Korean Job Discussion Forums

[crazylemongirl]

My co-teacher at the moment is doing her thesis on 'team teaching' at the moment which of course means more work for me. One of big things at the moment is 'differentiated teaching' method. Whereby kids receive instruction at their apporiate level of achievement.

Now this sounds all well and good in theory but the problem is trying to apply a concept like that to a korean public school classroom where you've got 40+ kids in class that you see once a week for 45 minutes. With 1,200 students I don't know most of my kid's names let alone their individual level in english.

Of course an easy solution to this would be that kids were placed in classes according to their abilty in english. But apparently that's not going to happen because all the parents would want their kids in the top class. So they keep maintaing this charade of equality by ensuring all kids are getting the same thing while at the same time challenging all the kids in the class.

Enter the super teacher who construct these 'student centered' classes which will keep all 40+ kids interested in english while not allowing the classes to descend into chaos once the kids aren't under the eye of the teacher to make sure they aren't lighting eachother on fire. I'm just about at the point of pulling my hair out if I hear 'well what about the higher level students?' one more time.

Bad day at the chalk board for CLG

[Yu_Bum_suk]

It's strange how with middle school, in one class you can give them an activity, start writing on the board, and then pick things up just at the right moment, keeping almost everyone's attention for almost all 45 minutes, leaving you feeling like such a smug, super-teacher. ... And then you try it in the next class and it decends to chaos the moment your back is turned and you're not talking at 80 decibles.

[blunder1983]

I do find it amusing/distressing (depending on my mood) at the lengths the parents of kids in this country go to ruin their kids education in the attempt to improve it.

If they allowed graded classes, banned drawing on desks, sleeping etc. and gave up on hagwons they'd have happier kids getting the same sort of education. Oh well best we can do is make the time they have with us enjoyable and hope when they are next generation ajummas and ajjoshis they remember how little they learnt from their 12 hour days.

Sigh, its depressing just typing it.....

[peppermint]

If they didn't have hagwons, there'd have to be some sort of daycare system for the little ones as well. From what I can tell they're not that common now.