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Korean Job Discussion Forums
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| Do You Have a Co-Teacher? |
| Elementary School: Yes |
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41% |
[ 14 ] |
| Elementary School: No |
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2% |
[ 1 ] |
| Middle School: Yes |
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35% |
[ 12 ] |
| Middle School: No |
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0% |
[ 0 ] |
| High School: Yes |
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8% |
[ 3 ] |
| High School: No |
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11% |
[ 4 ] |
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| Total Votes : 34 |
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Yu_Bum_suk
Joined: 25 Dec 2004
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 Posted: Sun Sep 25, 2005 9:54 pm Post subject: Re: my co-teacher is the bomb |
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| Veronica wrote: |
| mswiftansan wrote: |
I'm suprised to hear that some people prefer to teach without a co-teacher.
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Couldn't think of anything worse - having a co-teacher. Pain in the arse if you ask me. Someone always watching you and listening to you. Awful. However, if you are finding your partner useful, then good luck to you. Each to their own at the end of the day. |
It really depends on the level. I would much prefer to have a co-teacher for first or second year middle school. For most of my high school classes I would much rather teach solo. As it is, it seems that the HS (vocational) classes where I could most use a co-teacher I don't have one, and for most of the ones I do (academic), I'd rather she wasn't there, as it's of very limited use and seems to make the students more, not less, hesitant. |
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ambvalent
Joined: 25 Feb 2005
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| Posted: Sun Sep 25, 2005 11:22 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| Couldn't think of anything worse - having a co-teacher. Pain in the arse if you ask me. Someone always watching you and listening to you. Awful. However, if you are finding your partner useful, then good luck to you. Each to their own at the end of the day. |
I feel that way when I only have a homeroom teacher in the room with me. But in theory, wouldn't having a coteacher not be "someone always watching and listening", but someone who shares with teaching? I'm thinking I'm happy with the "have a coteacher" paradigm, because it really allows you to model speaking relationships to children when children aren't always willing subjects for the experience.
Maybe I'm assuming the coteacher you have is someone you can work with. |
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Veronica
Joined: 29 Aug 2005
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| Posted: Mon Sep 26, 2005 12:13 am Post subject: |
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| ambvalent wrote: |
| Quote: |
| Couldn't think of anything worse - having a co-teacher. Pain in the arse if you ask me. Someone always watching you and listening to you. Awful. However, if you are finding your partner useful, then good luck to you. Each to their own at the end of the day. |
I feel that way when I only have a homeroom teacher in the room with me. But in theory, wouldn't having a coteacher not be "someone always watching and listening", but someone who shares with teaching? I'm thinking I'm happy with the "have a coteacher" paradigm, because it really allows you to model speaking relationships to children when children aren't always willing subjects for the experience.
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I make my kids talk, even if though they may not want to - that is the whole purpose of my being there. Plus, it depends on what materials you are using as to whether or not you need a someone to talk with. The material I use does not need that and is based around the students lives, so they find some interest in that alone. I am, however, looking for some new stuff now. |
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mswiftansan
Joined: 01 Sep 2005
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| Posted: Mon Sep 26, 2005 2:06 am Post subject: how do you control kids who can't understand you |
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I am totally greatful for my co-teacher especially considering my classes have 45 students. I was left alone with them for 20 minutes and I almost lost my mind. I'm not sure if I gave off the vibe that I was scarred out of my wits or they knew I couldn't understand Korean and they could pretty much tell me to F-off and I wouldn't know it. This is an elementary school and I guess children are wild all over the world, but to me these kids are outta control.
How do you control your huge classes?
On another note I teach 4 "special" classes a week of students who took tests to be in these classes but I am finding it hard to get them to stop chattering and listen to me. Also I am used to teaching with speaking being the primary goal, but this is proving to be very difficult with 20 young children. (I taught adults before)
Any thoughts or advice would be greatly appreciated.
Also super pumped at the idea of a monthly get-together to hash out ideas and vent! |
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JacktheCat
Joined: 08 May 2004
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| Posted: Mon Sep 26, 2005 6:29 am Post subject: Re: how do you control kids who can't understand you |
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| mswiftansan wrote: |
How do you control your huge classes?
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Same with any size class, be they 5 or 50.
