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Scorpion
Joined: 15 Apr 2012
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 Posted: Tue Apr 22, 2014 6:17 pm Post subject: Re: Incompetent Korean co-teachers. |
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| nicwr2002 wrote: |
| Smithington wrote: |
I've taught in the public school system for some years now, and I've met some truly incompetent and clueless co-teachers. Not all, of course, but far too many. They teach students errors that I have to later correct. They labor over points and phrases long after the students have learned the lesson, thereby wasting precious time that could be used for developing on the theme. They speak far, far too much Korean during class time. They follow the text like slaves and spend way too much time on games with zero educational value. They sometimes try to marginalize the foreign teacher in the classroom, or insist that they be the 'lead teacher' even though their grasp of English is little better than the students'. The amount of time spent repeating the same stuff from the book is especially absurd. The text should just be the foundation on which you build the structure that is competent English. But some teachers seem to frown on anything being taught that is not directly from the text. It's absurd.
Until we can get Korean teachers out of the English classroom, Korean kids will continue ranking at the bottom of English competency tests. But their pride will never allow this. In fact the trend is, as we all know, away from having native speakers in the classroom. But Koreans teaching English to Koreans is, and likely will always be, a recipe for failure.  |
One thing you have to understand is that Korean students aren't learning English to speak fluently later in life. They are learning to pass a test that has a strict structure that they have to follow in order to get the correct answers. They explain everything in Korean because the test is explained in Korean as well. |
We all know that Korean education is test driven. But in too many cases the lesson has been learned. Playing games, and going over the same material each and every class, is wasteful when the material has been learned. Take the extra time to develop on the lesson. Nobody's saying don't learn what's in the book. And of course some Korean is required, but when the co-teacher talks for twenty-five minutes during the class and twenty of those minutes are in Korea, something is wrong. |
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Weigookin74
Joined: 26 Oct 2009
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| Posted: Tue Apr 22, 2014 6:20 pm Post subject: |
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We should be teaching extra special classes for kids in Elementary School from K to Grade 4. Let the kids come and have fun speaking random English phrases and having fun. Let them get a good foundation in English. Their studying will be easier later in life and they will be able to speak it more fluently even if they switch over for a time to studying for the test.
Common sense doesn't always prevail and NETS who have a lot of experience in the system never get to contribute their ideas or suggestions to the powers that be so there you have it. |
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wanderkind
Joined: 01 Jan 2012
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Tue Apr 22, 2014 11:12 pm Post subject: Re: Incompetent Korean co-teachers. |
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| Smithington wrote: |
| They sometimes try to marginalize the foreign teacher in the classroom, or insist that they be the 'lead teacher' even though their grasp of English is little better than the students'. The amount of time spent repeating the same stuff from the book is especially absurd. |
I'm all for 'establish the correct dynamic / ground rules with your co-teacher so you can teach effectively', but in my case, it seems like I wasn't actually hired to teach. The school really seems to take the Guest English Teacher role quite literally. When I was being hired the school laid out pretty clearly what they wanted me to do, and that's to cover certain pages of the book every day (Listening and Speaking). Period. Ostensibly to supplement what the Korean teachers are presenting, except that the book material I'm assigned is rarely connected at all to what they cover in the normal classes, and it's largely atrocious.
Thank god for after school classes, or I'd be climbing the walls. It's carte blanche in those and the gloves come off. Those kids LEARN.
| Weigookin74 wrote: |
| We should be teaching extra special classes for kids in Elementary School from K to Grade 4. Let the kids come and have fun speaking random English phrases and having fun. Let them get a good foundation in English. Their studying will be easier later in life and they will be able to speak it more fluently even if they switch over for a time to studying for the test. |
The English village / immersion fun camp format serves this function well, working to strip away the intimidation/self consciousness factor by framing it purely as fun.
Sadly they seem almost universally to be plagued by poor management and shady business practices, as happens so often with hagwons. Executives hell bent on squeezing out every dime results in offering some of the worst compensation packages in the country, and scraping the bottom of the barrel for employees. |
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Ralph Winfield
Joined: 23 Apr 2013
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| Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2014 3:09 am Post subject: |
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| Lucas wrote: |
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| Sure, I can change those activites into better ones myself, but if I have to do that too often, why use the book at all? |
Because then the book companies get their money! |
Are you a Kyopo? You committed the fallacy of Straw Man with Smithington. Correct me if I'm mistaken about this. |
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Ralph Winfield
Joined: 23 Apr 2013
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| Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2014 3:14 am Post subject: |
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| Scorpion wrote: |
Did you people even read the OP's post? What has this 'social skills' nonsense got to do with any of these points made by the OP?
1. They teach students errors that I have to later correct.
2. They labor over points and phrases long after the students have learned the lesson, thereby wasting precious time that could be used for developing on the theme.
3. They speak far, far too much Korean during class time.
4. They follow the text like slaves and spend way too much time on games with zero educational value.
5. Some teachers seem to frown on anything being taught that is not directly from the text. .
6. Their English isn't much better than that of their students'.
You conveniently chose to overlook those points and focus on "relationships". Yet no mention of the Korean co-teacher's need to have social skills too. I've had about thirty co-teachers over the years. Not all of them had social skills, or wanted a foreigner in their class. Whatever my social skills might be, they aren't going to work with everyone. But that's not even the topic of this thread. The topic is about "incompetent" co-teachers. Paul teacher from Boston can have all the social skills in the world; it still ain't going to make Jin hee teacher competent at teaching the Englishee. Nor is it going to alter any of the six points listed above.
