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Korean Job Discussion Forums
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Zyzyfer
Joined: 29 Jan 2003
Location: who, what, where, when, why, how?
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 Posted: Mon Jan 31, 2005 9:09 pm Post subject: |
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| nasigoreng wrote: |
| I think the korean students only respect force... and they will only comply to pain. If their parents didn't threaten to kick the she-ut out of them for bad grades,they would never open a book. |
That's for the parents to control. |
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Yu_Bum_suk
Joined: 25 Dec 2004
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| Posted: Tue Feb 01, 2005 4:25 pm Post subject: |
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| jajdude wrote: |
| I think the students might respect the teacher more if they both speak at least enough of the same language to communicate a bit. I feel like most of the kids don't know what to make of me, or any foreigner. We are simply outside their realm. I've been feeling this a lot lately. It's painful for some kids. It's painful for the teacher. The language and culture gap is wide. Maybe it's hard to feel respect where there's little understanding of each other. I also have a lot of kids now who mock my English quite a bit, more than any did in the past. It upsets me to see such rudeness, but I can understand their frustration too. |
I've found that any attempt to communicate in Korean is just an occasion for comic relief. I know a teacher who trained as a US army Korean linguist who found the same thing.
I think it's all up to the parents and directors who are stupid enough to listen to their every stupid concern. I have two classes where a mother has said she doesn't want her son to get any 'stress', and so in those two, I'm screwed. In one the kid often falls asleep, which is just fine with me. In the other I try to get the kid to sit on the far end so he can only ruin the learning environment for one other kid. With mothers who are so stupid and directors who will do anything to try to keep taking their money there's not much you can do. In another class I have a kid whose mother I know is really pushing him to learn, and he brings the rest of the class to a higher level and the class really kicks ass - they know more than a lot of kids at higher levels. |
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canadian_in_korea
Joined: 20 Jun 2004
Location: South Korea
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| Posted: Tue Feb 01, 2005 5:12 pm Post subject: |
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| I only taught in the schools for 6 months so my experience is very limited, I did teach in a few different public schools though. When I first started teaching I thought that Korean children were so much more respectful than Canadian students. I think perhaps part of the problem is how you define respect. When I think of being in class when I was in school, if someone was talking or disrupting the class they were sent out or to the principle...here teachers aren't allowed to do that. why?....because it takes away that students opportunity to learn....well what about the other 20 children who are near the "disrupter"? There does seem to be a very big issue now in the public schools....some of the children are just plain bored...they are going to hagwons learning things before the public school teaches them. Perhaps when Korean parents learn there is a difference in encouraging your child to do their very best.....and stressing them out beyond belief to be better than everyone else....then the system will start to work for these kids. |
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Yu_Bum_suk
Joined: 25 Dec 2004
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| Posted: Tue Feb 01, 2005 11:56 pm Post subject: |
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| canadian_in_korea wrote: |
| I only taught in the schools for 6 months so my experience is very limited, I did teach in a few different public schools though. When I first started teaching I thought that Korean children were so much more respectful than Canadian students. I think perhaps part of the problem is how you define respect. When I think of being in class when I was in school, if someone was talking or disrupting the class they were sent out or to the principle...here teachers aren't allowed to do that. why?....because it takes away that students opportunity to learn....well what about the other 20 children who are near the "disrupter"? There does seem to be a very big issue now in the public schools....some of the children are just plain bored...they are going to hagwons learning things before the public school teaches them. Perhaps when Korean parents learn there is a difference in encouraging your child to do their very best.....and stressing them out beyond belief to be better than everyone else....then the system will start to work for these kids. |
I did send a kid out of the class once and now I can see why the others seemed to find it confusing. It's probably not something the supervisor would approve of, but oh well. I think that's by far the best way of dealing with class disturbers. If I ever teach school in Canada the thing I think I'll like best is being able to say basically screw that kid, send him off, and let the other 20 learn something, and then tell off his mom for doing such a poor job of raising him and not having to worry my unionised ass off one bit. |
