Korean Job Discussion Forums

[randall020105]

[luckylady]

[transmogrifier]

[David Gerrington]

[andrewchon]

OP, identify the ring leaders and banish them back to their home room. Refuse them entry into classroom in lessons afterwards. If they refuse to leave, then send the whole class back to their homeroom. Once the classroom-cancer is gone, the rest of the pin-heads will fall in line.

[joeteacher]

I've had classes like you OP, here's what worked for me:

-Divide the class into two teams. They are a team for the whole class. If they break a class rule, minus a point. If they answer a question well, read out loud, etc. then then get a point. If you have a computer, use the website Barry Fun English (they have a good little score board).

-Making them compete really gets them focused on the class and thus their behavior improves.

-The winning team gets a sticker or stamp. At the end of the month or sememster, the one with the most gets a prize. Give out extra stickers/stamps for the student of the day or whatever.

-Be consistent. Be fair.

-Don't be a buddy but try to build individual relationships with each student before and after class. Showing a little interest goes a long way.

[luckylady]

[David Gerrington]

[soyoungmikey]

[thomas pars]

I worked at a PS last year.

With base salary and overtime after school classes I would clear 2.7 on less than 30 hours a week. 4 weeks vacation. And summer and winter camps = 1000 bucks for showing up and teaching pop songs.

But you couldn't pay me enough to work in another one.

Sending students to their homeroom teachers, the stamp idea, the letters, none of it is going to work. Sorry to tell you that.

Find yourself a nice little hagwon where the students and more importantly the parents care about education, and you'll find yourself actually liking Korean kids and teaching again.

Good luck.

[bobbybigfoot]

There is NOTHING more valuable than a Korean Co-teacher who actually knows what she's doing. If so, then you will have ZERO discipline issues. And I mean zero.

The problem is that these teachers are few and far between.

I've taught with one teacher for 4 years and she has yet to have a SINGLE misbehaved student.

I've taught with others who ROUTINELY have misbehaved kids.

This is not "luck of the draw" ... a good teacher STOPS any deviant behaviour the moment it begins. And she does it ruthlessly. And everyone knows how to behave, and then the entire class behaves in that way.

[JustinC]

[nautilus]

[nero]

[Threequalseven]

I know this topic has been buried for a while, but I have the exact same problem as the OP. However, the main difference is that I teach at a hagwon, so it's just me in the classroom. Also, my classroom is very small, so moving the kids around doesn't really work. (I've tried.)

My problem is that from Monday though Thursday, I have a "special class" which is made up of 5th and 6th grade students including the director's kid and the secretary's kid. It's "special" because these kids are supposed to be the best and brightest (but really it's just because their parents decided to shell out the extra dough). I'm supposed to teach from a discussion book that's way too complicated for them. In addition, they need to write an essay for me every day. This is in addition to their lab and their main class. So by the time they come to me, they've already been in academy for almost 2 hours.

My typical class starts with me finding out who finished their essays, and sending the rest of the kids out to the hallway to finish. Then, I have to correct all the essays as quickly as possible. This process usually takes the first 15 minutes out of the class. The students are usually just talking during this time. Once I finish, I'm supposed to make students read passages, answer questions, and have debates out of the book. Yet, the entire time, the whole class talks in Korean. There are two boys and four girls, and the two boys don't care at all. One of the boys left the class for a month but then came back, and the class was quite a bit better when he was gone. So I know he enables the other students. Anyway, if I have one person read a paragraph, the other students will talk through the whole thing. The same thing happens when I ask questions from the book. Just today, I asked one student (the enabler), "What's the answer to number four?" multiple times, and he just ignored me and continued talking to the girl across from him. Aside from totally freaking out, there's almost nothing I can do to reign in these kids. And I can understand why. There's no punishment for them if they don't pay attention, no worksheets or anything in the class (just discussion), and they really don't even need to do their essays. So they basically treat it as chill-out talk time. Yet I'm supposed to teach them from this book, but unlike the OP, there's no consequences if I don't. I could literally let them talk the whole time and nothing would happen to me, but I don't do that because then I'd be essentially "giving in" to the students.

I teach 25 different sets of students every week, and there are only three classes that are as bad as this one. However, I only have the other two once a week, so it's more manageable than this one. Oh! And one more thing. I had my co-teacher who teaches this class on Friday came in during one of my classes, and of course, they were perfect angels. So I'm convinced that they just don't have any respect for me. I've tried almost everything in the book, but nothing seems to work. Rewards don't work because they don't care, writing in the book doesn't work because their parents don't check, rearranging the class doesn't work because it's too small. The only thing I haven't tried is the air conditioner trick. The only problem there is they all wear their jackets to class anyway, so I don't know if they would get very cold.

What do other people do in this situation? I really don't think it's me. I think it's because I'm the foreigner, and I can't talk to the bad students' parents like my co-teacher can, so there's no reason for them to behave.