Korean Job Discussion Forums

[sojourner1]

Would you believe if you had a co-teacher lead you on to believe that she didn't speak any English and then 3 weeks before the end of the school year, she speaks quite well to tell you you're not doing good enough? Yes, I had a pretty young female co-teacher just sit in back, and often absent, since August that led me on to believe she knew no English and then out of the blue, she spoke really well to tell me I wasn't doing a very good job today. I told her it would help if I had some support and some structure in this badly disorganized unstructured school and I'm angry that she'd not speak and then speak to tell me this. And then told her, you can't fool me, you're trying to get over on me and start a conflict, because you obviously didn't like me from the get go since you wouldn't talk and deceived me to believe you didn't speak English. She dodged this by saying we scored the lowest on the national exam and were in trouble which I do believe. I told her it's because this little country school offers little opportunity for students to achieve anything. I try to teach and talk to them, but they just act slow, retarded, and depressed, but their morale is simply low. They are very sad kids due to being at the disadvantage of being poor in a poor quality of school that won't even clean or serve lunch nor run structured activities and curriculum. They refuse to even learn introductions such as, "How are you? Fine, thank you. My name is Hwang Yuna." "OK, I'll keep trying, but they sure are far behind my students in my main school," and she agreed there's many bad problems going on and she'd help out.

I said they also need discipline as they don't know how to act in school due to no structure and she asked if I wanted a stick. I said, "No! That's your job as foreigners don't come to Korea to get hostile nor hit your kids, but you should do that when they need it." She agreed to start helping out.

Were is the logic in doing such a poor job of a school that fails students and then telling me I'm not doing well enough for them? I didn't want to say anything and was just going with the flow, but since one offended me, I'm laying out the obvious dysfunctional truths and showing I'm looking down on them for it. It's not that the kids are bad in this small school, they're just super low performing due to poverty and a lack of interest in them to learn and perform as a result of no adults making any efforts to run a school.

I show English shows half the time and teach the other half since they don't get to see or do anything and are very weak at doing the school thing. These students don't know how to act during a lesson nor know what a real school is like as they've never had that structure in their lives out in this rural tiny town and each grade is less than 10 students. They love seeing a 12 minute English show like Spongebob as a reward and it actually gets them to talk to me more and learn during lessons since it builds relationship with them, but this one young teacher don't want them to do that as she thinks they'll just sit there and learn more English if I'm talking and teaching 100% of the time. Not true. They're noisy and often refuse to do anything and are nothing like my main school students who do perform normally in school. I feel really bad for them and disappointed to be placed in a poor school. If this was my main school, I wouldn't had stayed as it's screwed up.

What would you do? Ignore them and write the school off as a loss? Fight them and look down on their failures since they say you are failing? Keep teaching English and just go on? Get surely and look down on them some more for their hideously dirty stinky disorganized school when they give you some more flak?

[Join Me]

Did you ask her if the fact that she refused to speak English for months could have contributed to the school's failure?

God...what a twwat.

[jadarite]

It's not your job to make them pass tests. Ask her if these tests are written or spoken. I have been trying to teach role-play lessons for 2.5 months now, and my co-teacher finally told me this week, "Maybe I should teach them the difficult words in Korean before they talk to you" YEAH!!! GREAT IDEA!!!

Your main focus should be on pronunciation and usage. Grammar and vocabulary should be second with more emphasis when you want to demonstrate how these words are used.

If anyone at the school wants you to work with test preparation, then they should first write up practice tests that they want students to do. Then, you should look over these tests to correct any mistakes, suggest additional parts, and help students to understand why the other answers are wrong for each question.

[Countrygirl]

Good for you for sticking up for yourself and for the students. I'd say it's sounds like you are doing the best you can with what you have. If the students are interested in a lesson, even if it's spongebob, they are learning something. I like to add short videos to class so that the students can adjust their ears to the different sounds in English. I think it's an important part of language learning.

I say keep fighting the good fight. Even getting one student interesting in continuing to learn English is a great accomplishment. The only that I would change, is that now that you know she can speak English, I would make your co-teacher become much more involved in class. It's too hard to keep the students attention if they are a low level, from a poorer background, and only have a Foreign teacher disciplining them. You need her to keep them in line.

[Fishead soup]

Contact an English speaking superviser in your Provintual Office of Education( Known in Korean as Kyoyukcheong) Superviser is known as Chanhaksa.

What this person did was clearly out of line. She has intentionally deceived you and is now clearly trying to lay the blame on you. If she is junior than you can clearly get her into a lot of trouble. What she does runs contrary to what makes a good co-teaching team and there's plenty of information in both English and Korean to prove that.

If you don't act now this person will just do the same to the next person.
Let them know this behavour is completely unexceptable. I would also seriously consider a transfer to another school

[gangpae]

Is she hot?

[bundangbabo]

You are dealing with the children and the children who are teaching the children - what a bunch of wankers I have been saddled with here - they have finally shown their true colours hidden under a (very thin) mask of civility.

Sorry mate - if it is any consolation we are all in the same boat trying to deal with these wankers on a daily basis.

[nomad-ish]

i've recently had something similar to this happen too. my most useless co-teacher proved to me she's not quite so useless in english afterall. i've been getting SENTENCES out of her lately, with pretty good pronunciation. i think the reason she pretended not to speak english for the last few months is to avoid doing any work in my class. she hasn't blamed me for anything though, so OP, that really sucks

[sojusucks]

[DC in Suwon]

[jdog2050]

[WK2008]

Watching videos in the second language is better done on their own, at home, as one of many activities they can do to improve in that language.

However, watching videos pales in comparison to conversation/dialogue with a native speaker, or using what little English they have with one another.

In short, you could be doing a better job. Learn whatever you can about linguistics, language acquisition, TEFL, etc. Your approach is far from ideal or an efficient approach.

None of this is meant to suggest that she was supportive of you, as she should have been, nor do I intend to discourage or "slam" you. I'm trying to encourage you to excel. (I hope you accept it in the spirit in which it's given; it's my sincere goal to encourage us all to excel as language teachers, and to constantly improve myself.)

As for your relationship with her, do what you can to improve things, but you can't win everyone over. If you did what you could, then be happy about that.

[Mr. Pink]

[martinpil]

I was thinking exactly the same as the last two posters. This guy has been told by a Korean assistant teacher that his classes are not achieving and he admits showing English videos half the time. LOL, maybe he just wants an easy time to sit down and twiddle his thumbs.

You need to start teaching properly mate or if you are not cut out for teaching, quit and do something else instead. You need to reinforce lessons, dialogues, written consolidation exercises, tests and make sure theycan do it before moving on. It is, afterall, what you are paid for.

[martinpil]

you need to use this assistant to reinforce key aspects of each lesson. She shouldnt just be sitting at the back twiddling her thumbs as well. It's up to you to direct her what to do. Maybe a bit late now since she has got used to just sitting about, but next time, use the assistants to help teach the lesson content.