Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Zackback]

.....in terms of your teaching ability?

[koreatimes]

Jump up and down like Goofy, but not in a Goofy costume and in the classroom, not at Disney World. You'll get aces and kimchi for your hard work and amazing abilities!!

[Setaro]

[Zyzyfer]

My highly offensive and mildly toxic body odor.

[Swampfox10mm]

Tell everyone you graduated from Harvard.

[happiness]

I speak Korean and Japanese and know alot of comparing techniques for English and said languages. Koreans love it when I explain things like that.
I also have a clear, booming voice (which I made) and I keep a clean appearance. Its always helped me.

[ontheway]

[OHIO]

25, pretty, blonde with big boobs. All Koreans know only people with those qualifications can teach English!

[jamesd]

[Who's Your Daddy?]

I show up on time.

[bobbybigfoot]

Eh, I just do a good job and give my employer no reason to not rehire me.

[Louis VI]

There are 10 other teachers at this academy and while I don't believe in comparing teachers, because there are so many different ways to teach, I definitely notice that, relatively speaking:

* I put in a lot of prep time (over the mandatory hour, usually two, sometimes more). My idea is: Do a 40-hour work week, so that means 30 hours of classes and 2 hours times five days of prep.

* I tailor a lot of engaging activities. I have "Game Day" on Fridays, which are really group-oriented production skill exercises (speaking, writing activities, answering) in "teams" and the winners get prizes in descending order of performance (1st, 2nd, 3rd), with everyone getting something but those that do better get better prizes (e.g., first choice of a dozen different kinds of doughnuts, or candies, or whatever unusual imported things I can find while out shopping about. I have about a hundred students and I have each of them on Fridays twice a month (alternating day schedule), so I plan at least one big prize day a month, one small one. Yeah, I pay a lot sometimes, like this Friday was the Harvest Festival where I had 14 kinds of fruit displayed, only one student per kind of fruit, so if a student wanted that dragonfruit or mango they had to work hard to "win the game"/do the exercise well. I often have two-tier exercises, one involving more skill and the other some luck (e.g., answer question to roll dice). Monday to Thursday I focus on the class book and workbook, give lots of homework, and homework given on Wednesday is the "game day ticket" for Friday: They must provide a ticket to come into the class on Friday, so the lazy and forgetful scramble outside furiously the first ten, fifteen minutes of class trying to finish the homework they hadn't done from the workbook or handout. I started Friday Game Days for two reasons: 1) Working on Friday night and studying late on Friday afternoon is insane from my own cultural point of view and I feel some joy and weekend anticipation would help their spirits; TGIF! 2) I wanted more production activities, not just the grind of doing book material. Some teachers just "do a book" and I don't like the robotic, lockstep order of it all. There needs to be MORE REVIEW and MORE PRACTICE, so I design a lot of activities based on the work a class is doing (e.g., they have a box of sentence clippings and have to find them in the magic Tree House novel their class has finished reading and answering questions about. Find where the sentence is in the book and paste it in with glue. Physical and fun, requiring memory and comprehension skills: "The river was icy cold and deep." They have to think where was that? Flipping pages and scanning quickly. Two students tried just random scanning but quickly learned that wasn't working and they started talking and figuring out about where in the book it was and together in their team worked on finding it. Another great "game" is a kind of dictation relay, where they run from the hallway to the classroom and tell a teammate what was written on the wall outside. No talking from the hallway, the 'runner' must read, remember and travel to the 'sitter' who listens and writes it down. My Game Days are bloody hard and fun! They sometimes take three or four hours of prep, but my first class isn't until 3pm so it's no big hardship. I never play hangman because I think that game of low educational value. If I'm sick or just too busy I photocopy Where's Waldo? and they race to find what I'm talking about (e.g., "Touch the woman watering her flowers in the window of the apartment."). I also do a speed version of Scrabble where each team gets their proportion of all the tiles of the game, about 25-35 tiles each team, and each team has a limited time, 1 minute to start, then 30 seconds later on, to make a word on the board AND then 20 more seconds to put it in a correct sentence verbally. If they don't put down the word or else can't use it correctly in a sentence then their turn is lost, no points (I give one chance per team member to verbalize the sentence in case the grammar is close but not great). You get the idea. Absolutely nobody at my hagwon of the ten teachers, does anything extra that I can tell, except one Kiwi teacher has a cooking lesson class once a month in which she makes sandwiches or something in class; I did a Friday cooking class a couple of weeks ago, making a veggie stirfry, a salad and a salmon dish.

