| Posted: Tue Jan 18, 2011 3:11 am Post subject: |
|
|
yeah, look. The Korean language is set up as one big kissass. You cannot speak to another without acknowledging their status, higher or lower than yours. Japanese is like this, but its not as strict as Korean. Chinese I dont know about so I cant comment. Its a hierarchial society fighting to exist in a modern globalized world where young people are smarter, richer, and sometimes more powerful than the middle aged ajushi or their grandpas here. Are you surprised young K-ladies are learning English, American shows are the rage here, and alot of families are cool with their little girl going abroad. Its STIFLING here! for them.
a little empathy, a little kissass, and stay out of the way, and mostly, youre gold. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
