Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Butterfly]

I concede that it must be difficult teaching kids, I guess it takes a longer time for your reputation to spread when you are only teaching the children since parents expect so much. When one teaches adults its a different story, a lot of your students are pretty connected people, especially in Southern Seoul and Youido where I teach. They have rich friends who wish to improve their English. I'm amazed the number of people working here who don't see that.
I do however have an American friend working in a provincial kiddie hogwan, who at times makes me despair when she tells me of how parents in the neighborhood send their children to her house without even asking her, offer her no money and expect her to take care of their kids and teach them English for nothing. Free babysitting AND English service!! I despair because she does it; she lets them in and hangs out with the kids!!! Feeling sorry for the little beggars I suppose. Well at least I did despair, until recently when I learned she had earned herself such a reputation in the neighborhood and in her church that she is attracting students to the HOGWAN. With her contract coming up for renewal her boss is offering her all kinds of incentives to stay. She gets her share of nice pay privates too. Everyone in the neighborhood loves her. Her benevolence has paid off in dollars.

It is ALWAYS worth giving a f*** wherever you are. I know people here that I knew back in London foreigners and Koreans, and good shi t happens to people with a good reputation.

But anyway, don't listen to me, keep slacking everyone!!

[shawner88]

[Austin]

Butterfly,

Thank you for the post.

You reap what you sow in Korea and everywhere else.

[ulsanchris]

I'm glad you liked the idea BBum.

[harryh]

[bucheon bum]

[shawner88]

It's people that work excessively hard and get taken advantage of and don't complain because they are afraid to that makes it that much harder for the next guy. Take Harry for example from Geoje-do. He worked his ass off and was miserable for a year, not because he felt pride and integrity at a job well done, but because he was exploited. Because the system here makes people afraid to quit, because of the release letter deal. People feel that if they want to stay in Korea, they have to put up with it. Now the next teacher coming in will be expected to follow suit.

Personally, I quit 2 jobs (including Harry's school in Geoje-do) despite the fact I had an E-2 visa at each of them and risked not being able to work. I tried to compromise with my bosses but they wanted things 100% their way. I asked them to be released properly, that I would give them adequate time to replace me and return airfare expense - but they refused. In turn I refused to be taken advantage of and quit. That's what you should do, not be miserable for one year for whatever reason you think justifies it. Both times I had no problem getting a new E-2 visa - all it took was a little "convincing" the officials on my new bosses' behalf. I stayed one year at my last job and will stay one year at least at my newest one. These guys understand that I'm a foreigner and life here is difficult enough. They know that I slack, but they don't hold it against me - they are happy as long as I show up everyday and make the kids laugh. And I am setting a good trend for the next teacher to fall into. I would not want to work at a school that had a previous teacher who put up with being exploited for one year.

[ulsanchris]

Shawner working hard doesn't mean that you are being exploited. as for your friend that worked hard and was taken advantage of, he should of stood up for himself. I would hazard a guess that the people who work hard are the least likely to put up with a bad situation.
can you give some examples of how he was taken advantage of, and also why did you quit your two jobs.

[shawner88]

Working 9-10-11 classes a day. Anything more than 6 classes/day is ridiculous.

[Zed]

[Zed]

[crazylemongirl]

I agree that a lot of hagwons actively discourage any effort to become a 'real' teacher while your here. My director has deemed that the 'curriculum' (i'm actually loathed to call it that) for kindy is that children go through X pages in a text book, which is completly useless and memorise 2 sentences.

I often do the 'offical stuff' as a quick gap filler and go off and do a lot other stuff with my kindy. I like doing it because I get to see the results of my work really quickly and we do a lot of running about as the kindy kids spend far too much time plastered to their chair. But sometimes I wonder why I do it, since there seems little point and the waygook teachers are 'why do you bother. the director doesn't care, the kids don't care. why create more work for yourself when you can just sit back and pick up your pay cheque.' But in the end I feel responsible for the kids as the parents have forked out a far few won for the kids to have the pleasure of english lessons.

5 of my elementary classes are really good and well structured (depending on the korean co worker) and I see them 45 minutes three times a week so I've got a bit of time to be creative. While the other 15 elementary classes I "teach" I only see them once a week for 20min and have to cover 2 pages of both student and text book in that time, it's madness as the kids (who are often late) have barely got the textbook out before I'm out the door.

Sometimes you (and the kids) do get burnt out and need a break, thus the game/wordfind sessions come in. Even the 'real' teachers from back home that I knew when I was doing my teacher training would freely admit that the kids are going to get a few slack sessions due to teacher burnout.

CLG

[The Man known as The Man]

[quote="kimcheeking"][quote="The Man known as The Man"]

[ulsanchris]

to be honest zed i got that idea from a teachers book i was reading (teaching english to children in asia). I have never done anything like that. I've almost always used a book that follows a step by step program.
I've never used my own suggestion there. not sure how well it works.
I've started teaching at a new school this week and with my middle school classes i've been getting them to role play a bit and its worked pretty well. THe class that it works best in is all boys and they go to an all boys school. I guess without having girls around they don't mind being a bit silly. Also they seem like a pretty positive bunch. In my classes mixed with boys and girls the role playing doesn't seem to work to well.

[Zyzyfer]