Korean Job Discussion Forums

[deessell]

[butter808fly]

Interesting thoughts and ideas... you mean it actually pays to learn how to teach people of another language? haha... anyways, the kids that have really improved at my school are actually my young kids that were in a class with a child that used to live in England (so, his English was pretty good).. just the natural interaction of it all and they really picked up the English so quickly! I didnt have to teach them sentence structure or anything.. maybe everyone should just throw in an English speaking child and that might cure all the hicups.

[the_beaver]

[deessell]

Thats why we don't usually teach children grammar, they learn the rules innately like we did.

[joe_doufu]

Language learning is not a secret technique. Anybody can do it. With the countless billions of won the Korean people have thrown at the English learning problem, it's unthinkably appalling how little they have learned. Somewhere somehow somebody must have translated Barry Farber's "How to Learn Any Language" or just figured out the secrets by trial and error.

Unfortunately for Korea, the secret ingredient to language learning is to want to learn the language! People who want to learn the language will seek out people to chat with on the internet, foreign girls to hit on, books and movies to consume, etc.

What Koreans do to their children is terrible. Forcing them to study from the early morning until after midnight, to study things they don't care about for so many hours they long surpass their maximum brain load for the day, is plainly cruel. It depresses me to be a part of it. If I could get away with playing games every day, I would. I have some classes that absolutely refuse to cooperate with me, and I used to get frustrated with them, but you know, I consider it my good deed to let them have their wild + free 40 minutes every day.

Just don't tell the boss!

[Gopher]

[butter808fly]

[Ya-ta Boy]

If I were a Korean parent thinking about sending my kid to English class I would:

1. Visit the school in question and look at the facilities and see if they have books, tapes, etc. Is the place equipped with educational materials?

2. Interview the director and ask if he/she has a professional background in English education. I would avoid a school run by someone without experience in both teaching English and in administering a school. (I might consider someone who has a business background. Might.) I would avoid like a plague any school that advertises a hot new fad in learning English--like shouting.

3. Discuss the educational background of the teachers with the manager. Do the teachers have both education and experience in teaching English? If not, I'd keep looking.

4. I'd ask how often tests are given and if students can remain at one level until they master that level. A small school is not going to be able to manage that.

5. I'd discuss with my kid what specific rewards he will get if he makes satisfactory progress each month. (I'm a strong believer in positive reinforcement.)

[just because]

My hagwon is very very well run...

My wonjang(director) speaks excellent english and is very familiar with western education having lived in canada 7 years....plus is one of the nicest people i have ever met plus likes to drink9always a bonus )

There is one Korean teacher whose english is also great and is an awesoem person as well...

Plus there are us 2 foreigners whos english i would consider to be good enough to teach the language

My hagwon is GREAT!!!!!


Not all hagwons are bad - i would send my child to this one if he was Korean

[OiGirl]

[OiGirl]

[OiGirl]

[bosintang]

On the better side of the spectrum of hagwons, they seem to be run by people who are sincere, but really don't know what they're doing, and are too stubborn to change. The Korean teachers use ridiculously outdated and innefficient teaching methods. Few standards are expected of foreign teachers -- or "teachers", as Gopher put it -- as if children will learn a language by magical foreign presence alone.

On the other end of the spectrum, the industry is a complete sham. It's run and operated by pseudo-businessmen who have absolutely no education backgrounds, never bothered to buy the product themselves, and sold to controlling, manipulative, and most of all, gullible parents. Add in there a range of other players like recruiters and booksellers who have no vested interested except to get their own share of the pie.

And then there are public school jobs. Ridiculously overcrowded classes completely test-orientated with Korean teachers, and too infrequent with foreign teachers to make any meaningful difference.

Of course some people will pipe up about how their jobs are nothing but gumdrop waterfalls and fairy kisses, but anyone who seriously looks at this industry outside a bubble would have a hard-time putting a rose-tinted glass over it. And of course there really are exceptions, but it's not helpful to study industry trends by focusing on these.

Think how many hours your typical hagwon kid will study a week. 6 hagwon classes a week, half of those with a native speaker or even more, plus 3-4 classes a week at their public schools. Added up over a few years, that's a lot of time and money spent learning a foreign language. How many people here spent that much time of their childhood learning a foreign language?

And does any other country have as many native speakers teaching as Korea does? Face it, we're expensive to maintain. We cost more, we whine, we run away, we're hard to replace. And yet, we're used in such redundant, innefficient, or just plain useless roles.

Koreans are learning English, albeit very slowly but wiith the astonishing amount of effort and money Koreans are putting into it, Koreans should not just be learning English, they should be learning it well. I wonder how long Koreans can keep up the momentum and will to keep going. For the time and effort they're putting into it , the results to me are very inneffectual.

[bosintang]

[deessell]