Korean Job Discussion Forums

[superhal]

I did a little searching and saw this thread: http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/korea/viewtopic.php?t=33145&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=keeping&start=0

but i wonder if other people can chime in.

my first time through, the first 3 months were pretty easy. all the students stuck together and moved on to the next level. after that though it was pretty hellish. up until i left, i just couldn't figure out why one student stayed 9 months while another couldn't last a week in the same class.

I had classes close, and i guess i was pretty average...my boss told me stories of teachers who had to leave because they didn't have enough students to make the minimum (5 classes/day) salary.

Now though, since i got my MA, i decided to try a new technique: actually having students learn. in the beginning, it seemed to work. students were visibly improving at the end of every class. but again, students started dropping out. my prof at school suggested making group work mandatory, thus there is social motivation between students to pressure each other to come to class. that doesn't seem to work that well either, as the students don't especially like each other that much to begin with.

in korea, i did 'the dancing monkey' thing that was talked about in the other thread, where teachers spent more time entertaining than actually teaching. i was pretty disheartened afterwards, as i felt that i wasn't actually a teacher.

however, some things i did pick up:
1. actual learning: this is the hardest, imho, as usually i have to make custom-made lessons everyday, as the learning theory i subscribe to (VanPatten's Input Processing theory) doesn't have any published textbooks.

2. social inclusion activities: i observed my middle school students do this. whenever a new student came, they would play some variation of a rock-paper-scissors game, and the group would be cohesive after that. i didn't have to do anything except give them space, as they did this in korean and i had no idea what was going on.

3. overlapping lessons: have two lessons planned every day, and at the end of the class, either say that you will continue the first lesson tomorrow, or here's tomorrow's lesson you can prepare.

4. "the missing something" feeling: my old boss told me about this. he said the best way to keep students was to generate a feeling that if they didn't come, they would miss something important. i didn't really understand what he was talking about until i started using VanPatten, and you could see students visibly improve. They would get really excited, and tell the absent students about it later. This worked for a little while, but doesn't work so well now.

So, my question is: for those of you who manage to keep a group together for over 3 months, could you describe what you try to do each day, or anything particular you do to make sure students have good attendance? My goal, if i ever end up in a korean hagwon again, is to have at least 1 class stay together for the entire twelve months.

ps. i tried the calling thing too, that doesn't do squat.

[some waygug-in]

I refuse to get into that game. If students don't want to come, they don't want to come. The best thing you can do is accept it and move on.

The worst thing you can do is have a bunch of students who don't really want to be there. If they only come because of some short-term entertaiment value, I'd much rather they leave than have them stay and expect me to "perform" for them day after day.

Could be why I'm 2 months behind on my pay, but at least I feel like I am really teaching the ones who do come.

Just my 2 cents.

best of luck

[bellum99]

You have to actually have students to get paid for teaching them.

[casey's moon]

Superhal -- sounds like the hagwon is putting too much pressure on you. I hope you're not losing sleep over this. Don't forget that no matter what you do, some parents will find that they can't afford a hagwon, or have other issues that have nothing to do with you or with how much fun the kids are having. Sounds like you care, which is nice. But I also think that you should put your efforts into teaching the kids who are there, while the director and office personell worry about enrollment.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

Are you talking uni or hogwan? At hogwan it's all a matter of keeping the parents convinced they're getting what they pay for, from what I can tell. I've been disappointed, though, in that a couple of kids who were really enjoying it and whom I really liked left, while some I don't care for and who hate being there - and I don't hide that I don't care for them - stay on. Thankfully I don't think it affects my job security much at all.

[peemil]

I've had about 50% of my students for about three years. 30% for about two and the rest about a year or have just really started.

I still see a lot of my old middle school students who go to High School now and have a yarn ocassionally.

[dbee]

I am nearing the end of my second year of hogwon teaching in Korea. Around the middle of this year I developed a policy of teaching through games (or should I say 'fun activites'). I figured if you kept the standard stimulus (information gap exercises, etc... ) and combined it with an element of competition and rolled it all together with a large element of social inclusion (as stated above), you'd have pretty much the perfect lesson.

My lesson plans were pretty much as follows, I'd select games based on their values for teaching certain areas ( some games are better for grammar, others for vocab etc ...) from a large list (compiled by me). I'd pick maybe 8 games which would be reasonably suitable. Then when I started to teach I'd choose maybe 3 or 4 games for the lesson (based mostly on class personality, classroom energy etc...). After a while I got pretty good at running these activites, I think you need to do them a couple of times at least before you get them down properly.

At all times the criteria for a lesson would be firstly, for the kids to learn. Secondly for them to enjoy themselves. Thirdly to eliminate their boredom, fatigue and the inevitable discipline problems that go with these symptoms.

The results were excellent (at first), I got some great feedback from students and management. I really felt that the kids performance increased exponentially. The kids would go crazy over my lessons and it was hard not to think of myself as 'super teacher'. As time went on however there were some unwanted side-effects. I felt personally that other teachers (mostly Korean teachers) started becoming less and less supportive of my 'teaching style'. It may or may not have been jealousy, but I felt that they had adopted a 'well of course the kids like him, all he ever does is play games' attitude (this seemed to be the most prevelent with the teachers whom the kids disliked the most). Management were very happy at the time, but would still ask me at times to 'not just play games', so I got the impression that they didn't really understand what i ws trying to do and just thought it was a bit of a cop out.

The thing about it is though, that to keep a class of kids both learning and entertained takes a large amount of energy probably twice as much energy as a normal lesson would. I could just as easily get away with handing out worksheets and doing listening activities. Sure the kids started to get bored again, but it made my life a whole lot easier. I think in Korea (and possibly elsewhere) there is a way of thinking that dictates that kids shouldn't like school too much. Sure have fun in class and all, but as everyone knows ... at the end of the day school is boring.

[marlow]

Games are great for elementary students. If the game is thought out properly it can use all the day's target language.

My public school elementary lessons were all based on games, role-play, or singing. Before starting a game we would practice the target language. During the games the students would be in small groups and speaking the target language. It was written on the board if they couldn't remember. Since elementary students often can't do "free talking", actually having them speak the target language in a relaxed setting is gold.

[Pyongshin Sangja]

I tried doing the month-to-month with one of my students but she got the days confused and we had a bit of an accident.

[superhal]

casey's moon: actually i like this pressure. i'm rather sick of the zombies in college. but, pretty much no matter what school you work at, attendance matters, but it's not month-to-month like a hagwon.

yu_bum_suk: actually, if the parents control attendance, that's relatively easy. i w