Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Scott in HK]

I think you can bypass the "pandering to parents" if you do two things. One is to have an actual curriculum that they can see and perhaps understand. Demonstrate to the parents exactly what will little Jin-Young will be learning in the near future.

And two, involve them somehow in the process. Not just by report cards or teacher parent interviews, but by developing some sort of parallel home program. This is especially true for very young kids.

I am doing a paper now on how to take good L1 kindergarten practices and transfer them to a L2 environment; and the value of parent involvement is stressed by a lot of researchers.

I, too, want to open my own school. A nice little money making immersion kindergarten.

[kangnamdragon]

[kangnamdragon]

[Scott in HK]

I am not sure if the demands of parents change with regards to school. They want their children to learn...to succeed. If your students improve, then usually parents are happy.

The key is to have a program where ALL of your students succeed. This is difficult.

I think parents can easily tell if they are dealing with a 'school' or a business...

[giantyogurt]

I've always thought of someone from outside the country opening a real language school with real management and real teaching materials.

A few things I would like to suggest;

First, contact the Ministry of Education with the matters regarding opening a language school. If your Korean isn't too great, I can offer to help you on this.

Secondly, do you need multimedia resources like tv shows or cartoons for kids? I have a video card with TV tuner and I record my favorite tv shows to watch later or send to my friends to Korea for their learning English. They love it. If you're interested, I can transfer those files over the Internet or burn them on DVDs to send them in a small package, whichever you prefer.

Lastly, are you also interested in getting together native English speakers to converse with the students over the web camera? This will provide great flexibility and freedom both to students and teachers, or whoever want to participate in.

If you would like to discuss this over the phone, feel free to pm me with your cell phone number. I'll leave you a message when I'm available. I'll look forward to hearing from you soon then.


Anthony Cho,=

[Seon-bee]

All of this seems wishful thinking to me.

Parents want what's best for their kids. But only they know what's best. They all have PhDs in TESOL.

The ONLY measure of an excellent school in a parent's mind is the amount of homework they see their kids doing at home. The more useless and time consuming the better. They generally have no interest in what goes on during class. They also distrust anything you say even if it's based on published research that the rest of the world knows about.

Putting togther a western-style curriculum would be a disaster. Korean parents can't deal with it. They want tests, tests, tests. Kids, especially middle schoolers, don't want it either. The reason they go to ip-shi hagwons is because they can sit down and mellow out and just check their cell phone messages. Developing productive skills are not on their agenda.

Parents often get suckered by the outlandish ads found in newspapers, eg. @ our school students memorize 500 words per day, and one for real..."we LEARN 300 words per minute."

Being a hagwon owner is not a position of great standing on Korea. Quite the opposite.

Being a foreignor and owner is no special consideration to parents. In fact, many mothers complain that as foreignors we don't understand how students need to learn.

Getting a non-chain up and running is a difficult proposition.

The true cost of opening up a decent sized, well equiped, clean school is out of the question for most if not all of us.

The true cost of opening and running a school is beyond the grasp of a majority of posters I've been reading.

The P/L expectations of owning a school are also unrealistic. I've only read assumptions and wild guesses.

A lot of crap we hear from directors is actually true. Parents are generally unreasonable, picky, and rude. You'd never believe the crap that comes out of some people. Both parents and students lie constantly.

The payoff: I'm my own boss. I do what I want in my own school. I can kick students out or just make their lives miserable until they quit. The best feeling is telling mothers to take a hike.

[Ryst Helmut]

[Scott in HK]

Ryst...

I believe that in the long run you will make more money running your 'operation' as a 'school' rather than as a 'business'. If you put the students first and have their learning as your top priority, then the money will follow.

With a solid program plan and by taking care of your teachers, students, parents everyone will benefit.

Parental involvement is absolutely necessary in an immersion kindergarten setting as the parents have to be willing to keep their child's L1 literacy. Parents also have to encourage their children to talk about their classroom experience in order to extend and connect what happens in the classroom with things happening in their home life. One thing that is missing from immersion settings is exploratory talk where teachers relate the lesson they just had to the world outside the classroom.

It is becoming more and more evident to me that properly run immersion kindergarten would have to make room for some sort of group discussion in the st's L1 about what happened that day in school.

Ryst...

I am doing a literature review comparing the best practices concerning the support of emergent literacy in L1 and L2 classrooms....in essence I am asking how much of what works in an L1 classroom (where most of the research is done) will work in an L2 classroom. The paper is still in the compiling note stage...though a draft is due on friday....

[Seon-bee]

Scott,

I respectfully disagree.

I have owned an institute in Korea for nearly three years now.

Playing by the rules will not get you very far. I also have/had the same high expectations for students, teachers, and parents. Quality education is a matter of interpretation.

To a majority of parents quality education is Vocabulary 22,000 and TOEFL for 5th-6th graders and 4 hours of homework per night--even for K students. Parents continually question both the philosophy and approach to learning because it isn't the same as what other "reputable schools" are offering, namely a sparta environment with test, retest, and pile-it-on amounts of homework. They don't care that their son or daughter has been provided with an American or Canadian pen pal, etc.

Many parents don't have time to help their kids. They feel it's the school's job to do that and make sure they're doin gtheir homework and passing tests.

Real teaching takes time and personal involvement by both the student and teacher. The current environment is not conducive to real teaching. The best chance I have is to catch them when they're young.

Expecting students to participate in a feel-good, learner-centered approach like Community Language Learning or another Rogerian rationale is not very pragmatic. Neither is a introspective strategies-based approach where students check their emotional temperature, set goals, etc.

