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waggo
Joined: 18 May 2003
Location: pusan baby!
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 Posted: Sun May 23, 2004 8:31 pm Post subject: |
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| peppermint wrote: |
The thing is, working at a hagwon isn't considered real teaching. It's something for university students to do to earn a little cash for the weekend. The combination of that, and the fact that foreigners generally aren't respected in the same way that Koreans are means that teaching may not seem all it's cracked up to be.
A note to the hagwon teachers: you guys are making a huge difference-never doubt that. In my classes at the elementary school, it's very clear which kids go to hagwon and which don't. Aside from the obvious language skills, they seem far more comfortable and confident in my classroom, even if they are slightly bored. |
Could you try and be a bit more patronising please. |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Mon May 24, 2004 3:50 am Post subject: |
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| waggo wrote: |
| peppermint wrote: |
The thing is, working at a hagwon isn't considered real teaching. It's something for university students to do to earn a little cash for the weekend. The combination of that, and the fact that foreigners generally aren't respected in the same way that Koreans are means that teaching may not seem all it's cracked up to be.
A note to the hagwon teachers: you guys are making a huge difference-never doubt that. In my classes at the elementary school, it's very clear which kids go to hagwon and which don't. Aside from the obvious language skills, they seem far more comfortable and confident in my classroom, even if they are slightly bored. |
Could you try and be a bit more patronising please. |
I don't think she was trying to be patronizing. I think she was trying to say what the general attitude out there is. In fact that perception she laid out is kept alive by many hagwon teachers themselves. "We're glorified babysitters" is a pretty common comment by our ilk. So all what she's trying to say is we should not subscribe to that stereotype. In her experience, we're making a difference. And I for one thank her for that insight. |
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Ilsanman
Joined: 15 Aug 2003
Location: Bucheon, Korea
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| Posted: Mon May 24, 2004 4:14 am Post subject: yes |
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All the kids I teach tell me the english taught in public schools is an absolute joke, and often, they say their teacher's pronunciation is awful.
I get one part of the respect but not the other. They hand me things with 2 hands, then call me babo a minute later. I don't understand. |
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Demophobe
Joined: 17 May 2004
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| Posted: Mon May 24, 2004 4:30 am Post subject: |
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| Maybe they are kids. They probably are as confused about you as you are of them. |
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Grotto
Joined: 21 Mar 2004
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| Posted: Mon May 24, 2004 7:48 am Post subject: teaching |
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 hugs
smiles
complete sentences
I love you xxxxx teacher |
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Badmojo
Joined: 07 Mar 2004
Location: I'm just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round
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| Posted: Wed May 26, 2004 7:00 am Post subject: |
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Okay, I'll join in.
I'm too drunk to type, but I'll try my best.
Eveyday I begin class with "what's the question?"
The last two weeks were a little difficult with my 4's. "Yes, there's a mirror in my bedroom." What's the question? "Is there a mirror in your bedroom.?" Okay, good.
Except they can't remember all the time. "Is there a mirror in your..." and their heads look up, and they're trying to remember, and they're focussing, but it's doing them no good. Then a classmate will whisper, "bathroom", and the poor student will repeat, but of course it's the wrong answer. Then whoever fed them the wrong information will yell "Me!" and say correctly, "Is there a mirror in your bedroom?"
It always makes me laugh.
I love that class.
Last edited by Badmojo on Wed May 26, 2004 7:56 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Wed May 26, 2004 2:28 pm Post subject: |
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| Badmojo wrote: |
Okay, I'll join in.
I'm too drunk to type, but I'll try my best.
Eveyday I begin class with "what's the question?"
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That's a good idea for a little game. |
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peppermint
Joined: 13 May 2003
Location: traversing the minefields of caddishness.
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| Posted: Wed May 26, 2004 4:18 pm Post subject: |
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| mindmetoo wrote: |
I don't think she was trying to be patronizing. I think she was trying to say what the general attitude out there is. In fact that perception she laid out is kept alive by many hagwon teachers themselves. "We're glorified babysitters" is a pretty common comment by our ilk. So all what she's trying to say is we should not subscribe to that stereotype. In her experience, we're making a difference. And I for one thank her for that insight. |
Thanks for the defense, and that is exactly what I meant. The attitudes about hagwon teachers was expressed to me many times by students and co-workers when I taught at an adult hagwon, and it's got nothing to do wht my opinions of the job.
Judging by the posters here, a lot of people who teach at kids hagwons get discouraged cause of the lack of respect, and the working conditions. I was trying to give them a little encouragement.