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canadian_in_korea
Joined: 20 Jun 2004
Location: South Korea
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| Posted: Wed Feb 02, 2005 5:00 am Post subject: |
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| Yu_Bum_suk wrote: |
| canadian_in_korea wrote: |
| I only taught in the schools for 6 months so my experience is very limited, I did teach in a few different public schools though. When I first started teaching I thought that Korean children were so much more respectful than Canadian students. I think perhaps part of the problem is how you define respect. When I think of being in class when I was in school, if someone was talking or disrupting the class they were sent out or to the principle...here teachers aren't allowed to do that. why?....because it takes away that students opportunity to learn....well what about the other 20 children who are near the "disrupter"? There does seem to be a very big issue now in the public schools....some of the children are just plain bored...they are going to hagwons learning things before the public school teaches them. Perhaps when Korean parents learn there is a difference in encouraging your child to do their very best.....and stressing them out beyond belief to be better than everyone else....then the system will start to work for these kids. |
I did send a kid out of the class once and now I can see why the others seemed to find it confusing. It's probably not something the supervisor would approve of, but oh well. I think that's by far the best way of dealing with class disturbers. If I ever teach school in Canada the thing I think I'll like best is being able to say basically screw that kid, send him off, and let the other 20 learn something, and then tell off his mom for doing such a poor job of raising him and not having to worry my unionised ass off one bit. |
I have found the majority of parents in Canada actually work WITH the teacher when it comes to their childs education. Of course there are some who think their child can do no wrong....but when I think about when I was in school, if the teacher called home because I did something...i was in BIG trouble. I couldn't even imagine being sent to the principal's office....it was the horror of all horrors... Before I go to my daughter's parent teacher meetings I always give her one last chance.."is there anything I should know before I go?"...hahahah.... |
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Yu_Bum_suk
Joined: 25 Dec 2004
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| Posted: Wed Feb 02, 2005 5:18 am Post subject: |
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| canadian_in_korea wrote: |
I have found the majority of parents in Canada actually work WITH the teacher when it comes to their childs education. Of course there are some who think their child can do no wrong....but when I think about when I was in school, if the teacher called home because I did something...i was in BIG trouble. I couldn't even imagine being sent to the principal's office....it was the horror of all horrors... Before I go to my daughter's parent teacher meetings I always give her one last chance.."is there anything I should know before I go?"...hahahah.... |
My experience growing up in Canada was very much the same... we'll, until I was about 15 and not really afraid of getting in trouble anymore (and now I'm probably getting some well deserved Karma for I few things I did in my last three years of school). The wonderful thing about teaching public school in Canada is that job security is such that one can basically tell a parent to f-off, and just repeatedly kick a kid out of class if disruptive behaviour persists. I'm sure there are some Korean parents who would like to work with us, but the whole hogwan system seems to lend itself to catering to the most unreasonable of parents. But I think a distrust of foreigners also helps add to the tendency to believe anything one's kid says and be especially suspicious, picky and demanding. I'm planning to get a digital camera soon, and would like to try the threat of videotaping piss poor behaviour and showing it to mommy on a few kids. |
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jajdude
Joined: 18 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Wed Feb 02, 2005 10:59 am Post subject: |
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| Yu_Bum_suk wrote: |
I've found that any attempt to communicate in Korean is just an occasion for comic relief. I know a teacher who trained as a US army Korean linguist who found the same thing.
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I only use a little Korean. (I only know a little Korean.) But I find that usually the kids seem impressed and like the fact I've made an effort, and it takes a little bit of a burden off them. Mostly it's just vocabulary translation I might try to say, or just write the hangul on the board. I just know it from the dictionary, and am not sure always that it is the proper translation, but since most kids I teach now do not have dictionaries it helps a bit. Some words are really hard to explain. For instance, yesterday I just looked up a bunch of a new words and wrote out the Korean on the board. These were words such as "optimistic, tolerant, compassionate, sullen." (not easy to explain) |
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