Korean Job Discussion Forums

maddog · Joined: 08 Dec 2005 Location: Daegu

We started a new semester today and I think I'll be hitting the job market before it's over. Much of the material has been produced by the school (it's a fairly large chain) and it stinks.

We were given the material late on Friday, so today has been my first chance to go over it. In one book, I've found mistakes in EVERY chapter. These aren't little mistakes either. They're great big obvious ones. There are run-on sentences and fragments all over the place. There are commas where the shouldn't be commas, and vice versa. There's a bunch of spelling mistakes and a load of caplitalization errors.

What's really annoying is that this has happened before. I (and the students) found a bunch of errors in an iBT speaking book. I emailed the head office twice and never got a relpy. That wasn't so bad because it was a once-a-week class with three students. This time, it's affecting about half of my classes.

Additionally, I have to teach a ridiculously easy book to my fairly-high-level students. They account for 1/4 of my students. So, 75% of my students will be complaining about shite material by the end of the week.

MD

Ya-ta Boy · Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Location: Established in 1994

Use it to your advantage. Tell a class which sentence to look at and have them race to the board to write the correction.

matthews_world · Joined: 15 Feb 2003

Complaining only causes stress, in all parties involved. A good teacher improvises with what's given to them.

maddog · Joined: 08 Dec 2005 Location: Daegu

Temporary · Joined: 13 Jan 2008

squexx · Joined: 24 Mar 2008 Location: Korea

Get used to it! The way the economy is going, lots of hakwans are going to close in the near future.

Cornfed · Joined: 14 Mar 2008

Thanks for the sentence quotes. I just spent 15 minutes of otherwise dead time explaining the mistakes to a class.

Tarkaan · Joined: 09 Mar 2008

Try explaining who Bob Marley is due to a misprint in your copy of A Christmas Carol XD.

spliff · Joined: 19 Jan 2004 Location: Khon Kaen, Thailand

MD, did you write the books?

skeeterses · Joined: 25 Oct 2007

One thing about the ESL Industry in Korea that is quite pervasive is the tendency for schools to write their own English books to save a few bucks. And all too often, its Koreans with little English proficiency writing these things. And so the results are books with a few repetitive phrases and no story line whatsoever.

It is books that have virtually no material in them. And to teach from them is an intellectual insult for both the students and the teachers.

maddog · Joined: 08 Dec 2005 Location: Daegu

spliff · Joined: 19 Jan 2004 Location: Khon Kaen, Thailand

That dog doesn't hunt, I'm afraid. Rolling Eyes

maddog · Joined: 08 Dec 2005 Location: Daegu

RyanInKorea · Joined: 17 Jan 2008

Spliff is a d-bag and a horrible troll. Don't acknowledge his existence and he should go away.

Sucks about the sheite material. Maybe you could just teach the minimum and then go into something that interests you. How old are they? My older students enjoy music, history, philosophy, the world, etc. Whatever interests the class and you share.

Ryan

stevieg4ever · Joined: 11 Feb 2006 Location: London, England

You read posts like this and then you understand fully why these people can't speak a word of English between them. They have blatantly used bablefish.

Apologists let me save some of your precious time which could thus be spent on cross-cultural exchanges:

"Oh really, you have met all 48 million people in this country to deduce this? These people were involved in a civil war not long ago which caused mass poverty and starvation. Why should they fork out cash to pay for books retaining to your culture? Haven't they got enough to care about without Joe Canada moaning in their face about a book. The problem isn't Korea / your hagwon / your boss [select as appropriate] its you"