Korean Job Discussion Forums

[DavePuff]

[phaedrus]

Just remember showing them your scary side works better if you give them a five minute lecture. If you scream for 20 seconds, they'll forget tomorrow. Put the fear into them slow and steady for about five minutes. Make them sink into their chairs, and be afraid you're going to single them out, etc.

[some waygug-in]

[DavePuff]

That doesn't sound like a very good hogwan. Without the support of the director and the other teachers I can understand it being so difficult.

Still I wouldn't put up with any crap. Whether in Korea or any other country you should get at least some degree of respect from your students.

[bosintang]

[Blind Willie]

In my experience, the biggest discipline problems were in Seoul.

The directors had a strict "no punishment" rule...well, for the foreign teachers. The Korean teachers were great warriors of the mem-me/ love stick/ heavily swung ruler. And the kids knew that you were totally ball-less, and treated you so.

Once I got into the smaller cities outside Seoul, the directors were all like: "Hey, if you got problems, rap their knuckles. And if that doesnt work, send them to me. I'll take care of the mums."

I found the kids outside of Seoul much better behaved.

[TheUrbanMyth]

[some waygug-in]

Easier said than done. The director didn't speak English, she could say a few words, but usually the meaning was lost in translation.

She would chastise me in Korean, so all the students would understand, but there was really not much I could do.......... except quit of course.

I tried to get the help of my recruiter to translate for me and explain why we needed discipline at the school. But the recruiter sided with the director and the meeting turning into a "let's criticise the foreign teacher"
session.

I then turned to this forum for help, and was summarily told to stop whining and deal with it myself.

At which point I was starting to doubt my sanity.

I could see that I was in a no win situation regarding discipline, so I had to do what I could to try and get the students interested in English, using games, crosswords etc.

The problem with this was that the students then thought that English class should be nothing but 'games'. It was hard to get them to do anything else. Then the parents started complaining that their kids weren't doing any "work" in class.............. Yeah, tell me about it.

In any case, I survived the year at that hell hole, and I hope I never have to work at another place like that again.

cheers

[Yu_Bum_suk]

One of the most annoything things possible has to be when a poorly behaved kid who hates being there makes up some silly story that the teacher is being unfair to him and everyone - mum, KTs, and director - just assumes he's stating facts.

I'd love to know enough Korean to be able to ring a mother and tell her that if she wants to make sure her kid fails to learn much, then keep ignoring or defending his misbehaviour rather than trying to help correct it.

[italianstallion39]

Kids love to test us and see how much we will take before we get angry at them. If you want to win, you have to hold out longer than them, which *theoretically* should be easy, as we are 3-6x their ages. It's never this easy in reality, which is unfortunate. I used the three strike system to get them under control. Once they are under control, it doesn't matter if you like them or not, as they will do what you ask of them and make your life easier. It's a "boys-vs. girls" thing on the board. Any time someone speaks without raising his/her hand or does any other mischief, you give all the students of the same gender a check (or a frown face or...). Go up to 2 very easily and threaten on the third. If the boys have two marks and another boy goes bananas, you make all the boys do the autobike or 10 pushups, then erase all the marks and act like nothing happened. It's important to have the discipline be a final payment for the action, or else you start labeling kids as troublemakers and bad students. This becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy which is terrible for both sides involved.

[hari seldon]

I make a practice of parking the most troublesome kids right next to me at the table - a variation on the 'keep your enemies close' motto. Ironically, their proximity usually results in us developing a special relationship. Often these troublesome kids just need a little more attention.

[eamo]

I didn't like 12 year-old Tom.

He bullied other kids. Bigger and chubby. Never smiled. Hated English.

Basically, he sat in his Taekwondo uniform and periodically would shout..."Teacha!..Korea No. 1!!!"

His vocab was the above and, "I like Kimchi"...and..."I like computers".

[dcrayne]

I have tried using a red, yellow and black card system similar to soccer. The kids are generally nuts about soccer here. I tell them 3 yellows, 2 reds or 1 black and there out. I give prizes at the end of the month for those who didn't get any cards.

[Len8]

I had some university students I detested a while back, but i didn't do anything about it. This dude would try and get me to finish the class early, because the work we were doing didn't appeal to him. Once he stood up when I wasn't finished and said it was time to finish. I let it go and gave him a D for his grade anyway. ( wish I had given him an F instead). I used to yell at the students if they missbehaved, but I couldn't bring myself to do it, because he spoke good English. As well as that I never used to feel that good after yelling at the students anyway.
One of the other students tried to get the better of him, because he was kinda domineering. Wasn't popular it seems, and of course I helped the other student.
That whole situation though still rankles me for some reason. happened a while ago, but i have never forgotten it. Just can't seem to shake it off.

[bosintang]