Korean Job Discussion Forums

[nrvs]

Most of my students are in Grade 6, and I don't think they're bad at all. I deliberately make my classes corny and they laugh just like the younger students (I have some Grade 5 kids as well). Our time together is good fun most of the time.

In my experience, the big change occurs when they hit middle school. My hogwan puts all of the middle schoolers in my level together because the administration KNOWS how they act. These middle schoolers are the ones that started English study late in elementary school and are pretty low-level. In a face-saving gesture, all 8 of them are in one class together. This is so they won't be shown up by some of my 11 year-olds well on their way to fluency.

Yeah, they roll in wearing their uniforms, slouch in their chairs, and roll their eyes through my whole class. I've learned I have to treat them very differently. I cannot be jokey with them at all. Instead I play the role of the tough-love drill sergeant trying to get them into a higher level at my hogwan with the rest of the middle schoolers.

I saw them coming from a mile away, and didn't take their attitude from the start. Now I don't mind them too much, and I get some kind of grudging respect in return. I know that every one of them are good kids on the inside. They remind me of myself in middle school; I know what it's like.

[nrvs]

Oh, and I've never had a girl cry in any of my classes. However, I've had at least a half-dozen boys positively sobbing over such petty things, usually involving a false perception of "teacher not fair." Big babies, all of them.