Korean Job Discussion Forums

[John Stamos jr.]

I work an after school job and the level of English my CT speaks is ridiculously low. I find it absurd that she could ever be hired as an English teacher to begin with. I mean, she can't form basic sentences and struggles enormously when trying to explain anything to me. And she has worked as an English teacher before this current job. What is up with this? "You no eat-uh runchee cafeteria?" Seriously? I've been here for a reasonable amount of time and have seen plenty of Korean teachers whose English speaking abilities were fairly low, but this one takes the cake. I'm guessing she gets these jobs because she wears Chanel EVERYTHING, lives in Gangnam, and spent a summer in Australia... so people just assume she speaks English. But she don't.

Are things really that bad here? "You need go medical check-uh, OKEE?" Lot of public school teachers here, I presume. What the heck is going on here.

[Smithington]

Same at my school. She can only repeat the sentences in the textbook and nothing more. But even here her pronunciation is dreadful. "Okay, next-uh paygee..."

I just cringe inwardly a dozen times during the class as this instructor of English does more harm than good. And when she writes sentences on the board, which she wants the kids to write down five times in their notebooks, I just have to shake my head in disbelief. I've corrected her so many times that she now teaches her entire section of the class in Korean.

Good luck Korea when you finally turn the English instruction of your students over to all Korean teachers.

But of course, all the failings of Korean ESL programs result from 'unqualified foreign English instructors'. Not the crap texts and the fact that the Korean teachers can't speak English.

[John Stamos jr.]

Thank god I don't have to be in the same room with her. It's enough to hear her screeching from the other room. There are definitely two or three students who speak better English than her, one being a first grader who went to an international school in Paris. And she totally screwed up the level tests. I have to teach a two hour long "top level" class two days a week to four kids who can barely read.

[newb]

You know....your co-teachers are acting as though they don't speak English well so they can do nothing and let you do all the teaching.

I do it to my co-teachers acting as though I don't speak Korean very well. I get away with lots of unnecessary BS that goes around here at my school.

[CentralCali]

[thatkidpercy]

My middle school separates the kids into three different levels. I work with five different co-teachers and the (spoken) English ability of two of them is below the majority of students in the highest level classes. I've never seen them do anything other than listen and repeat type drills from the textbook whenever I've walked past their classrooms and I really wonder what kind of learning takes place in those classes. Fortunately they do help out during our classes together (keeping the kids in line etc.), but if I ever prepare a lesson that actively involves the Korean teacher in any kind of spoken dialogue it's a real cringe-fest. Outside of the classroom, one of them actively avoids me and the other one usually speaks to me in Korean

When I joined the school a year ago all five co-teachers were fantastic, but unfortunately the best two (who actually spoke English with the kids in their own classes) left for greener pastures in March and were replaced with the two mentioned above. I'm sure most public school teachers have experienced this to some extent.

[CentralCali]

[John Stamos jr.]

She wouldn't even let me talk to the kids and assigned them to random levels after a matter of seconds. She was clearly intimidated by anyone who could hold a conversation for more than ten seconds. The class levels are screwed to hell.

[Scorpion]

My last public school was a large one. For each grade there were three classes, and the students took a level test to determine which class they got placed in - low, intermediate or high. I was baffled as to how students of markedly different English ability got placed in the same class. So I asked one of my co-teachers about it. "Oh, we placed the students in the low, middle or high level classes based on their combined English and math scores."

The mind boggles.

[Dodge7]

OP, please know that I completely, 100% understand what you're going through, and to make you feel a little better, I think my K co-teacher is worse than yours. I'm at an after school program, too.

I just made a thread about this not too long ago. Here's my story:
http://forums.eslcafe.com/korea/viewtopic.php?t=220852&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

[Malislamusrex]

You should be greatful that some of your co-teachers can speak English.

[Squire]

I've worked with CT's whose English level was pretty low as far as conversation goes, but to be fair I'm sure they were fine teaching grammar rules. If they are teaching from a textbook the kids should be alright as far as passing tests and achieving the basic syllabus objectives of the year. On the other hand, that's as much as the kids will have gotten out of it.

[John Stamos jr.]

Interesting input. And, dodge, I wish we could put the two together for an English debate. I'd put solid money down on this horse winning.

I didn't realize it was so bad. And I'm starting to miss my old CT who had spent half her life in America. I was clearly taking that situation for granted.

I literally don't understand half of what this chick orders me to do. 'Tell Halloween paper'... Repeated ten times before I realize she wants me to write something explaining what Halloween is to distribute to the kids. With the low hours perk you'd think they could find someone who could speak a basic sentence of the language they're supposed to be teaching. No wonder she set up a situation where she only has to teach the lowest levels. Though she screwed herself by putting kids who speak better than her in those classes.

[some waygug-in]

This is all too common.

What you may or may not realize is that she is trying to appear to be in

control in front of her students. I'm sure many of the students do speak

and understand more English than she does, and she knows it too.

The last thing she wants is to look foolish in front of them, even if it means

making you look foolish.


Try and empathize a bit with her side of things and see if you can't work

out some ways of making things work for both of you. You won't get anywhere by fighting with her.

[young_clinton]

No problem there, just learn Korean and you will be communicating perfectly well.