Set boundries, and let the kiddies know in no uncertain terms what the penalties are for crossing them. |
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inkoreafornow
Joined: 14 Sep 2005
Location: Gyeonggido
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| Posted: Mon Sep 26, 2005 6:32 am Post subject: Re: how do you control kids who can't understand you |
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| mswiftansan wrote: |
This is an elementary school and I guess children are wild all over the world, but to me these kids are outta control.
How do you control your huge classes?
On another note I teach 4 "special" classes a week of students who took tests to be in these classes but I am finding it hard to get them to stop chattering and listen to me. Also I am used to teaching with speaking being the primary goal, but this is proving to be very difficult with 20 young children. (I taught adults before) Any thoughts or advice would be greatly appreciated. Also super pumped at the idea of a monthly get-together to hash out ideas and vent! |
I have a TPR system: I hold up one finger they clap once. Hold up 2 fingers they clap twice. If I get to five and atleast 90 percent of them aren't listening I bust out my evil voice and raise hell: whoever is still not paying attention is in the push-up position until I get tired of watching him. One boy told me to f-off and so he stayed in the push-up postion for 30 minutes.
As for your extra/special/advanced class: how old are they? I love using Penguin Readers with the kids and getting them to talk about the stories along with doing the activity books that go along with them.
As for my coteachers: they are borderline useless. When I need something translated to the principal, I first have to convince them that my opinion is correct and then the milisecond he wavers they tell me it's time to go and that we don't need to take up any more of his time with this.
As far as teaching is concerned: they are useless. We sit in an office together and they won't talk to me about the lesson until 5 minutes before class starts because they're busy shopping, gossiping, checking their email, text messages, or (my favorite) studying their This is Grammar book. I've tried getting them to plan ahead but it is just damn near impossible! Drives me nuts! They ask me what I think about the lesson in the book, I tell them my ideas, and then they tell me we will do it like it's written in the book. I swear to god it's like they've been told to ask for the foreigner's opinion because it will make them feel more involved but then don't give a damn as to what I actually say.
They've told me that I might be working alone starting next semester and I have to bite my lip from saying "don't tease me."
So, if you're still reading, I'm guessing the answer to "whether it's good or bad to have a coteacher?" really depends on who you get stuck with. |
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mswiftansan
Joined: 01 Sep 2005
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| Posted: Mon Sep 26, 2005 2:47 pm Post subject: Re: how do you control kids who can't understand you |
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| JacktheCat wrote: |
| mswiftansan wrote: |
How do you control your huge classes?
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Same with any size class, be they 5 or 50.
Set boundries, and let the kiddies know in no uncertain terms what the penalties are for crossing them. |
What kind of penalties? Red marks? Reward system? Push up position sounds a bit harsh...plus wouldn't I have to give an example first 
Stickers? Candy? Harsh letters home to mom? |
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mack the knife
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: standing right behind you...
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| Posted: Mon Sep 26, 2005 8:07 pm Post subject: |
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I teach 1200 students a week in classes of up to 45 of highly variable abilty. If I want to do anything even slightly new and creative the class descends into chaos. I can't have them into teams because the classroom layout dictates that I can't see all of their faces and the class management turns to custard.
If Korea was serious about actually implementing all these wonderful concepts. They need to start lowering class sizes. Having specialized classrooms for language teaching with a good classroom layout for teaching is need too. They also need to start sorting students into academic grouping so lessons could be better tailored towards their individual level. Instead everyone gets the same level of medicore teaching as teachers try to be everything to everyone and fails miserably.
However the biggest change that needs to happen is that the education culture needs to change. I think here in Korea, people view education as the filling of the pail. Students are just empty vessels and it's the teacher's job to fill them with knowledge. Students don't have any responsbilty over their own learning here. It's too passive. Teachers need to see their role as lighting a fire, arousing curisotiy, chanelling creativity, and letting students arrive at point b from point a by themselves so that they are more equipped to deal with the classroom enviroment that the policy wants to create. |
You really hit the nail on the head. The good news is, in my school I'm currently working with a professor from Dongkuk University (we're implementing a special project of hers) who happens to be on the committe/board/thingy that helped create the textbooks/curriculum we're using (in public elementary schools).
