Korean Job Discussion Forums

[ibanezhomie]

Did you know what to expect? Did they just throw you in a classroom and expect you to teach or were you well-informed of what you needed to do? Was there ever a time during a class where you thought to yourself, "I have no idea what I'm supposed to be doing right now."

Any experiences and stories will be appreciated. I'm heading out to Korea next week and I'm very nervous/excited. This will be my first time teaching and I honestly want to be the best teacher possible but I have very little information about what it takes to teach a class.
Did any uncertain situations (like in the first paragraph) pop up and what did you do? Anyone know of some common mistakes that newbies usually make? I would like the transition to be as smooth as possible. I will be teaching at a hagwon but I have been corresponding with a future co-worker who just arrived and she has said really good things about it so my only concern at this point is the teaching aspect.

[ajuma]

I can honestly say that I learned a whole lot more about teaching than my students learned about English during my first year here.

The foremost thing you have to learn is classroom management. Think about what you're going to do if little Hong Chul won't sit down or if little So Min refuses to participate in an activity.

A word of advice: Go in friendly and calm and with a fixed routine. Kids respond better to a class that's structured than one that's all over the place. Figure out what you're going to do first in EVERY class. That sets the tone. Alternate the 4 domains (reading, writing, listening, speaking) so the class doesn't get boring...but in the same order every time.

Take action with the very first kid that either disrespects you or won't follow instructions. Decide in advance what that action will be.

Teaching can be a lot of fun. When that kid who was totally silent the first 45 weeks suddenly comes up to you and talks, it makes it all worthwhile.

[PatrickGHBusan]

Wow...brings back memories!

I initially worked for a Hakwon and I had the "luxury" of getting 4 days of training & orientation in Seoul. It was one of the larger companies with numerous schools.

I was full-time certified teacher in Canada before coming to Korea so a lot of the training was useless but some of it was interesting. As for teaching, while my education and experienced helped, it was still a learning curve to adapt to Korean classrooms, Korean students. What helped is that compared to my former full time teaching position in Canada, the Hakwon position had so much damn free time to prepare and adapt! Heck the workload (even over 6 days as back then we worked Mon to Sat) was so much lower.

The big things for me were getting used to last minute curve balls thrown by management, dealing with mixed level classes, the 6-day work week and basically adapting to living in Korea. However what helped a ton was the small class size (went from my canadian class of roughly 35 students to an 8-12 class size at the Hakwon).

As for co-wortkers, you need to go in open minded and to quickly try and figure out the rules and customs of the Korean workplace. This will make your life far easier!

If you have little to no teaching experience, try and read up on basic classroom management techniques so you will not feel too overwhelmed with the classroom experience.

Plan, plan and plan some more! Prepare activities, then backup activities. That way you have stuff to fall back on in class.

Accept that a lesson will change as you deliver it to live students and be ready to roll with it...this brings us back to plan, plan, plan!

As ajuma said, by structuring your classes/lessons, you will get betetr results. You will know where the lesson needs to go and so will the kids.

In fact, ajuma's advice is outstanding and I would follow it.

[ajuma]

[PatrickGHBusan]

I mentionned the planning issue because all too often you will see inexperienced teachers start a lesson and get stuck due to some unexpected event in class. That can cause them quite a bit of stress and derail the lesson!

The other thing is that sometimes the hakwon lesson will have very little base material (ex: pages 3-4 of the textbook and page 3 of the workbook type of deal) so planning activities to supplement and reinforce the material is a good way to shield yourself against unexpected events or against a lesson falling flat.

Some teachers like to write up a lesson outline on the board so that students know where they are in the lesson as it progresses. This can help.

[YTMND]

[PatrickGHBusan]

I agree follow the school curriculum. I was just saying that with some research and some work a teacher can ad to it and boost the material thereby having some backup activities should the lesson bog down and end too fast.

One of the most challenging things for a new teacher is often learning how to measure the level of engagement and learning of his or her students as the lesson is delivered. Activities are a good way to measure that and to get students active.

[Redcap]

OP:

There's been a lot of good advice offered so far.

I agree with ajuma about the importance of classroom management. Too many new teachers unknowingly sabotage their own authority before they even step into the classroom for the first time. Why ? Because they fail to create and enforce a list of classroom rules.

Compiling a list of classroom rules may seem like a no-brainer- and it is. However, I've seen too many teachers undermine their own authority because their students have no idea about what they can or can't get away with in the class.

A set of rules should cover what is acceptable behaviour, and what isn't. I write down the rules in English, and have a Korean co-worker do the same in Korean.

