Korean Job Discussion Forums

[mattyskier]

Hello everyone. I am 5 months into my first hagwon job (it's a brand new hagwon), and I am looking for some advice from experienced ESL teachers.

First of all, my director is incredibly nice to me and basically hasn't given me any criticism about my teaching besides telling me that I should make my students speak more. That being said, I am the only foreign teacher and I haven't been trained at all, so I have been 100% winging it the entire time I have been in Korea. There are some days where I can see a look of disappointment on his face, and I feel like he deserves a better teacher than what I can provide.

Life at my hagwon isn't that stressful to be honest (lonely is a better word), but I feel like I am a waste of the students' time. I am starting to feel incredibly bad that my students have to put up with a teacher (me) who still can't seem to grasp classroom management.

I have a great relationship with my classes that require no discipline, but with the younger elementary school students I have tried everything in my arsenal to get them to behave, and they are still out of my control. I have a reward system where students earn points for good behavior and buy candy/toys, but the bad students just don't seem to care about it.

I also have a very hard time preventing them from speaking Korean in class. I spent a couple of months trying to get them to only speak English, but I have had to give up on it in the past few weeks or else I just spend the whole class saying "_______ speak English please!"

I have been incredibly burnt out on teaching recently because I think I'm just not meant for the job. My desire to get better as a teacher is now fading, and I have decided that I am going to pursue a different career at the end of my contract. Mentally I could easily stay teaching until the end of my contract (assuming I won't get fired), but I would feel incredibly guilty because I have already thrown in the towel on getting better as a teacher.

The advice I am looking for is if it's even worth it to finish off my contract, or if I should call it quits (not a midnight run) and hopefully the school can hire a better teacher so my students get more out of their time.

Sorry for the long post. I just really needed to get this off my back to someone out there.

[Stain]

[ghostrider]

It's sounds like you're being too hard on yourself. You're dealing with burnt out students who study all day and a language barrier. I've found it best to go with the flow in Korea. Try to build some rapport with the bad students. Also try to coax a few English sentences out of each student during the class. Ask them questions. Obviously, telling the kids not to speak Korean over and over again is counterproductive as you've already discovered. If your director is really concerned about misbehaving students he could probably do a lot more to help you out. Showing respect for older people and people in positions of authority is part of Korean culture. However, the students may view you as someone who is outside of their culture so they may feel no need to respect or obey you.

[young_clinton]

Look at all the nice job opportunities around you at the moment. Just endeavor to be a good teacher.

[Lucas]

If it's a new hagwon and you are the only teacher it may well close soon, if student numbers fall.

[andrewchon]

There's only one tell tale sign that you're not cut up for the job: complaints from students/parents.

If there aren't any, then what ever you're doing is ACCEPTABLE. You are not going to do the magical transformations that happens on movies, or politics, or narcissistic imaginations.

[mattyskier]

Wow thanks a lot for the replies everyone. Feels good to wake up on a Monday morning and read some of these. As far as complaints go I have just heard about a complaint from a parent one time that their child wasn't speaking enough in class (he's super shy so it's hard to get him to speak).

I guess I will just continue to do what I'm doing and not stress out too much about it and whatever happens happens.

[Hokie21]

In hagwons it's all about keeping the parents happy. That could be providing their kid with a decent learning experience or it could simply mean babysitting their little princess for an hour every MWF.

As was previously mentioned hagwons are a business and with yours being relatively new your boss needs to build up his clientele base. It's about keeping everyone happy at this point and bringing in new students.

[caribmon]

Best thing is to have fun and do a reasonable job

[rambler]

[J Rock]

I've been here for 6 years and I consider myself a bad teacher, but for some reason I keep getting hired!

Stick it out and if you actually want to improve as a teacher you will.

[faeriehazel]

Your director has no right to be disappointed in you if he didn't even bother to provide any training for a newbie teacher. I think you're being too hard on yourself. Even the most experienced teachers can have trouble with classroom discipline, and honestly IME teaching younger kids is a lot more difficult in a lot of ways than teaching older kids. I've been teaching for a long time, at all ages and levels, and little kids stress me out the most. You just have to remind yourself that they are at an age where they really shouldn't be cooped up in academies outside of school. The best way to deal with them is to keep them busy with a bunch of 10 min. activities (they have such short attention spans) so they can't get into too much trouble.

With really bad kids it helps to discuss strategies with the staff. Sometimes you can send them for a time-out or have one of the Korean admin speak to them (or they can try calling home, but this rarely works because kids who behave badly usually have crappy parents to begin with).

[Jodami]

Frankly speaking it's good that you care.

However, most Korean hagwons, Korean students and parents don't give a damn about learning English. Accept the facts, which are;

You're a paid white esl monkey, who's job it is to be:

(a) "A paid face" on the door. (make sure you throw in as many "good job" as possible, when the boss/parents are around.)

(b) A stand up comedian in class (any good at making funny white monkey faces?)

(c) A relatively well paid babysitter so dad can make money, go boozing with the boss, and hit up room salons, etc. Meanwhile mom continues to be a lazy mom/wife, who's favorite past time, is to open up secret bank accounts.

Learn the culture asap. Korean culture is based around being fake. Students are overall extremely lazy, irresponsible and lie a lot. You pretend to teach, they pretend to learn. Job done.

Finally to relieve your stress, take my advice - transform yourself into clown mode (buy a green wig and red nose for full effectiveness) have a good time, save enough $$$$$$, and when you've had enough of a, b, c (above) - move onwards and sidewways to pastures new.

[Stain]

[mattyskier]