Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Anne0]

At my Village the kids are here to be immersed in English for one week. So the kids are told that none of the Korean or foreign teachers speak Korean.
So.....one thing the kids do is say "hello" every single time they see us. So yeah I say hello maybe 600 (3x200) times a day. So as I was coming to my room from lunch just now this kid said "Hi, hello annyoung"

"annyoung?" I just laughed because I can't let on that I knew what he said. The other kid asked him why he didn't say "annyounghaseyo" but I didn't understand the answer.
What annoys me is the kids do this alot. All of not just this group. They'll ask me questions and end it in "ee-o" and all that.
Now get this. We share a facility with the Semaul Institute. So this institue is filled with middle aged Korean who are just FILLED with Korean pride. You know what, when they see me they're bow and say annyounghaseyo. Most times I do it first but it's the fact that the adults show me respect but the kids don't.
I don't understand it.

[Big Mac]

Hmmm. Why was I expecting something more graphic, like "is it common for Korean children to want to poke English teachers in the butt with their fingers?" Now that will stir up debate. If you haven't had this happen to you yet, it will. "Hello" is harmless compared to that.

I understand hello, but I don't understand this very strange practice.

[marcus]

yeah, the kids are just being kids.

At a middle school there was this one kid who would grab my wrist everytime I walked by and then wouldn't let go. He never stopped doing it for the entire year. I never figured out why. He wouldn't explain either.

[ddeubel]

Kids don't show respect unless it is earned, to the nth degree.....they haven't been roboticized, enculturated, brainwashed to bow and talk about the weather daintily......

Wish I was a kid and could say and do the darndest things. Don't fret that kids are like this -- rejoice.......it is this inner freedom to be who they are, that you should teach more than anything. The emperor we now know, has no clothes or as that great "kid" Dylan sang, "even the president of the United States / sometimes has to stand naked."........

DD

[Grotto]

When I taught I too got very tired of saying hi.....so I told students to say good morning XXXXX teacher, how are you today? Unless they greeted me properly I would either ignore them or correct them. By the end of the year more than 1/2 my students would greet me that way...and the chorus of HI hi Hi hI...dwindled away.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

I think it really depends on what type of institute you're at. If my kids are greeting me in Korean it's always the formal. I think more of them have figured out that I'm fine with just hello and a wave instead of ee-o or i-ka and a bow. Why not try making the whole class come to attention and bow at the beginning of every lesson? That should set a good tone.

[Privateer]

IMHO little kids are allowed a lot more latitude. They speak to their own and each other's mothers in disrespectful panmal all the time.

This changes when they get to middle school and things start to get progressively stricter.