Korean Job Discussion Forums

[moosehead]

anyone else have to deal with these?

they have to memorize their speeches

doesn't matter if they speak a lick of E on their own or not - a kid totally E iliterate can still win or place as long as they perform like little parrots

we were told the highest score is 70 but can't give below a 60!!

and apparently the "official" SMOE contests won't allow any kid who has lived abroad in an E-speaking country for more than 6 months!

those students can compete in their own schools but not in the Seoul-wide public school contests

[yingwenlaoshi]

Just another typical "importance in learning English" brought to you by the Korean population.

[venus envy]

yeah they are a joke. according to my co-teacher, this yr the judges decided that at least one student from each school must take home an award. so it's "oh well" if two students from one school do exceptionally well because only one can take home the ribbon. these poor kids don't even know it's rigged.

and they do sound like parrots. in their defense, the available scripts are horrid. my students are low level elementary and were memorizing two pages of advanced info on museums and architecture in france.

[Monkey82]

It's ridiculous. When my hagwon was sending kids to contests they were more concerned about the way the kids dressed in costumes and flailed their arms around than their actual speech. I kept trying to help with pronunciation and just general flow of the speech, but no one cared. So the kids looked cute in their costumes, stupid with their hand motions, and could barely do their speech.

[ernie]

why do these speeches have to be memorized? NO ONE gives a speech without cue cards or a teleprompter these days. sounding like a robot is an easy way to LOSE any speech contest that i'm judging.

[TeeBee]

Another example of the bizarre judging system at Korean schools: We had a pop song contest at my school, and about 6 groups didn't pitch. I gave them zeros, and handed in my score sheet to my co-teacher. Later I saw the score sheet again, and my zeros had been changed to decent scores, even though the kids had never performed!

I confronted my co-teacher about this (especially as my name was on the score sheet). She said it "looked better" if all the groups got scores.

What a waste of time for everyone involved, especially the kids who actually put effort in.

[some waygug-in]

I don't know what your kids are doing, but here in this school, my kids were not memorizing any set speech. They had to describe pictures from any one of the gr 3, 4, 5 or 6 textbooks. So in preparation, I had to help them describe different pictures, work on their vocabulary and grammar.

During the contest, they were shown 1 or 2 pictures from somewhere in one of those 4 books and asked to describe what they saw. Hardly memorization. After that, they were asked 2 personal questions which they had to respond in as much detail as possible.


The prizes are a bit of a joke (there were several 1st prizes, seconds etc.)
but as far as I'm concerned, all of the kids who were willing to put in the effort for this contest deserved a prize.

There was also a singing competition, and the kids had to learn the songs plus all the moves. I kind of wish I had been involved in that part too, but I was only coaching the speaking contest students.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

I've been to my share of various speech contests. They range from hugely impressive ones like IYF that are great but obviously rigged so that Lincoln House Schools win. Then there are totally pathetic local ones judged by clueless KTs with far worse speaking skills than the students they're judging. The only ones I have much confidence in are the ones at my own school that I've organised myself.

[HBCCanuck]

does it really matters who wins and loses to you?

as teachers it's important that we give support and encouragement to young learners no matter what their ability is.

they're children.

[Ramen]

Student's parent who pays the most usually end up winning.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

[patongpanda]

An insane mother came storming in to the office demanding to know why her daughter didn't win.

I had given her a lower score because she was parroting her speech in the most unnatural robotic voice - like a Dalek.

DON'T PUT YOUR DAUGHTER ON THE STAGE, MRS. KIM!

[Yu_Bum_suk]

On one other note, there is one thing I love about certain speech contests: being the only white person in the hall apart from the chief judge, completely surrounded by Korean parents and teachers, and then watching your students kick ass while looking smugly around at the Koreans.

In fact at the one I'm thinking of there were some girls from a school in Changwon who were making fun of my students, basically calling them country hicks - I think 농촌. No students from their school won anything while we one first and two other prizes.

[tigercat]

[ernie]

even if those causes are completely misguided, pointless, and blindly nationalistic?