Treating teachers like you intend is also not going to get your far. In reality, few teachers are interested in professional development. Not all teachers are not interested in delivering the best they've got. Often, the best they've got isn't good enough.

Also, I see no difference between profit and not-for-profit management. Standards and quality control should be held in high regard in both contexts.

What's needed is ARLES-like business standards.

Above all, parents need to be educated as well as the students.

[skindleshanks]

[skindleshanks]

[Scott in HK]

Seon-bee..

Korea parents are in many ways exactly the same as Hong Kong parents. They have the same ideas when it come to what is 'good education'. Both believe in homework and tests. Having said that, Hong Kong parents are lined up to put their children in Western style immersion kindergartens, because they believe that it is the best way for their children to get a head start in English.

I can see no reason why Korean parents would be any different. It is not like my proposed school would be tricking them into placing their children in our program. Any parent placing their child with us would know exactly what sort of curriculum we have. It would be their choice. They would also know what we expect of them as stakeholders in their child's education.

I am not sure what your criteria would be for hiring teachers, or what sort of teachers work at your school, but I can say that I wouldn't be hiring teachers who were not professionals. If they don't believe in giving their best or their best is not good enough then they won't be working with me. I only need two extra teachers for my program, so I don't think it will be too hard to find them.

I am not going to be playing by the rules. I will be making up my own rules and seeing if anyone wants to play with me. If no one does, then I won't go ahead with my school. I will expect all my teachers and students to put in the time necessary. Teachers and students will be together for a half day...and I don't need to worry about the 'current' environment as I will be the one in control of the educational environment in my school.

I have done a lot of research at what works in a kindergarten to promote the learning of a second language. I feel, perhaps, by your modifier 'feels good' that you don't have much belief in the learner centred approach in classrooms and that is fine. If you don't believe in it, it certainly won't work in your school. But research has proven that it does work. It is simply the best way for young children to learn a new language. It is important that the kindergarten experience develops the whole child, and my program includes the elements necessary for personal/academic growth in my students.

My desire is not to open an institute where kids may stay for a few hours after school. I want to open a half day kindergarten (well two halves....morning and afternoon) with a full kindergarten curriculum where students will learn to use English in a variety of different ways. As I have mention before, I have spent the last two years researching the best way to do this in an efl immersion setting. I feel that if I get the chance, my program will be very successful. And as students leave my school, showing off their English ability, I am sure I will convert many a Korean mother to my way of doing things.

[Seon-bee]

Hi Scott,

The day to day management needs of a school will eventually wear you down.

I'm all for learner-centered approaches if students are interested. Here, once kids reach middle school, a majority of them prefer ipshi hagwons because they can sit back, check their phone messages, and simply let the teacher lecture. Most parents of this age group also feel that only a lecture style ipshi hagwon will prepare them for their university tests and increase their school scores.

As for VYLs and YLs, I'd suggest developing materials that include what you want to accomplish, not just a daily routine.

What I'm saying is that you're speaking of an ideal situation. Lots of kids have ADD, learning disabilities, or simply need trained professionals to handle them. Some students, even little kids, hate English. Kids turning other kids into wangg-ttas is a reality even at 7-8 years old.

I hope you can hire teachers in-country via an interview. You'd better have the money to pay high salaries to only teachers with a proven track record. When you do teacher training and have teacher meetings, it's very common to get a lot of 'yes, OK, I'll do that, good idea.' But back in class, when left to their own devices, often it's back to the old way.

Area may also make a difference. My school is in an extremely competitive area. Mothers tend to go shopping for hagwons like they do clothes. They won't be interested in what you have to say (are you a fluent Korean speaker?), they'll be interested in what their neighbor says when they have their monthly gae (apartment meeting).

I'd like to hear back from you about a year after you've opened your school.

[ulsanchris]

I think opening a hogwan is way harder than some people on here think. A hogwon is a business and if you don't treat it like one then i don't think you will make it very far. That doesn't mean not offereing a top quality service, but you do have to watch your expences.
I don't think there is any way to avoid dealing with the parents. They will constantly be demanding your time. Maybe your best bet would to have a system and stick with it no matter what. THe downside is if the parents don't think they are being listened to then they might go some where else and start nasty rumours.
Also this is Korea. What you might think will make prefect sense and be successful, might be utter nonsense here and unsuccessful. Moms want all the hogwons to be close together so their kids don't have to travel far between them. If you open your hogwan far away from a group of hogwons you are putting yourself at a disadvantage because the parents won't want their kids to go their because of the location.

There will be all sorts of problems with children whose parents who won't pay tutition or will be constantly late in paying. I've heard that up to 1/3 of students don't pay on time and that some never pay. They just drop out after owing a lot of money. this isn't a problem that is easy to deal with.
If you want to own a hogwon think long and hard at all the things that can and will go wrong. YOu can't count on everything being a bed of roses.

[stalinsdad]

I think some of the more negative responses are spot on. I wish kiwikorean the best but the barrier are high. I recently married my Korean g/f and have thought of similar enterprises, as in all businesses there is a large % of failure. I'm not sure the stress, risk and effort are worth the at times meagre rewards.
You seem a highly professional teacher, with the right ethos, but be aware that Koreans want a bargain(as we all do)!!!
New hagwons with plush exteriors and 24 hour baby drop in centre's at minimal cost is what they want, better still if they don't have to pay.
I agree that schools in Korea are inferior due to this window dressing, purely outward, one dimensional view, but' it's what they want and what they are used to. I'm sure in time that things may change, but not in the near future.
I wish you luck kiwi(and don't involve her family)