Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Caesar1313]

Hi, I never taught before and am going to be working with SMOE. I put down Middle School as my preferred placement. As someone with no teaching experience should I have gone for elementary school instead? Any advice?

[Draz]

You won't know until you get there.

[Shredd]

Odds are you will get Middle School, that seems to be where the majority of the jobs are.

[Cracker006]

It's totally personal preferance.

I taught adults, I taught Kindi, now teaching Middle School.

To me, the approach is so different, that each would warrant a completely different job title (which they use, in Korean, by the way).

[cdninkorea]

I'd advise staying away from elementary school. The students are cute and all but they run around in the halls making ungodly amounts of noise. Most of them will be relatively well behaved in class but the few that are really bad will be like wild dogs- standing up to walk around, shouting at their friends across the class during your lesson, and playing with whatever toy they happen to have with them that day until you take it away from them until the next day, the prospect of which will sometimes lead them to cry like you just killed their entire family.

Middle and high school students are often more reluctant to open up in class (some more than others) but at least when they misbehave it's in a less obnoxious way- whispering to the person next to them, typing a text message in class, etcetera.

My favorite age group is adults. But all this being said, many people prefer younger grades, so it's up to you to decide what's best.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

When you throw your dice at the kindi-elementary-middle-high-uni-adult lotto the only thing you can be sure of is that the odds of finding out what group you don't like teaching is higher than finding out what you do.

[bacasper]

I'd stay away from elementary.

Child Sex Offenders to Get Harsher Punishment

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2008/05/113_23739.html

By Michael Ha
Staff Reporter

[thatwhitegirl]

I've taught all ages. Last year was elementary kids. Wow. They are cute, but they can be rough. By the end of the year it was great, and they were well trained. You can motivate them SO much easier than older kids! And they are easy to please and quick to forgive. I enjoyed them, but my husband hated every minute of it.
Now we teach high school. I like them, as you can have conversations, and the subject matter is more interesting. But they are harder to please and keep interested.
I personally avoid middle-school kids, especially boys.

[pkang0202]

I like Elementary. Middle school students are such a pain in the ass to motivate and participate.

Elementary kids (excluding 6th graders) are easy to keep amused. You just throw on a cartoon, or some song/dance on the TV and they are all paying attention. Oh no! I finished my lesson and I still have 15 minutes left. What should I do? Hangman, Simon Says, Sing B-I-N-G-O, etc....

Looking at my middle school counterparts, I have a far less owrkload in elementary. The CD does 50% of my job, 25% of the job is done by my coteachers, so I just do 25%.

[640x480]

I am going to work for a middle school. I heard that they can be the hardest to teach, but another person told me since I'm going to a more affluent private school, they might be better mannered and more serious about their studies.

I'm hoping I don't have to be a disciplinarian.

[Draz]

[Quack Addict]