Korean Job Discussion Forums

[World Traveler]

Student behavior is bad and getting worse. Foreign teachers, Korean teachers, and even the students themselves have told me this. I have observed it myself. What is causing it? Although I’m not entirely sure, I would attribute some of it to the following factors:

-South Korea has the world’s lowest birthrate(or very, very close to it depending on which source you read). Have you heard of the little emperor syndrome in China? It’s even worse in Korea. Why? Korea’s birth rate is significantly lower than China’s, and has been for a while. So many kids in Korea are spoiled brats.

-The abolishment of corporal punishment in schools. This is a very recent change. Because of this, students are less afraid of teachers. Behavior has become much worse as a result. A Korean teacher told me a student said to him, “If you touch me, I’ll call the police on you.”

-Korean parents don’t discipline their children. That’s what I heard anyways. The (Western) teacher trainer leading a public school training course I attended uttered these exact words. He said mothers don’t discipline their kid because that is the man’s job, and men don’t discipline their kids because they work so much (and I would add go to company drinking parties), they rarely get to see their kids. (I’m guessing what he meant by that is because fathers don’t get to see their kids much, they want that time to be special; shouting at their kids is not something they want to do.) I wonder if Korean kids are left at home a lot. I have heard there is a lot of time when parents are off at work, so they hang out with their friends or by themselves. One (badly behaved) 4th grade elementary school student I taught talked about seeing the Saw movies. I felt really bad (and disgusted) that he was exposed to that trash at such a young age. I think internet access + being left alone unsupervised is a dangerous combination. I asked the kid (who was maybe age nine in Western age) how he had seen the movie. He said his brother had downloaded the movie when returning home for military leave. (I’m guessing the kid found the file on the computer rather than being directly shown it by his brother, but I’m not sure.) Another student I taught (a first year middle school student (who was not particularly well behaved or attentive) also talked about watching the Saw movies. He downloaded Saw3D then played it on his smart TV. He showed it to his 4th grade cousin (the kid mentioned above).

I guess I should say, I don’t necessarily agree with the “Korean parents don’t discipline their children” statement made by the person who had been a teacher trainer in Korea for the past six years. It would be more fair to say some Korean parents don’t discipline/supervise their children enough. I really feel sad when I think about the violent video games and violent movies Korean kids are being corrupted by.

When I was a kid, I was sheltered from the nastiness of the world to some degree. My weekly allowance was only 25 cents per week, which was later increased to 10 cents per age of my life. (Meanwhile, my friends were getting $5-$10 a week in allowance money.) I thought the reason I got so little was my parents were poor, but I now know they made a smart choice. By removing/heavily restricting my power/options they were protecting me.

What specific things we can do in the classroom?

Appeal to the students’ self interests. If students are too morally bankrupt to show you respect (which is often the case), give them another reason to. Look at things through their own selfish the world revolves around me/all I care about is myself/I’ll do whatever feels good for me with no consideration for others mindset. Make them realize their actions have consequences. Maybe a reason K-students are not obedient towards the foreigner teacher is they assume (perhaps correctly) the foreigner has little to no power. Don’t let them think like that. Show them that’s not the case. I think a problem is they’ve grown up disrespecting foreign teachers/have seen their classmates do that. Young, inexperienced NETs are often thrown into a classroom with no training, no instructions of what to do, and no backing support from co-teachers. This situation sucks but there are steps you can take to take control of the situation. You’ll be surprised how fast appealing to students’ own self interests can immediately change them from devils to perfect angels. It’s not that the bad kids are incapable of behaving. It’s just that they don’t want to. Give them a reason to want to. Show them you are in charge. Show them it is more in their self interests to respect you than not respect you. Show them you have power and are not afraid to use it. Try to get support from co-teachers and other people who can help you. If you can’t get it, don’t let on to the students you don’t have it.

Make a big stopwatch counter. Project it on the front screen. Make sure all the students can see it. Start the stopwatch exactly at the beginning of class. When 50 minutes (or however long the class is) is up, the class is finished. If students talk to their friends in Korean (chatting about things unrelated to the class), stop the timer. Other students will tell the offending students to shut up because they don’t want their ten minute break time in between classes to be cut into.

Korean weather sucks. Use that to your advantage. Most of the year is either too hot (swelteringly hot like Middle East, only with more humidity) or too cold (as frigid as the Canadian tundra). Students are talking to each other in Korean while ignoring the lesson? “Oh, the noise of the air conditioner/heater coupled with the noise of students talking is too loud. I guess I’ll have to turn off the heater/air conditioner.” One of my best classroom management techniques. I’m surprised by how effective it is.

