Korean Job Discussion Forums

[daxdefranco]

Hi everyone,

I'm sure this topic is somewhere on the forums, but I'm having a hard time finding it. First, a bit of background: I'm on my third contract in Korea but this is my first time teaching this level (13-16 year old). I work 3-10 at an afterschool hagwon in Gwangju. I've previously taught high school/university age students in America and adults in Budapest during my CELTA, so I have experience teaching outside kindergartens, but I'm really struggling with some of these kids.

Problem #1 is individual students - not a huge problem as it's something that you always deal with in any class one way or another, but the kids here are completely unlike anything I've encountered. To be fair, they've been in school for nearly 10 hours by the time they reach my class so I can sympathize, but I also need to teach them. There's one student in particular who absolutely refuses to do anything. If I ask him a question he just turns to stare at the wall. He won't participate in class discussions or even partner discussions and if i hand out worksheets, he just marks an 'x' through the questions or writes 'no' and turns it over.

I've talked with him outside of class and said I don't expect him to want to learn English or be excited to be at school, but I do expect a baseline of reasonable participation. There are some students that sleep in the back of class, and I'm more willing to allow that as it's simple inaction rather than using (a sometimes substantial amount of) energy to be a *beep*.

Problem #2, and more troubling is that boys and girls will not mix. Not for anything in the world - I understand this, too, it's part of the age, it's part of the culture, blah blah, and in classes where I have an equal/near equal number of boys and girls, I just let them segregate themselves - but in a class of 3 boys and 7 girls, some activities become impossible when they refuse to speak to each other.

Any help is hugely appreciated, I've read some articles on this topic in education at large, but I think cultural factors have a large part to play so I really want the advice of fellow teachers in Korea. Cheers!

[lifeinkorea]

[daxdefranco]

[winterfall]

If hes not seriously disrupting class. Leave him be. 9 times out of 10, if you try to pry the shell, they're turn into the class maniac. Hes probably got a bag of problems at home. All of which your unqualified to handle. Some of the kids you find at public school have really deep seated emotional problems, really makes you wonder why they didn't go to a special school. Not to mention you need to deal with the language and cultural barrier.

Just tell him to go to sleep or you can try talking to the parents. You'll need a Korean teacher with you. But chances are if he's like that either the parents don't know what to do or don't care or got their own problems

[Lorilou]

I'd definitely talk to the boy's parents (with the help of a co-teacher). They're paying money for him to be there, and they'll probably be ticked off if he's not doing the work or getting anything out of it.

[Who's Your Daddy?]

[Lorilou]

[bobbybigfoot]

[daxdefranco]

[bobbybigfoot]

[crisdean]

[bobbybigfoot]

[lifeinkorea]

[Illysook]

I teach high school and it is frustrating to work with teenagers. I lost it with one class today. No one was participating so I gave them a time out telling them to put their heads down on their desks like I used to do to my elementary students. I also told them if they were going to act like kindergarteners, I would treat them like kindergarteners.

Judge me if you like, but I usually enjoy my student. I'm just saying that it's not easy. Sometimes you have a great topic that all of the classes respond well to except for that one. Their regular teachers know who they are and they also find themselves yelling at these students.

I personally do my best to find topics that will interest my students, so I think that if your kids are interested in poop, then you could talk about sewage treatment and the environment, or find some other positive angle on the subject.. If they are interested in blood and guts, give them blood and guts. If they are talking about these things in English, they are using English

This week, my classes talked about Zombie movies. I used the 32 rules of Zombieland as my source material, presented 10 of them and we discussed things like where to hide from Zombies, what they eat, and how to survive a Zombie Apocalypse.

Next up: The guy who smashed his Lamborghini!

[bobbybigfoot]

LifeinKorea,

Your post made me shake my head.

The fact that I would pass notes to boys does not mean I would not interact with girls. I never said we interacted equally. I did say that we did interact with the girls and group work was never a problem.

As for shouting at the teacher, this epitomizes the true lack of respect that is displayed here in Korea. The kids are, for the most part, self-centred. They have little regard for each other, for the teacher. It's a dog-eat-dog mentality. I could be speaking to a student, locked in conversation, and another student will shout out me from across the room. Then another one will shout even louder. They seem completely oblivious to the concept of "wait your turn". Or, my personal favourite, I'm marking a student's work and another student will bud in line and put his paper directly on top of the work I'm focused on.

Yes, I grew up in a different generation (I'd argue a better one). We were raised to respect the teacher and the teacher's space. We weren't allowed near the teacher's desk without the teacher's consent. And good lord, the thought of slamming down my work over top of something she was working on? Never.

As for interacting, it was a different time. It was teacher-centred learning. We did interact but only when told to do so. Or in secrecy/with discretion. The teacher ran the classroom not the students.

It wasn't a perfect system, but it was ten times the system I work in now.