Korean Job Discussion Forums

[MollyBloom]

I am wondering, with the recent discussions of behavioral problems, how public schools allow FT's to deal with bad behavior.

I just read a post on people making kids do push-ups or throwing them out of class; this worked for me last year at the hagwon, but can you do that in public schools? Will the K-teacher deal with that?

If K-teachers do allow the FT to discipline, will you get in trouble for using harsher methods? I am sure a lot of what FT's can and cannot do depends on each school, but I am just trying to get an overall idea of what measures one can and cannot use, or what is and isn't appropriate.

I already looked at this:
http://forums.eslcafe.com/korea/viewtopic.php?t=117672&highlight=

...but I want ONLY public schools for this thread.

[Fishead soup]

The Korean teacher is 100% responsible for classroom management.
I personally don't care if the Korean teacher beats the students as long as it works. The method of punishment in Korea is really different than in the west..

The students are not sent out of the rooms. Many schools have rules against sending students into the halls. In worse case situations either the homeroom teacher or the physical education teacher in contacted.
Physical punishment is rarely used and is often carried out by the physical education teacher.

As a foreigner it is not a good idea to intervene on a beating regardless of how brutal you feel it is. Your opinion as a foreign teacher will not be respected and your behaviour will be viewed as ethnocentric. Which it is.

For a Native speaker the best way to deal with these problems is to always team teach. When a foreigner hits a students it viewed differently than when a Korean hit them. Korea is full of double standards. I wouldn't expect a foreigner to do very well in a legal dispute regarding physical punishment.

[Toju]

If you are a good teacher, then you shouldn't have any problems with discipline. Or that is what I have found. I haven't had to ball a kid out for well over two years now, and even then it was a punk arse middle school boy who evidently had just discovered testosterone. If you have a good prescence in the class, good students will follow.

Other than that, humiliation works a treat.

[Bibbitybop]

[Toju]

[Fishead soup]

[mnhnhyouh]

I work in a high school, and at first, because I was new, I had no problems at all.

Now, after a number of weeks my honeymoon is over and I am starting to need some discipline. I keep a tally of class misbehavior and each check costs them 10 seconds after the bell.

I have made a few boys look at a dot on the board, and thrown a few out.

The next week those boys are always very good.

h

[Yu_Bum_suk]

[ernie]

my rule:

if you waste our time in class, i'll waste your time after school... spending 30 minutes in the teachers' office instead of being outside playing basketball is hell for middle school kids, especially since for most of them, this is the only free time they have all day...

[Easter Clark]

[Dome Vans]

I've found that being consistent from the start. No ridiculous swings of character when it comes to discipline and teaching. No shouting especially. My lessons are engaging, I help the lower level students (or bad students) a bit more and in turn they behave. If they're messing round then they've usually not understood what you want them to do.

The most I do is a tap on the shoulder and then tap on the empty desk at the back of the classroom, they move, that does the trick. I don't say anything just the tap.

My co-teachers are pretty good at sorting the students out, and as was discussed in a previous thread, if your co-teacher wants to talk to the students then that's when you can keep an eye on the students and keep them in line. Give and take.

Maybe I'm lucky not to have what others might class as 'bad' students but then again maybe it's a bit to with that and consistent teaching.

[mnhnhyouh]

An old teachers saying from Australia, never smile before Easter.

It is easier to have students deal with a teacher who relaxes their attitude with a well behaving class than it is to start to become more strict.

Start strict. Put the fear of gyosa into them, and then relax when they are good for a while. You will need to relapse into the tough teacher now and then, but only for a bit.

h

[Toju]

[chachee99]

The stick is not allowed in my classroom PERIOD! I told the Korean teacher that outright. I said I don't like to watch kids get hit with sticks. If you wantto teach like that, then you teach the class all by yourself.

[mnhnhyouh]