Korean Job Discussion Forums

[decolyon]

I'm curious if some of you like teaching adults? I'm getting a lot of offers for adults lately.

I heard split shifts can be a real pain and that adult students are worse than kids.

I'd just like to hear about your experience.

[edwardcatflap]

There are pros and cons to both

Adult teaching positives

Usually better motivation
better learner autonomy
few discipline problems
more interesting discussions
opportunities for socialising

Adult teaching negatives

Sometimes they can be reluctant to talk due to social mores
They will have opinions about lesson content
They may complain about the lessons
They frequently arrive late/miss classes
They can and do ask for refunds at all stages of a course

I can't think of any positives about split shifts

[lifeinkorea]

[decolyon]

bump

[Enigma]

Although I've taught kids in the past, I now teach 4 adult classes and only one kids' class and I definitely feel a lot LESS stress teaching adults.
For one, you don't have that one kid that needs constant attention ruining the class for everyone else. You also don't have students bullying each other with you trying to figure out what just happened.
Adults also more readily accept that maybe the class isn't going to be just games all the time, and so they don't keep whining, "재미없어,재미없어" every time you try and teach them something.
I also prefer having the autonomy to teach what I think is best, rather than the hagwon boss telling me to do whatever he/she thinks the parents will like rather than what will actually improve their English.
I will admit though, that I definitely miss teaching SOME of the kids I used to teach as they were a blast. Unfortunately, you get a few bad apples...

[iggyb]

Split-Shifts - If your hours are in two blocks, and you don't have other classes spaced out between them, split-shifts are not terrible. They take getting used to. You have to learn to catch some sleep during the middle of the day, but you can get enough and do some things.

But, hakwons like to squeeze as much out of instructors as they can, and even if you start your first month or two with block hours, they might change and start spreading the hours out from morning til night.

That will grind you to pulp quickly.

For me, teaching adults or children in hakwons was about equal. Neither were too satisfying as a job or teaching. They were both OK.

With adults, you can learn a whole lot about Korea - which is good if you are new to the country. You can talk to them, and they are curious about life in your home country and what you think about Korea. After you have students who stick with you for a few months, they will lighten up and start telling you about more than the rose-colored glasses version they want to give foreigners. (The all women (25-45 years old) classes were the most informative.)

But, adults also resist teaching. They want to avoid anything that resembles how they were taught in school and university. They think just chit-chatting with a foreigner is going to miraculously improve their English, and most of the time, they end up performing like they think just listening to a foreigner talk is the trick.

They all want 1-on-1 results - which is impossible when you have 1-on-5 or 1-on-10 or more.

They also expect to greatly improve their English ability in one month with just 2 or 3 hours a week in the hakwon and 0 time spent with English outside of the school.

Using language teaching activities you'd use in college or other formal school is resisted ---- especially communicative activities that involve students communicating with other students with the teacher acting as facilitator. --- They don't feel they are paying a lot of money to talk to other Koreans, and they don't really believe they can improve that way, even though they will actually be producing more English like that than they ever will in a class of 5 or 10 or 15 or 20 students and just 1 native-speaking teacher.

So, you have to get used to adult students feeling disappointed in how slowly they advance with some blaming it on your methods - when they won't let you teach them the way you want - ways that would help them improve more quickly.

In short, with adults, their expectations are high and their authority over what you do also higher than what you will get with kids.

But, you will have a lot of opportunity to talk to Korean adults and learn a lot about the country and make some friends.