* I don't use CDs or tapes that come with the class books. It seems I'm the only one who doesn't where I work. I chose a long time ago not to put technology between myself and my students (9 times out of 10 whatever exercises in listening that is on the course-related audio can be done more actively in the class by students and teacher together imo), except when it's something that cannot be done alternatively (e.g., special short story book for beginner's class, youtube video I wanna show on my computer's big screen.

* I wear a suit and tie every day except casual Fridays, never wearing shorts or jeans to work, saving them for when I'm off work. It's my uniform, my way to provide a clear distinction between work mode and relax mode. At the academy I'm all energy, focused on the tasks at hand, and wearing a suit helps me stay poise dand focused. I think of it as my Type-A clothes, as I love being Type-B chillin' at the beach, reading and relaxing, geared down when away from work. I do NOT take my work home with me (only shopping for class supplies, even then, the list is prepped at the academy, I don't use my own time to think about work). My suit comes off when I walk into my apartment, just like any work uniform would be removed. The separation of work and leisure is one of the reasons I've enjoyed teaching here for nearly a decade. I am not bored at work because when I'm there I'm all business. And I don't bring any stress or class problem or worry home with me. A bad day stays at work (by bad day I mean one where I see little progress in student learning - I expect progress or competency regarding the lessons every dang day I'm at work. I work hard and they better too!). I highly recommend one discipline oneself to not even entertain one thought on Sundays that is work related. Not one. A clear clean break is refreshing!

* I turn down raises. Apparently my co-workers don't like this tactic. ICGAFF. I didn't want more money when I re-signed, I wanted more time off, negotiating two extra weeks. To each their own, I think. And I certainly march to the beat of my own drum.

* I volunteer to work Saturdays. There's a two-hour Saturday class of high schoolers that two other teachers didn't want to teach and I spoke up and said I'd gladly do so once summer ended, which my director heard to mean from the end of August. So that's why I'm posting a work-related post now, on Saturday. I don't have a lot of prep to do today and yet I've assigned this prep time.

I am not a perfect employee because I ignore any advice about how I should teach in the classroom (regarding CDs for example), skip some book material (gasp!), take longer with some books than the academy wants in terms of planning (so be it, some lessons can't be rushed through), and make demands of the office manager often regarding my classroom (fix white board, screen on windows, fill first aid kit, phone for attendance later). I figure if I'm pretty good in some ways they'll tolerate my not so appreciated other aspects. I spent three years at my first hagwon and three years at my second hagwon, each one wanting me to re-sign a fourth time. And at this hagwon I'll soon be entering my third year. But before this latest hagwon I spent four months at a hagwon run by a then-friend Korean who thought our friendship meant he could tell me what to do and how to do it in the classroom. He quickly got frustrated with my not doing it his way and after three months I gave notice.

[schwa]

Louis VI: a thoughtful post.

My approach is similar in some ways but different in others. Got my own drumbeat going. Point-by-point:

a lot of prep time: Yep. Good for the kids, good for me. Not so much busy work but thinking time. My colleagues might look down on the time I spend idling on the net or strolling around outside having a smoke but thats how I get my ideas. That aha! moment. Then the lesson topic & procedure fall into place. (I work on this stuff in my mind on weekends & evenings sometimes too, because I like to.)

engaging activities: Of course, & variety! I've got 12 years in this biz under my belt & I'm not content to just recycle anything I've done before. The students are evolving & so am I. Keeping it fresh.

technology in the classroom: I'm totally old school. Voice, chalkboard, & paper. The students get enough digital stimulation elsewhere & I'm supposed to be teaching conversation. The kids respond. Overseers let me do it my way because I get results.

suit & tie: No way, never. I like being respected for what I do, not what I wear. Jeans suit me. I take care to be presentable but I think anything now beyond casual would shock & dismay my students & bosses. Who died?

turn down raises: Well, I'd never do that. On the other hand, I seldom discuss & never argue about money with my bosses (public school). At my EPIK orientation in 2001, an old prof said, "Dont worry about money. Love your students & the money will follow you." Sounds trite but its proven true for me, in spades.

volunteer extra work: I always say sure. Thats earned me the trust of my bosses & has led to some amazing (& lucrative) opportunities I'd never have had otherwise.

Happy camper here & not (if this is what anyone is thinking) a lackey with no other life. But I love my job which is essentially to engage young minds & it affords me a nice living.

[jeremysums]

1.) Experience
2.) Good personality
3.) Good looks

[Squire]

I do very, very little preparation. All my work clothes are gray, black and white, including underwear and socks