As part of her project, I recently granted her a no-holds-barred interview in which I said that the textbooks needed some serious looking-over. I also pointed out the exact same issues you brought up (and a few other 'tater gems). This professor also feels that the system needs some changes, and agrees with the aforementioned points. Although a general systemic change such as splitting the kids into disparate skill levels might be wishful thinking, we should nevertheless voice our opinions! At the very least, egregious textbook mistakes such as "What kind animals were on Jony's uncles' farm?" could be eliminated.
Oh, and for all of us GEPIK/EPIK teachers, I mentioned that there seems to be no one to contact (at least, no one reliable) when we need help or have a suggestion. Cross your fingers, spit in your hat. |
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spark05
Joined: 08 Sep 2005
Location: Jung Dong
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| Posted: Mon Sep 26, 2005 8:43 pm Post subject: |
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I have 2 co-teachers. One of them is pretty decent with English and the other cannot speak much. There are students who speak better than her. It's really frustrating because she'll keep telling me to do/say stuff during class and it takes her like 5 minutes to convey the message to me..."You do them" just doesn't really make sense to me! But the more frustrating thing is that she insists on speaking in English and also that I speak english, when I also speak Korean. So I ask her a question, "what do you want me to do?" and the head nod. 
But they're both young and not good teachers. I thought it was just the Korean system, but then I co-taught with a substitute teacher who has years of experience and even though he's not an english teacher he taught the students way more than either of the english teachers. So I wish I had different co-teachers, but I wouldn't want to relieve them of their duties by taking over the class because then they seriously wouldn't be doing anything all day. Except for drink coffee and surf the internet of course.  |
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thursdays child
Joined: 21 Sep 2005
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| Posted: Mon Sep 26, 2005 9:00 pm Post subject: |
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Team teaching can only work if you can be a team.. (duh) I have five co-teachers - 2 of them don't come or come and read a book, one of them translates EVERYTHING i say hence i don't need to be there, another... well we just don't get on - even the way he walks pisses me off.. ha can't explain why. And the last teacher - bingo, we work well together, as with all the lessons i fully prep them and the k-teacher can input as he/she sees fit.
Anyway, I'm really easy to get along with and i like and am liked by all teachers (apart from walking guy) but some people you can work with and some you can't. |
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Veronica
Joined: 29 Aug 2005
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| Posted: Mon Sep 26, 2005 9:52 pm Post subject: |
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| mack the knife wrote: |
You really hit the nail on the head. The good news is, in my school I'm currently working with a professor from Dongkuk University (we're implementing a special project of hers) who happens to be on the committe/board/thingy that helped create the textbooks/curriculum we're using (in public elementary schools).
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Can you get her to review the middle and high school books too? Please?  |
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forgesteel
Joined: 30 Aug 2005
Location: Earth
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| Posted: Tue Sep 27, 2005 6:22 am Post subject: Paulo Friere's Banking Theory of Education |
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| crazylemongirl wrote: |
However the biggest change that needs to happen is that the education culture needs to change. I think here in Korea, people view education as the filling of the pail. Students are just empty vessels and it's the teacher's job to fill them with knowledge. Students don't have any responsbilty over their own learning here. It's too passive. Teachers need to see their role as lighting a fire, arousing curisotiy, chanelling creativity, and letting students arrive at point b from point a by themselves so that they are more equipped to deal with the classroom enviroment that the policy wants to create. |
Makes me think of Paulo Freier's Banking Theory of Education:
| Quote: |
Freire describes a situation all too common in today's classes. It is from this kind of didactic teaching that Freire draws his metaphor of banking as a concept of education. In it, teachers make deposits of information which students are to receive, memorize, and repeat. A transmission of knowledge from the knowledgeable to the know nothings...Subject to object. "The more students work at storing the deposits entrusted to them, the less they develop the critical consciousness which would result from their intervention in the world as transformers of that world"(p. 55).
Banking education seeks to maintain the contradiction. It does not engage students in critical thinking, instead, it requires the students to be passive and to adapt thereby serving the purposes of oppression. It inhibits creativity, it resists dialogue, it is fatalistic in nature.
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source:
http://www.perfectfit.org/CT/freire3.html |
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