Equally important, you need to have a clearly defined set of consequences attached to the rules. However, it's generally a good idea to get your supervisor or Korean co-teacher to review and approve your list of rules and punishment beforehand. They may not be as enthusiastic about little Min-Soo doing 30 push-ups as you are.

It's not enough to have rules and consequences. You need to follow through with them without hesitation, and be very consistent. Failure to do so will invariably lead to a chaotic, "inmates running the prison" type of environment. I always place my students into "teams." I keep a running tally of rule infractions, and deduct points from a team if one of its members acts out (in addition to that group member receiving whatever pre-determined punishment was). I also add points to teams for exemplary behaviour. At the end of the week, the team with the most points gets a prize. I find that the teams will generally police themselves in an effort to get the prize.

Even though I know beforehand what types of rules I want in the classroom, I get my students to actively participate in in the process of creating them. This gives them a sense of inclusiveness. More often than not, they tend to come up with the same basic rules as me. Also, rule-breakers tend not to moan very much when I hand out punishment, upon reminded that they not only helped create the rules and consequences, they agreed to them as well.

While not a magic bullet, creating a list of rules, consequences, and enforcing them will certainly provide a solid foundation on which to build your teaching skills.

Best of luck.

[PatrickGHBusan]

Redcap is completely right!

Rules are not enough as a Teacher you need to be steady in how you enforce them and to be fair. Otherwise it will fail miserably. Mind you sometimes as a Teacher you will not feel like enforcing a rule but you must do it as it pays off handsomely over the mid to long term with your students.

[ibanezhomie]

Thanks for the input guys, very helpful! I leave next week and I'm super stressed but I know everything will turn out fine. Apparently class sizes are no bigger than 10 kids per class so it will at least be easier to manage than classes here in the states.

[Cartman]

Some random advice - stay as far away from the politics as possible. If you see a K assistance quietly crying in the staff room, don't ask questions, don't inquire, just let it be. Also, assuming you are male, don't be seen chatting up the cute assistants, while smiling. It doesn't take much for them to get the rumor mill started. They seem to enjoy teasing each other about hooking up with the male foreigners. One gal was brought to tears, by the head female manager, on the basis of being seen showing me her personal art scrapbook, something she worked on, on the side... the teasing was the equivalent of what grade 5 students would do in North America.

Aside from that, enjoy! And be ready for anything! (I was suppose to 'shadow' another teacher for a few days, but since a teacher was sick I got thrown into mix with zero prep)

I see you have "ibanez" in your username - does that mean you'll be doing some guitar shopping in Seoul??

[young_clinton]

My co-teacher ran the classes and was bossy in the class itself (I think this is pretty typical, it's important not to take it personally). I would have to give relatively long talks without warning on a few occasions. As for the after school English classes, I had to teach them the first year without any help from anyone, although I had good books. In general the experience was very decent.

This is a good reason that teachers should go to Korea for the first time with a good 120 hr. TEFL or TESOL certificate behind them from a real TEFL teaching institution. Of course the institution should have something like 9 or so observed hours of teaching with unannounced "surprise" teaching assignments during the course. Teachers sometimes have to be ready to come up with material just off of the top of their heads.

[wonkavite62]

I feel some of your excitementt about the new job, and wish you well. Firstly, I can pick out something really positive: your future co-worker seems to be really happy. If I am right, that means that the school is well-resourced and has realistic expectations of the teachers. It would help if the school tends to retain teachers throughout their contracts.
My first experience was not so good. An agency got me a job in a very small hagwon. I had real doubts, but foolishly went to Korea. The school had no resources, and I would have needed more previous experience in order to use the mostly empty textbooks well. The boss was a nice man, but as he told me, he had fired the last 3 foreign teachers after 6 months. It really helps that your future colleague has already seen the school.
As for advice, I cannot emphasise enough the importance of being strict on day one. If the kids see that you notice them starting to misbehave, then they will be better later. If you can reward children for good behaviour, that helps. The best students can receive stickers or sweets. Give them competitive language games, but tied to something they have recently learned. The advice from the others who answered your post is very useful. Please take it and refer to it later.

[Weigookin74]

[Squire]

First year is difficult. One thing you have control of though, is your appearance. Don't be another gap year ESL teacher going to work in jeans and trainers with two days growth of stubble. Dress well. People's expectations of you will be greater, and often people see in someone what they expected to see based on their image. Many Koreans already have a negative perception of foreign English teachers so it's best to differentiate yourself from those people. Make it clear you are a serious and businesslike person, and not just another smelly hippie teaching ESL to finance their trip to Thailand and get drunk in Itaewon