Korean Job Discussion Forums

[AfroBurrito]

I don't know why I am surprised, I should be used to it after almost 3 cumulative years at this, but why, oh why do so many of these kids openly cheat on their assignments, vocabulary tests, and the like. It doesn't matter how often I insist they stop, they persist in blatantly copying one another's answers RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME!

I asked my Korean BF and he merely laughed off my irritation and claimed there was "nothing wrong with it." In his view it's a brand of cleverness and justifiable for an advantage.

I know cheating happens everywhere, but it feels so accepted here.

Rant, complete.

[Okie from Muskogee]

I hear you. And visa and mastercard are accepted here as well.

[What the Book]

[Sector7G]

Hey it's not only the younger students doing it. While I was reading KT for updates on the ferry tragedy, I saw this story.

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/opinon/2014/04/137_155566.html
Insufferable Moon a disgrace
He is a fighter, on the wrong side. / Korea Times file

By Jung Min-ho

Moon Dae-sung has been cast down from a Korean hero to a national disgrace, but the enormous personal shame has yet to affect his public standing.

The 37-year-old Incheon native with movie star looks once embodied everything an athlete could possibly wish for ― fame, fortune and adoring fans. This was after he won a taekwondo gold medal at the 2004 Athens Olympics via a flurry of knockouts, a rare display of dominance in a combat sport often accused of lacking excitement.

Moon was intent on milking every ounce of his Olympic glory for greater worldly gains. In 2008, he became the first Asian member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Athletes Commission. In 2012, he became a lawmaker for President Park Geun-hye’s Saenuri Party.

In 2014, Moon is seen kicking and screaming amidst a dramatic fall from grace. Following a two-year investigation, Seoul’s Kookmin University canceled his Ph.D. in sports psychology last month because it found Moon’s thesis was a product of plagiarism.

Now, Moon is not the first high-profile Korean who cut-and-pasted their way toward undeserved academic credentials and social respect. But it is hard to remember any of the cheaters being insufferable as "Moondoricoh’’ ― a nickname coined after the popular Sindo-Ricoh copy machine ― who continues to test the public’s patience with his bald-faced lies and unrepentant attitude.

[radish kimchi]

It's not just Korea yo wee yo. It is China also, yo wee yo!!!!

Why bitch mofo? Collect your paycheck and lick another month in Asian apartment territory. Don't worry, Americans and Russians won't invade.

[drcrazy]

[faeriehazel]

I had to read a bunch of Korean academic papers for my MA dissertation, alongside ones written in English by American profs (all on the same subject). I found a few instances of blatant plagiarism (by the Korean academics). I asked a few Korean profs about it but no one seemed to think it was a big deal.

[Scorpion]

One thing I've noticed. In my years of teaching in Korea I've never had a student decline help doing something. Not once has a student said, "It's okay teacher, I can do it." Even if it's just doing a word search puzzle. There is very little pride, it seems, in doing something by yourself. Cheating and copying is not frowned upon. In fact, my students often hand in their assignment and the copying is obvious - they've all made the exact same mistakes.

But copying is what Koreans do.

[happiness]

Some kids have been taught nowadays that copying is like not doing the work. I hear it in my class, but you always have to remember

Ive had kids to say they didnt need my help, they can do it. Ive seen it quite a bit. So, thats cool.

Modern Korea is a culture of social position not social repsonsiblity.

Its a little better now, but I dont think it will change, thats not Korea's Modus Operandi.

So, everything is a means to an end. Combine that with the idea of image more than inside and that makes for a dishonest culture in the eyes of a person from a Judeo-Christian ethic. I think its called the "white man's disease."

For my classes, I just make sure they dont do it, but if one kid is really slow, I may look the other way, to keep the class moving, but that doesnt make it "morally right." I do like it when the kid who is cheating is proud and says I finished!

These kids are bred from day 1 to be competitive, and for the NET, thats good, they mostly come with a pre-installed vocabulary of some English words and more modern Korean English words (not Konglish.) Much easier to work now. But I dont think for a minute I can stop their competition, thats not my Modus Operandi. When they get older, they will react to all of that, I think mostly the girls becoming more open minded and removing the shackles, and the boys, well, trapped in their filial piety and cronyism. Its kind of grim, but its my opinion.

I have a job to do, and its teach here, not to instill my values by force, but by example. No?

[drcrazy]

[AfroBurrito]

I am hardly endeavoring to appoint myself an advocate for western ethics in the Korean education system (I don't even know what that would entail. I am, after all, from the land of Ponzi and Madoff, to say nothing of the fact that cheating scandals are ubiquitous in the States). However, many of these students have parents who claim to want Ivy League educations for their children, and while I can only lay claim to a humble state school university education, I am not inclined to believe that most Ivy League schools would be as permissive with cheating and outright plagiarism. Do Korean universities have honor codes? I am legitimately inquiring. I say all of this with knowledge of a very recent cheating scandal at Harvard.

Again, this post wasn't meant as an indictment of Korean educational standards, I was simply at my wit's end after a day of students copying each other's papers all day.

And I am well aware of the hyper-competitive environment. (See the following article which was part of my introduction to the vile depths to which some will stoop out of spite or jealousy.) It's not to my taste, but this is not my country to change.

https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/magazine/article/?article_id=40913

[Speck7]

[AfroBurrito]

[SeoulNate]

had to fail a few students already this term for it.

They know its coming (have a 30 minute lecture at the start of the course about it) and still manage to copy and paste from.. wikipedia...

The uni even has software for us to use and has a zero tolerance policy.

[edwardcatflap]

I've done teacher training sessions with Korean English teachers when one or two have copied from the Internet for a writing assignment.

Funniest of all, I've marked speaking and writing assignments on an exam practice website where Korean adults pay good money to get feedback on their performances and some of them still copy from the internet/other candidates. I mean they really are literally only cheating themselves.