Korean Job Discussion Forums

[discostar23]

[hamletsdemise]

Less work.... OHHHH GOOOOD NOOOO WHY JESUS WHY? WHY DID YOU HAVE TO TAKE LITTLE TOMMY KIM AWAY FROM ME!

Get real? The fun part is when your employer tries to blame you.

Bloody korean business, nuff to make you hurl.

[mog]

Did you even read the OP?

[Newfoundlander]

Sorry this was a private message.... haha...hehe... oops.

[mog]

If one does not use a quote and is referring to a person, he/she will generally be talking to the previous poster. Hence, you had nothing to do with my post. Please move on.

[just because]

[Alias]

I feel guilty sometimes that the parents are being ripped off. Hagwons are a scam and I'm part of it.

[captain kirk]

Sometimes I 'wonder' at the placement rationale that puts a class together. One girl has been thru Let's Go Five five times already. A couple of the boys have done it three times. While three girls are on their first run thru it. The boys have left, and the girl who has done L.G.5 five times and is very dilligent and co-operative has taken on a 'bad girl' attitude goofing around with the girls on their first run thru. A new boy has arrived whose overweight and he gets called 'pig'. But he seems to be used to it enough, already.
Kids getting teased is something to watch out for.
Yeah, I feel bad when good students, particularly, leave. But it's because the haggie management didn't move them up in time. Or there wasn't a class the next level up in the time slot they wanted.
The reasons are complex.

[trevorcollins]

I get the impression it's a fact of life in the hagwon business. One year, I think in 2001 I calculated that I lost something like 50% of the students in a calender year. It was for all kinds of reasons and it made me feel bad. I did a check of other teachers in my town though and they came up with similar figures so I think it was more or less the entire town feeling the pinch. Terrible to lose the good guys though. Shame that some of the little monsters stuck out the year.

[livinginkorea]

I always wonder why a student leaves my classs. It hasn't happened much as my school here a small bit of a monopoly and so if the students want to learn from another English speaker they have two other options. They can go to another hagwon (with a Canadian girl) or they can go to Sosan which is about 20 minutes away.

Of course that doesn't mean that the school rips them off. The adult students are charged 80,000 Won per month and they can go Monday-Friday for 45 minute classes each day.

Recently we lost a high school student and an elderly man, who was going to visit his daughter in America in September. However my co-worker kinda insulted him by asking him what his age was and then when he didn't want to tell, she asked him what his birth animal was so the entire class were able to deduce that he was very old. I guess he felt a small bit insulted that she pressed him for it or maybe he felt that he was too old for it? I don't know but his English was ok. As for the high school student? He always came in late as he was at the arcade and he really wasn't interested. I was always under the impression that he knew more than he was letting on but because the rest of the students were adults maybe he felt shy? I didn't lose any sleep over it anyway!!!

However if I do lose a student then I do wonder why. We have only lost a couple now in nearly 4 months so that's a good sign I guess.

[phaedrus]

In a small town I would be worried if I lost students, because it would be obvious when they go to another hagwon, and that would mean they left because they were unhappy with me or my hagwon.

In Seoul no worries. There are so many hagwons that parents switch their kids around and adults change around just to check out the market. The slightest thing will send them off, but will also send another student in right behind them.

[livinginkorea]

That's very true. As this place is small and since I'm a foreigner here everybody knows where I'm working and if any of the students were unhappy with me then they would easily tell other people which could get back to the school and the boss I guess.

I guess to that in a small town in the countryside I'm more off a novelity to them compared to citys where they can go to many schools with English speakers. The students here have a more relaxed attitude than the "bali bali" attitude of the big citys and maybe they are just happy and grateful to be learning from me!!?? (I hope!!!)

[GoshiwonGuy]

Not in the least.

There will inevitably be a certain rate of student attrition, for various reasons; but it is the schools job to bring in new students.

GG

[Blind Willie]

Actually, I've been getting more.

I must be doing something right.

[The Man known as The Man]