Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Snowkr]

I'm just going to make this short and sweet. This is for anyone who struggles to teach difficult Korean kids or teens, be it in a hogwan or public school.

If scathing brats, created by imbecilic parents who should have had a surgical procedure done to disable their ability to procreate make you flustered and want to pull out your hair and feed it to the little twits strand by strand, DO NOT come to the Gulf to teach kids.

I thought I'd seen it all in Korea during my time there. I was WRONG.

Okay, maybe that wasn't so sweet. But it was short.

Korea still sparkling.

[Waygeek]

Haha well now you have to share some stories!!

[YTMND]

It seems like they treat their kids like dogs. They let them wander and do whatever without any supervision. So, the child never learns any discipline until they are in school.

Does that come in English? Of course not, so they are immune to anything we say.

[byrddogs]

[Times30]

One thing I have rarely had a problem with is student management. I also had the biggest troublemakers in my class.

I follow a very strict method that works.

Make them uncomfortable.

A lot of teachers think that being friends or buddies with the troublemakers will make it easier. No, if anything it makes it much more difficult. You should never show your willingness to become "good buddies".

Make the atmosphere as professional yet detached as possible. The ironic result is that students respect you more and also will feel closer to you.

As an example, I'll call this kid "Bob", was always making fun of teachers. He would do annoying things like shout out catch phrases like "Salsa" and "Pineapple" and it was hilarious to the other students as well. What I did was basically avoided paying attention to his jokes, but when he gave serious answers I praised him a lot and called him a serious and thoughtful person. He took a lot of pride in that and never ever.... caused any problems for me again (but still caused problems with other teachers).

You need to make yourself like a very serious down to earth person, who is willing to lay the law but at the same time does NOT have it out for the student. Never ever call a student bad, but definitely punish the behavior unemotionally.

Another thing I do is that I listen to my students. Sometimes I get students who come early and want to talk. I will listen to them. I will address any concerns they have, and I will never ignore a request. That seems to also be a huge thing that gets students respect. I think parents are constantly ignoring their kids. To give the attention and to be TREATED like an adult is very valuable to them and thus if you do it for them, they will return the favor.

[Snowkr]

The point of my original post was simply to emphasize that on their worst day, Korean students (and kids in general) are not as bad as Arab children. Koreans (and perhaps Asian children in general) can be disciplined at least. I just remember being shocked at the wild behavior of both Chinese and Korean students when I was in Asia, and even more appalled at how incompetent the adults seemed to be in managing them.

Here in the Gulf however, the parents/teachers take incompetence to a whole different level. They may as well turn them loose in the streets the second they learn to crawl. Imagine then how out of control the classrooms over here become.

I used to think some of the punishments I witnessed in hogwans and in public school were insane. Now I would give anything to see them used here!

[Whistleblower]

For fear of stereotyping, I would safely say that Middle Eastern learners (adults and young learners) are incredibly lazy. They expect to learn through osmosis. I have had difficulty with adults but I am glad to not teach kids.

[Lucas]

[Snowkr]

To get back to the topic at hand (not sure what the poster called "Lucas" was getting at in relation to actual thread I started), I just want to say that Korean students in general, no matter how insufferable they may be at times, cannot ever be worse than Gulfies.

Oman, possibly being the exception, the students here are quite hopeless... unless they leave to go and study in the west. I so badly want to see these poor misfits (who really are just unfortunate products of incompetent parenting) try and survive ONE DAY in the Korean education system.