Stay focused people. |
This is a good post. Thank you for your contribution to this thread. |
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bmaw01
Joined: 13 May 2013
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| Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2014 9:59 am Post subject: |
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A lot of negativity from the OP. What are you doing OP to remedy the situation? Have you talked to your Korean co-workers?
I could complain that the majority of ESL teachers in Korea are't real teachers. They they don't belong in a classroom. I don't though.
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Okie from Muskogee
Joined: 30 Jan 2014
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| Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2014 3:12 pm Post subject: |
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| To be a REAL teacher in Korea, you have to pass the teacher's exam. We are FAKES. FAKES are what they want. |
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Scorpion
Joined: 15 Apr 2012
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| Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2014 3:41 pm Post subject: |
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| bmaw01 wrote: |
A lot of negativity from the OP. What are you doing OP to remedy the situation? Have you talked to your Korean co-workers?
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Ah, an adorable newb has an opinion. Let's all listen to his profound insights and accumulated wisdom.  |
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Smithington
Joined: 14 Dec 2011
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| Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2014 4:15 pm Post subject: |
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| Okie from Muskogee wrote: |
| To be a REAL teacher in Korea, you have to pass the teacher's exam. We are FAKES. FAKES are what they want. |
But as we all know, passing an exam in Korea simply means you ...passed an exam. It does not make them competent to teach English. Just as teaching their students how to pass an English test has little to do with them becoming competent English speakers. Left in the hands of most of the co-teachers I've had my students would only be able to blurt out the same standard phrases that are yelled at us by kids on the street. "Where you from?" / "You are handsome." / "Nice to meet you." At my school I'm the competent English teacher and, as far as I'm concerned, the Korean co-teachers are the fakes. They are pretending to teach their kids a new language, but they really aren't. On the other hand, I make every effort to lift their lessons above the repetitive standard phrases in the textbooks. If they learn English, it will be from me.
Thank goodness for after-school classes. That is where they learn English, not simply rote learning to pass a test. |
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happiness
Joined: 04 Sep 2010
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| Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2014 5:28 pm Post subject: |
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| Okie from Muskogee wrote: |
| happiness wrote: |
IMO too many NETS pop in for a year or two, dont really make an effort (and in some cases, why would they) and then pop out. Decent social skills are cross cultural. |
I agree. IMO too many co-teachers pop in for a year or two, dont really make an effort (and in some cases, why would they) and then pop out. Decent social skills are cross cultural.  |
I agree with that too. Ive met a lot of co-teachers whose sole benefit was they spoke a bit of English, and not much more. I met one and come to find out she spoke good English because she worked in a foreigner bar! Not that thats bad.
I think the idea of the title "teacher" that is automatically bestowed on everyone, some people (if not all of us sometimes), take it too seriously. |
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AfroBurrito
Joined: 19 Dec 2013
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| Posted: Thu Apr 24, 2014 2:32 am Post subject: |
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At my middle school last year it was definitely a mixed bag. I worked with four different Korean teachers in Grades 1 and 2. Two of the teachers were genuinely interested in working with me to construct fun, meaningful lessons based upon the infamously substandard textbooks, while the other two could care less what I did and were often late to class, didn't show up, or left as early as they could. (Miraculously one of these teachers was suddenly "interested" in working with me when she learned she had an Open Class. Imagine that.) The latter group also spoke the worst English. Of the former there was a teacher who had lived in Chicago for three years, spoke English really well, was always interested in improving her skills through workshops, online courses (taught in English, no less!), and was constantly asking me for YA Fiction book recommendations as she knew I used to work for the public library and in a bookstore back in Texas. It was refreshing. But, she was definitely an exception.
My experience with the Korean English teachers I have met is that they generally are not very committed to the prospect of continuous improvement. It's rare to meet teachers who feel the need to brush up, or even delve into new territory. That being said, it's not very different from some of the poorer school districts in the States. Teachers become complacent. I'm no different. I struggle to give a damn on many days.
As for the quality of NET, it's been said on more than one occasion that if the average NET pool leaves something to be desired, the Korean government should bear the brunt of responsibility. We all know of quality, certified educators who have been denied opportunities in Korea for varying reasons ("wrong" race, too "old", or too large, etc), and so long as Korea prefers its wet behind the ears freshly minted grads, many of whom have never worked a job in any other field a day in their lives, then it's quite possible that the quality of teacher will suffer a bit. Having said that, I'll also say that an education degree and certification are not necessarily guarantees that one will make a great teacher. I say all of this fully aware that I am definitely not the best teacher out there. I've had moments when I've sought to exceed expectations by planning spectacular, fun, and interactive lessons only to have them be ignored by students. I've resigned myself to the fact that a significant proportion of what goes on here is not about teaching, per se. Not teaching as I would envision it. But I'm also a little beyond caring. It won't be my problem if Korea, for all of its astronomical expenditures on English education, continues to lag behind in proficiency. The reasons for that are far more systemic and institutional, thus going far beyond the likes of me. |
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Brooks
Joined: 08 Apr 2003
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| Posted: Fri Apr 25, 2014 12:05 am Post subject: |
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Probably some KETs are well meaning, but just focusing on tests is dumb.
Sometimes it seems that foreign teachers are just for decoration.
There are good and bad foreign teachers, but they should at least be treated with respect. That means, don`t ignore them, and talk to them about what goes on in the lesson.
It seems to me that Korean pride gets in the way, just like with the ferry disaster. The Americans and Japanese offered to help, but were turned down. |
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