Korean Job Discussion Forums

[julian_w]

I confess...

i was following that thread on the hagwon called TOSS.

Now, stranger things have happened at sea i'm sure, but...

the other day i was at the gym and this Korean guy walking down the stairs stops me and says hello.
I recognise him from my place of work as we're chatting.
He'd said Hello near the start of last year and again now he'd seemed really genuine and open.
His English isn't perfect, but he's clearly not just saying hello for the sake of practising or showing off.

Then he tells me his wife has a hagwon, and asks me if i could go for a visit sometime.
That's just how he put it. Not asking me to do anything except drop in for a look-see.
So, well, my schedule's pretty light right now, and it's good to get out and meet more peoples, right?
So, i say Sure! How's Monday?
And he says Okay! By the way, it's called TOSS, have you heard of it? And i manage to stop myself from falling down the stairs laughing.

So today between classes i give him a call he picks me up drives me over takes me in knocks on a door introduces me to a beautiful young Korean woman and she introduces me to her group of about ten or so students aged about 8 years-old-or-so then tells me to sit down and shut up in the corner over there so i do.

You may have heard or read that TOSS is about using videos in the classroom.
That's about all i knew of it.
I really didn't have any time to develop any ideas or expectations before i got there.
I was impressed.

She'd clearly been well trained.
He introduced me to his wife as we were leaving, though we only had time for a brief chat.
She said that all teachers there get a month's worth of training.
Yeah yeah, granted, i was only sitting in on about 15 minutes worth of lesson,
but it was a really snappy, high-quality 15 minutes of high-energy, fast-paced, active participation reading, listening, viewing, speaking, interpreting, interacting at turns with the video, the teacher, the board, the other students, and well presented useful looking activity books.
... And she wasn't even thrown off when two kids were doing a quick charades game at the front, trying to mime being chickens, and no-one else could get it either,
so i put up my hand and said: 'Monsters'?!

Then it was break time and he dragged the senior teacher yes yes another beautiful young Korean woman in to meet me
so i took that as a sign to give the first teacher her space back
and went for a quick natter with her in the teacher's room.
It was fairly open there, with kids wandering in and out,
but they all looked pretty happy,
other teachers included.

Now i know what you're thinking because yes i'm thinking it too
but no i don't think it was just the abundance of beautiful young Korean woman that impressed me
'cos for a start i'm more attracted to older women,
and less so to Korean women, recently,
and yes it's easy to deal with small class sizes like that,
and yes it's easy to deal with that age group of kids as students,
and given a month's training and good resources like that
i guess pretty much anyone with good high-level English should be able to keep a class like that ticking over at a good pace,

but, it just seems so rare to see a hagwon that does actually have so many of the ingredients right,
whether it's their hiring policy of a certain standard of English,
or the quality of the texts and material,
or a unique and special 'point of difference' in their approach to teaching English that IS actually also valid and useful.

Something else that i noticed about the place, as soon as we walked in,
was the noise.
I've been in some noisy hagwons,
some with similarly small, full-of-overexcitedkids, square-boxy acoustic-nightmare rooms,
and i hate shouting,
and this place was clearly encouraging shouting,
but if you've been around kids long enough you know there are different tones, pitches, styles and types of shouts, screams, and every other noise they make.
The teachers clearly encourage them to make noise,
virtually shouting in response to the questions she throws at them continuously,
but it's controlled noise,
and that's part of the excitement of it all.
It's contolled noise that communicates excitement and involvement.
(I'd still rather it was her than me.)

Perhaps i was just lucky to be at the back of the room,
not at the front and in the path of their combined volume,
but she was certainly getting an enthusiastic response;
and the thing is that pretty much all of those responses were requiring instant processing of nuanced information by the kids.

So anyway, that was my experience today,
and those are my impressions.

(...OMG... i think i just became a boner fide TOSSer. ...)

[bogey666]

this just means you became a Korean model.

You're now a "tosser" for Design United.

(my E-mart finally caught on because they changed the old poster with a new one, that just has Design United on it )

[caniff]

[GreenlightmeansGO]

Why don't I believe this? It seems too much like a viral ad-campaign.

[Xuanzang]

Clearly someone gives a TOSS now So you have a job but they tried to recruit or steal you for a new job?

[pkang0202]

Its spelled "Toss" but its pronounced more like "TOH-SU". Long 'O' sound. like "TOE-IC" or "TOE-FL"

So, I guess someone working there would be a "TOH-SUer" not a "TOSSER".

Just thought I'd clarify.

[Zenpickle]

TOSS is a freakin' cult. My fiancee and a good handful of her fellow trainees quit TOSS because they tasted the BS in the Kool-Aid they were constantly serving them.

It was hilarious the crap they were making the kids learn. There's actually a set routine that you have to follow to the syllable using a highly non-intuitive DVD remote, teaching kids random phrases from unlicensed movies, like, "Get off my lawn."

If you didn't do this exactly (and they observed you regularly), or if you questioned anything that was obviously ridiculous, you were told that it was not the TOSS way.

Very cult-like.

[ChinaBoy]

Everything about this seems obviously ridiculous

[justaguy]

I had an interview with them a while back. They wanted me to do an "active" demonstration of my teaching and tape it. Later they told me that they were looking for "active teachers" and that I wasn't active enough. They were going to hire another more active canidate. I was glad because I wasn't interested in a job that wanted me to act like a fool in front of a camera.

A week later they call me up telling me the other canidate quit after two days and they offered me the job. I told them I didn't think I was active enough for the job. Then I suggested they hire an actor, who can act like what they think an "active teacher" should be.

Lots of canidates being tossed around.

It was the best job I never got.

[mindmetoo]

Geez. If I recall, Joe from Zenkimchi, his finance worked for TOSS. They used DVDs in the class. His finance quit in very short order.

Run like hell, I say.

[GreenlightmeansGO]

MM2: fiance or finance?

[julian_w]

[mindmetoo]

[bakagai4649]

Was it just me or did any one else think of salad when they read the title?

[pidgin]

Their new ad campaign is something like this:

Need high energy teaching applicants!!!

Must look good on camera.

Coffeeaholics, pep pill poppers and extreme sporters encouraged to apply.

Foreigners must wear a clown suit for the demo lesson.