Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Kwangjuchicken]

I see so many job adds that stress the point that if you work there you will not have to teach kindergarden.

It makes it seem as if that is a good thing. But I would think that is a bad thing.

I am about to start my 6th year in Korea , ok, as I was saying, and I have taught pre-school thru post doctoral students.

When it comes to kids' classes, the younger the better. The older kids can be a real proble at times.

But kindergarden, no problem at all. I mean, what other job allows you to eat cookies and draw crayon pictures of chickens and calls it work????








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[VanIslander]

[chronicpride]

I love kindergarten. My favorite jobs were the ones that would be kindy/elementary splits, starting at 10 and finishing at 5 or 6. The only thing that sucks about kindy shifts is that you're off when most foreigners are working, and can't pull as many late nights as the people who teach elementary/middle school students from 3-9.

But I love the innocence and the pure energy that the kindy kids give off.

[sadsac]

Kindergarten can be a very demanding position. It requires a great deal more innovation than teaching regular classes. Personally, I prefer elementary school students.

[Dawn]

I think kindergartners sometimes get a bad rep because of the way many English kindergarten programs in Korea are operated. Set up English preschool kindergarten class just like you would a preschool or kindergarten class in North America, and the kids will learn. Yes, Korean preschoolers -- just like preschoolers in North America -- arrive with limited attention spans. Like their North American counterparts, however, they learn to pay attention for longer periods of time as they adjust to the classroom routine.

Unfortunately, too many preschool/kinder classes over here seem to consist of sticking a foreign teacher in front of a huge number of tykes once or twice a week for 15-20 minutes at a time. Expecting Korean preschoolers to learn English with such limited exposure to the language is like expecting North American tykes to evolve into virtuoso musicians because their preschool offers a Kindermusik class each week.

Then there's the matter of the classroom itself to take into account. How many of the hagwons allegedly offering early childhood classes actually have classrooms designed for young children? Some do, but many cram tykes into the same tiny spaces they use for older kids and even adults. IMO, this is the height of insanity. For starters, young children are NOT passive learners. Any hagwon owner who knows anything about kids should realize that young children learn best when they're actively engaged in the learning process. We don't force babies to sit still and listen to lectures on how to walk. We hold their little hands and help them take tottering steps. We don't make preschoolers sit in adult-sized chairs while we lecture them on left brain/right brain drawing techniques. We put a crayon in those chubby hands, hand them a piece of paper and let them go at it. Yet some hagwon owners seem to think it perfectly normal to order tots into adult-sized chairs around a table so tall they can't even see over it when sitting properly and stick a white face in front of them. Oh, and if they put a whiteboard in the room, they think they've really gone all out! Never mind that the board is too high for the kids to reach. Argh!

Thankfully, some do make an effort to put young kids in classrooms designed for young kids. But even in many of these, the classroom environment is designed more for show than actual learning. Kid-sized tables and cutesy bulletin boards are a start, but how many of those cutesy bulleting boards have ANY educational purpose. (Granted, a creative teacher can turn pretty much anything into a teaching opportunity. But really, how much time do you want to spend distinguishing between pink flowers and purple flowers?) Skip the pretty pastel tables and chairs with face-shaped cut-outs in the back, and invest in alphabet blocks, letter tiles, pocket charts, sentence strips, magnetic words, flannel boards and story-book characters, Unifix cubes, attribute blocks, etc. ...

Rant aside, I'm another of those teachers who actually enjoys kindergarten and who considered offers only from hagwons with strong early childhood programs the last time I was in the market for a job. Found one owned and operated by a certified teacher who spent a number of years teaching kindergarten at an international school, and have largely been happy with the job. I just hate getting kids from other "English kindergartens" who (1) know almost no English and (2) arrive barely out of diapers and already burned out on schools.

[oneiros]

I don't teach kindergarten, because pre-school kids drive me crazy. Really. I subbed kindergarten a couple of times, and it was the worst three hours of my ESL career.

I'll also be the first to admit that I'm simply not as good with the younger kids as I am with sixth graders or midlle-school kids.

I think the bad rep kindergarten positions get might also have something to do with the potential for terrible working hours. I've known some kindergarten teachers who worked 10 am to 9 pm.

[crazylemongirl]

I miss my kindy classes, my kindy classses were some of my best classes. Of course a bad kindy is always the worst, class as well.

[UncleAlex]

Because the little hyper-animated brats who just unwittingly make
a foreign teacher's life miserable are the number one cause of ulcers
and hyper-tension. That's why.

[the_beaver]

[ryleeys]

I hate... as in HATE... as in HATE my kindy classes.

[the_beaver]

[ajuma]

Kindy classes = wet lap. No thanks!

[pet lover]

[Bunnymonster]

wanna come and teach my kindergarten for me, they are killing me........ Not helping is the fact that I have been forbidden to teach them phonics. So books have no real interest value to them and due to teaching another 8*40 minute classes each day I have no voice to shout and sing (not that I would want to anyway) gahd I need a route out of this job, but apprently resigning is no longer an option even if I give notice (If EFL-Law guy is to be believed, which I'm sure he is).

[OiGirl]