Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Grotto]

devils advocate here

CLG lets say you are the boss of a cooking school(comparing a diner to ESL is like apples to oranges)

You hire a chef to teach the students how to cook(because you know absolutely nothing about cooking you rely on the expert to do so)

You find out the chef has been teaching some of them how to cut stuff up while blindfolded OMG! What is going on here....ahhhh I know I will tell him that parents are complaining.

Really says the chef? This class too?

Yes especially this class!

Ahhh you are lying I havent taught that technique to this class, this class is a beginners class. If you had asked me why I had people cutting things up blindfolded I would tell you it helps teach proper technique and also improves confidence while handling a knife.

Do I tell you how to run your school? No....then please dont try to tell me how to do my job if you dont have a clue. If it really bothers you come up to me like an adult and tell me why you dont like it. Yes I realise you are the owner of this business but I am a professional and am attempting to get the best results from my students.

Of course if you dont care about the students learning how to cook properly then why am I even trying? If you dont understand why I do what I do then we can sit down and talk about it. IF after I have explained myself you still dont like it then I will cease to do it. Of course I will also cease to add in any supplementary material for any of my classes I will just follow your guidelines...actually no I wont....I quit

When someone is doing a good/great job, challenging the students and working hard to make things interesting you really have to wonder about the IQ of the owner when they just arbitrarily walk in and shut you down. Do the parents have any clue about teaching English?

Their child comes home and says look mom I learned this in school today. (child signs:do you like comic books?)

parent says what does that mean?

Child says in perfect English: Do you like comic books?

Parent angrily says: I dont spend all that money so you can wiggle your fingers....not realising that their child has not only learned how to say it in English but they have also picked up an additional skill free of charge.

[Scott in HK]

The only problem with Grotto's example is that it is more than likely that the student will say in prefect Korean...Do you like comic books?

There is no real reason why the student should connect the L3 that Tomato is teaching to his L2 rather than his L1.

It seems a little silly to use a third language to teach the target language. Sign is a language.

In your cooking example you used a discrete skill...chopping...and compared in to learning a separate language. Sign language is not part of English. It is separate.

The boss is right. Don't teach other languages in class.

[Hanson]

*Hijacked*

[Hanson]

To me, this is the best part of the letter, on so many levels:

[JongnoGuru]

[Kimchieluver]

This thread is done like dinner, stick a fork in it.

[JongnoGuru]

Sez you! The Definitive/Definative thread went 10 pages! I 'spect this one's good for a few more posts.

[Dan]

Here it is, the definitive opinion. (haha)

He is trying to be as open-minded as possible, but he is also not as culturally experienced as he could be.

He doesn't want to say these things to your face because he is afraid of how you'll react, but at the same time, he has some serious concerns about you as a person.

That letter probably took him hours, if not days to write, so please consider the investment he made into trying to communicate with you.

Overall, I'd say you could do far worse with a boss, and he's trying to build your guys' relationship into one of better understanding, and while he's presentation isn't ideal, you could also work on your end to assist the process.

[rapier]

[tomato]

The outsider-as-scapegoat syndrome can explain much of the problem.
In Nazi Germany, Jews were the scapegoat, in the United States, the Communists have been the scapegoat, and now in English schools in Korea, the foreign teachers are the scapegoat.

[EFLtrainer]

[Grotto]

Yes Koreans are uncomfortable when they are directly confronted by someone who does not accept their lies/stupidity/ignorance.

If a Korean is going to run an ESL business it is up to them to learn something of Western culture as well. Most Western people make compromises on a daily basis just living over here...that doesnt mean we have to bend over backwards just because a Korean says so.

Most of the better hogwans that I know of have owners that have either lived or studied overseas for a considerable period of time. The worst hogwans I have experienced and heard about seem to be run by Koreans who have little or no experience outside their own country.

[guangho]

So how did things work out thaitom?

[EFLtrainer]

[tomato]

Grotto's message got me thinking about a few possible cultural differences which I have seen:

encouraging creativity in teachers

For a whole year, I planned my own curriculum at a XYZ Preschool. I thought I did a fine job, but apparently the director didn't think so. When the following year started, she decided to use a preschool English series, complete with a teachers' manual which demanded every minute of my class time.

I asked, "Why do you want me to teach at your school if you don't like any of my activities?" She laughed and didn't say anything.

encouraging creativity in students

At XYZ Preschool, I never saw any children's artwork on the walls. But I was concurently working at ABC Preschool, where I always saw children's artwork on the walls.

During my first year at XYZ Preschool, I chose one particular word as the focus for each lesson. If the lesson was on house, I would draw a picture of a house. Then I would ask, "Who else can draw a house?" This created a flurry of waving hands and cries of "����! ����!" Then I would call on three volunteers, each of whom would copy my house exactly.

This went on fine for a while, because I only used concrete nouns for a while. But then the word for the day was red. This time I held up a red crayon and asked, "Who can draw something red?" There was nothing to copy, so my request was met with stony silence.

So then I had to coax them. "Draw anything--a red tree, a red house, a red boy, a red girl." Finally, one child would timidly raise his hand. Then whatever he drew, the other children copied.

There was only one class in which I did not have this problem. That was the toddler class, where the children had not yet had their creativity removed by XYZ Preschool's scalpel. There, my request got the usual chorus of ����'s. Each child made only a scribble, but a different scribble.

Concurrently, I was teaching the same lessons at ABC Preschool, where there was children's art work on the walls. The week that I taught the word red, I heard the usual ����'s in all of the classes.

paying recognition to student talent

My current director has had some sort of objection to my musical activities, but I could not figure out what it is. All I know is that she keeps saying, "This is a language school, not a music school." (I have to fight back the temptation to say, "You sure could have fooled me! I didn't know it was either one!")

When it comes time to use a song, I always write out the melody in musical notation, hand the songsheet and a small keyboard to one of the more pianistically skilled students in the class, whereupon the rest of the class sings to that child's accompaniment.

Maybe that's what is bothering her! Most other teacher run the twinky-dink cassette tapes which come with the Let's Go books, so that must be the only way to do it!

But my way would be perfectly acceptable in the United States. Nor do students play instruments only in music class in the United States. My French teacher found out that I took violin lessons, so she asked me to play the violin while the rest of the class sang French songs. My Spanish professor in college did the same.

Even some of the music teachers in Korea seem to be of a like mind with my director. A few weeks ago, the Hongseong Children's Chorus held a concert. One of the songs had a tambourine part which one of the children could have easily played. Yet they had the part played by an adult.

At the halfway point in the concert, the chorus took a break while an adult played a marimba solo. Surely to goodness they could find a good piano or violin soloist among their choristers!

(Not that music educators in the United States are altogether innocent of such an offense.)

cooperation vs. independence

Where I come from, a cardinal rule is "Never do anything for a student which the student can do for himself."

That is why I would rather have a student play the keyboard than to play the keyboard myself. That is why I would never say anything to the students in Korean which they could understand in English.

I didn't hear Grotto say anything about beating his head against a wall.
Did anyone else hear him say that?