Learn Korean. From my experience students pretty much assume the foreigner knows no Korean at all. On my first day of public high school teaching, the second I stepped into the classroom, students hurled insults at me, swearing at me in Korean. That makes me think they were accustomed to speaking to previous foreign teachers that way. I immediately tore into them, which shocked the hell out of them. They were so surprised they didn’t talk back or do anything else. “Wow, the teacher can speak Korean!” one said to another. Showing the kids you know Korean shows them you have power. Some people will not be nice to others out of the goodness of their heart. That’s the sad reality of life. As teachers, we can aim to help them improve their character, (which may or may not eventually change for the better). What we must not do is allow them to worsen the learning experience and learning potential of others.

Korean can help with classroom management and with helping things run smoothly. Some students are so dumb/unmotivated/disinterested/inattentive that even after years and years and years of compulsory English study, they can’t understand the language at all. It is not unrealistic to think you may placed in situation where most to all of the students fit this description. My Korean is better than my students’ English (which is virtually non-existent).

The Korean language is tough (in fact, learning it is more difficult and time consuming than you could ever imagine), so I sympathize with you if you aren’t good at it, but I just wanted to throw that out there as a method for gaining more control.

Use visual cues (and even audio cues).

I have a PowerPoint file entitled “pictures that demonstrate directions”. If I see an image I think could be useful, I put it in there for potential future use. Think of what you want to say and how it could be expressed visually. A stop sign (or person holding a stop sign) could be used to convey “stop”. A picture of a person raising his/her hand shows what to do, etc. People are sheep. It’s human nature. If everyone is in line and behaving from the beginning, others will follow suit. If one person crosses the line and misbehaves, others may begin to do so too.

The Busy Atom YouTube channel contains many practical phrases. Find the teaching phrases videos (#31 and #32) and chop and use the audio. When added to a PPT, it can be started with the click of a button.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8JnOo1m_oA

When I first started teaching at public school, a big problem was getting the students attention (who were talking to their friends, ignoring my attempts to start the lesson). I had to talk so loudly at the beginning of class to get their attention and get them started. That hurt my voice so much. What I started doing was blowing into a mic, gradually increasing the volume until students stop talking. Do this with a long breath of air, making it sound like an airplane taking off. Another thing to do (if your school doesn't have a microphone) is to refuse to teach until every student is ready to pay attention. What I did is project a huge symbol for "Shh. Quiet please." with "The lesson will start when everyone is ready to begin" along with Korean text underneath. The students saw it but didn't give a damn. So I went to my desk and sat down and read a book (just like the co-teacher sitting in the back of the class was doing). The background noise was an obvious cue, so she looked up from her unrelated novel to see I wasn't teaching and then saw the message on the screen. She then yelled at the kids to be quiet and pay attention. This trick can force your co-teacher's hand into helping you with classroom management. He/she may resent you afterwards (which may or may not be worth it for you), but it will at least get them involved, guaranteed. They should be helping you anyways. That's what they are paid to do (and despite what they may tell you, they get paid more than you).

Even if you do all of the above you will inevitably still have behavior problems (at least to some extent). Kids are getting ruder and EFL English teaching in Korea is a mess. But maybe we can share strategies to mitigate this.

Post your classroom management tips below.

[Chaparrastique]

Good post.

In many ways this country is a perfect storm for producing disrespectful , self-absorbed young adults. This is also a strong feature throughout east asia including Taiwan and China. Its the "me me" generation on steroids.

[Lucas]

[Hokie21]

[Chaparrastique]

[raewon]

Interesting post.

Here's my two cents.

Set the Stage from Day 1

From the minute you step foot inside the classroom, make sure they know you know who is at the helm and exactly how your classroom is going to be run.

[Stan Rogers]

I suggest showing up with a pizza. Everyone likes the teacher who buys pizza.

[TheUrbanMyth]

Decent posts especially the OP's. I agree with using the students self-interest and especially with learning Korean. However I would not and do not agree with the last strategy/strategies.

Re: The microphone thing. That could easily backfire as the students could perceive it as the foreign teacher being a clown.

As for refusing to teach until the students are quiet and forcing the co-teacher to engage...that also has the potential for backfire...perhaps with disastrous results. Remember that it is usually your co-teacher/s who has/have the principal/VP's ear about your retention or rehiring. If you fail to do what is seen as your job...they could refuse to re-hire you and refuse a letter of recommendation. Worse yet they could officially fire you, then you could say goodbye to ever teaching in the public school system here again (unless you were extremely lucky).

Yes I agree that the co-teacher SHOULD be doing his or her job in regards to classroom management, but as we all have experienced, it's a toss of the coin whether or not you get a decent co-teacher.

As for my CMS...I'd also suggest getting with the co-teacher beforehand and agreeing what you will teach/focus on for the day's lesson. Get them involved and they are more likely to participate in class. Of course if they can't be bothered to, then just do your own thing to the best of your ability.