If hagwon kids find the public school English curriculum a joke, it's because it's geared for the kids that have never been exposed to English before. It's where their English abilities would be without you. |
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captain kirk
Joined: 29 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Sat May 29, 2004 9:04 am Post subject: |
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'Working in a hagwon isn't teaching'. I don't think that can be said because there's a great variety in the students.
Some of the students are there to get something out of class and they must be fed at a rate so they feel they're gaining. I noticed this Friday when one girl (she's nine) said that she's leaving, going to another hogwon. And another girl in the class as well. I was surprised, because usually kids just leave without saying goodbye. One day they're not present. This student is 'one of those things that make teaching worthwhile'. I don't know why she's leaving. The school tends to review Let's Go books three times which is overkill with the quick gainers.
I can think of quite a few students who are students. They are continually precisely involved in trying to increase their ability. And I'm facilitating their being able to progress which feels worthwhile. |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Mon May 31, 2004 8:30 pm Post subject: |
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This happened yesterday. I had them write sentences with "my" and a member of their family in the possessive. "My grandfather's breath smells like soju" for example.
I then get them to read their answers. This one girl, Jenny, reads what she wrote.
"My younger brother's older sister is very beautiful."
"I wonder who that could be."
"I don't know."
"How many older sisters does your younger brother have?"
"One."
"Well, I'm out of ideas who it could be." |
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Sleepy in Seoul
Joined: 15 May 2004
Location: Going in ever decreasing circles until I eventually disappear up my own fundament - in NZ
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| Posted: Mon May 31, 2004 9:46 pm Post subject: |
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I keep in touch with many of my students and ex-students by email (many written in �ѱ�).
In January this year, I had pneumonia. I was still working, but not feeling particularly enthusiastic about life (or even teaching!).
I had emailed one of my ex-students to tell her that I was sick and couldn't write often. She had left my �п� about 2 months previously and is going to another �п�.
As soon as she read my email, she replied that she was going to my workplace. When she arrived (before I started work), she had a small bag full of gifts, including a swiss army knife from her mother.
That made my day - it was worth going to work to find an ex-student had travelled a long way to visit me just because I was sick. Things like that make teaching worth it for me. |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Mon May 31, 2004 10:44 pm Post subject: |
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| Sleepy in Seoul wrote: |
I keep in touch with many of my students and ex-students by email (many written in �ѱ�).
In January this year, I had pneumonia. I was still working, but not feeling particularly enthusiastic about life (or even teaching!).
I had emailed one of my ex-students to tell her that I was sick and couldn't write often. She had left my �п� about 2 months previously and is going to another �п�.
As soon as she read my email, she replied that she was going to my workplace. When she arrived (before I started work), she had a small bag full of gifts, including a swiss army knife from her mother.
That made my day - it was worth going to work to find an ex-student had travelled a long way to visit me just because I was sick. Things like that make teaching worth it for me. |
Exactly. It sounds like a cliche, but if you can open the eyes of a single child here, show him/her what a big wonderful world there is out there, and find some small hint that a kid picked up on that, it's all worth it.
It's like this one little boy, all the kids would call him the Korean equivalent of "nerd". It took me a bit to realize he was butt of everyone's jokes. His head wasn't down on the desk from playing too much Starcraft late at night. He was a depressed little boy.
So whenever I called his name, I always added "chingu" (friend of course). John Chingu, how are you today? Whenever I saw him in the halls with his classmate I'd make a big deal out of saying hello only to him "HEY JOHN HOW ARE YOU! HOPE YOU HAVE A GOOD WEEKEND!"
Eventually I noticed the other kids stopped calling him nerd and he started smiling. |
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mindmetoo
Joined: 02 Feb 2004
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| Posted: Fri Jun 11, 2004 3:16 pm Post subject: |
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Today I was teaching my class of "wee ones". They're three 10-year olds. The littlest is Anna. She's this wisp of a girl, just the cutest little thing. We were going through a lesson in the text book. For reasons that will forever be occult to me, she suddenly jumps up from her desk, crouches down, and starts doing this modified Funky Chicken dance. Instead of flapping her arms, she does this funky thing with her thumbs eerily reminiscent of the weird dance Elaine did on that episode of Seinfeld. And in sync to some music only Anna can hear in her head, she does these weird frenetic facial twitches like a Maori doing a war dance.
Then she sits down. But not for long because I think she immediately read the expression on my face "Did I just imagine that?" So she quickly jumped up again and did her dance a second time to prove I wasn't hallucinating. And plonked back down into her seat.
I was speechless. It's times like that you not only thank god for creating children, but creating Korean children. |
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