Korean Job Discussion Forums

[seoulmon]

What are your student pet peeves? What are those little things about your students that irk you....?

[seoulmon]

My pet peeve is students with zits! How can I make this clear to my students?!? PLeeeeeze pop your zits before comming to class. Today I had a students with a triple white head. Please miss triple white head. POP IT! Would getting you in a headlock and manually popping it myself be too subtle?

[Universalis]

Switching their names around when we do introductions. Some of them do... some don't... so it's always a pain in the ass to decipher the names I hear.

Drives me nuts...

Brian

[Dawn]

"Teacher, my mother book no pack." (Ok, it's from a first-grader, but still ... how many times do you have to arrive at school sans book before figuring out you should maybe check your bookbag before leaving home?)

[Apple Scruff]

They don't speak English. Makes it much harder to teach them anything.

[ryleeys]

They come to class... the little bastards. STAY HOME



Actually, my biggest pet peeve is whenever I say "repeat after me" they immediately respond, "repeat after me" instead of saying what I wanted them to say.

[Zyzyfer]

I hate it when I look at a kid and they quickly look away, like eye contact is the work of the devil. I also really hate sullen kids who refuse to loosen up and enjoy class, especially when the other students are all having fun with it.

[Lizara]

"Teacher, my pinishee!"

[fruitcake]

groups of middle school (and high school) boys who think saying "hello" to foreigners is the funniest joke ever told. I will cross the street in heavy traffic simply to avoid them.

[captain kirk]

Students who are smart, already know a lot of English, seem to be rich, look good and are 'personalities', but who refuse to buckle down and accept that learning English is work. They demonstrate this by muttering in Korean how boring class is, or how much of a fool the teacher is, when they aren't head down on their desk napping. I nudged one sleeping prince who woke up out of a deep slumber with a couple inches of drool sliding down his chin. They aren't embarrassed about the slumping, and show everyone how accomplished they are already to have earned their high position of slumpedness by blurting out what nobody else knows periodically. As if they could do it if they tried all the time, and they probably could (but I seriously doubt it). To have a 'fallen star' like this in class, 'leading' in this manner is a fixer upper for teacher, a chore in strategy and class management. I don't feel at all bad if a scene ensues, and they chose not to return to class or the school. Yes, I know, the 'trick' is to get them working with the teacher, find out what they're interested in and so on. If they're available, ie. conscious.

[gomurr]

Lots of peeves. Being rudely interrupted in the middle of class by some loud mouth who wants to talk to his/her friend across the room. Students trying to Dong-chim me, it's a good thing that I'm faster than them and I'm always on the look out. Kids who eat squid before class of keep it in their bags for a prolonged period of time. Boys constantly being touchy feely just gives me the creeps. One grade 6 girl comes in late on a daily basis laughs, shouts to her friends, is extremely lazy and burps. Nothing works and I've been forced to use more corporal forms of Korean punishment.

[uberscheisse]

i hate it when i'm sitting with a kid, obviously explaining something one-on-one, and someone pipes up "teacha... teacha... teacha... teacha" repeating themselves as if the reason i haven't answered is that i haven't noticed that they're interrupting.

it's the one thing that makes me actually YELL REALLY LOUD in class. the rest of the time i am pretty darn mellow and can take the piss out of pretty much any student's shenanigans.

[vdowd]

The thing I really hate is when a student picks his nose in class. Then they have to decide - hold it up and look at it, eat it or do they wipe it under the table or on their chair. Gross out!!

My classes now know the terms - Do not pick your nose, it is rude, it is dirty, your hands are dirty - Use a tissue, go blow your nose.

Any one esle encounter this?

[deeluvskitties]

my biggest pet peeves:

"teacha - FINISHED!!!!!"

at 1st i said "great!" or "excellent" and maybe circled the page, but now I can't stand their constant need for approval for every little task. just those two words, more than anything, make me want to cut my ears off. i have tried instilling a "hands up" policy: if you want to show me that you're finished your job, put your hand up (which doesn't cease their need for approval but at least its not the dreaded two-word phrase).

now i completely ignore them when they say (sometimes in unison) "FINISHED!" or sometimes i say "yeah, so?"

[Son Deureo!]

OK, while teaching adults:

Giggling instead of answering a question. The only thing that's funny here is how much money they've wasted only to have their basic English skills be so poor.

Students who show up half an hour late for a one hour class, then complain that they don't know what's going on.

Students who beg to be put in a higher level so that they can be with their friends. Hmmmm, her English is better than yours, so ummmmmm.... NO.

The answers "so so", "nothing special", and "I've never thought about that before" result in failing the class participation portion of my class if used more than once (students get fair warning about "non-communicative answers").

Teaching children:

The old lean back in the chair until you fall routine. The sad part is I've actually seen kids hurt themselves this way.

Any sentence that begins with the word "me".

The use of "no" as a verb.