Korean Job Discussion Forums

[joshuahirtle27]

I can't wait to be done my stint as a glorified babysitter of Korean kids.

Today in the staff meeting my boss decides it'd be gracious to tell everyone what he thinks of me and how I've done over the year. I don't much care since he's told me this before and although it hurts my ego if he's thought I was a crappy teacher for this long he should have gotten rid of me ages ago and not whined about it now.

He also said that the job the other teachers are doing isn't good enough either. He then went on to attribute the schools decline in revenue to the job that the teachers are doing, and the current global economic situation was footnoted as a practically spurious correlation.

Cause it makes sense that since the world has less money to work with for balancing their own budgets and putting food on the table... I'm sure PAYING FOR SOMEONE TO LEARN ANOTHER LANGUAGE which is a luxury item is right up there with "how much do I put on the power bill this month."

His advice, "make everything better". Yup, make it better. Now I've thought of some ways to make it better and I've come up with a few things.
1-Hire Qualified Teachers. The ability to speak a language does not denote the ability to TEACH a language. It also takes more than a personality to teach anything.
2-Have the necessary materials on hand and available to the teachers. There's not much that's more annoying than looking for materials you needed all year, asking for them all year, and being told they don't exist and you're not getting them.
3-Give actual advice on how to improve. You need to make it better is not valid advice. How.
4-Have training that involves more than "this is the school and here are your classes." If you're going to require something be done later in the year show people now so they can get acquainted with it.
5- Have a curriculum. We're going to teach English now isn't a curriculum.

Like I said, I'm glad I'm almost finished here. My plane leaves on the 6th... which means I'll have to stay here past my visa date. Wonjeonym refuses to pay the extra days I'll be here... I"m sure he couldn't have found a flight for the time I was originally supposed to go home.

[Ramen]

Yes, it's always waygook's fault.

[Chris_Dixon]

We've had about a 1/3 decrease in students, in our teachers meeting we were told that the main reasons that parents give is that we give too much homework and that we dont give enough homework (hahahhahahaha)

[ontheway]

[Tobias]

Yes, it is about money here. How we all wish we were teaching upper middle class white kids back in the states. If you don't fill the seats, it means you're doing your job. But that job is 'teacher', which is not really your job. Filling those seats is your true job.

If you want to keep your job, such as it is, if you want to be suddenly the world's number one 'teacher', at least in your boss's eyes, come to work tomorrow morning with a new get-up and a new attitude. Yeap. Dress up like Bozo the fucking clown and play their dancing-monkey pretend game. The students won't learn jack, but those seats will be full. And, as I just said, THAT is all that matters here. You do this and, once again, you'll be carried around in a Korean-style sedan chair. You'll get foot massages. You'll have skimpily-clad beauties fanning you during your off-hours. Education awards will soon follow. You'll be held up for all to see, and you may even find yourself in the news, you'll have so much esteem heaped on you.

Go get 'em, tiger!

[mrgisa]

[sarbonn]

I'm kind of confused (which is okay because it is a natural state for me sometimes), but if they're forcing you to stay beyond your end date, and they aren't going to pay you for it, are you planning to teach during that time? Are they not planning to hand you your ticket until you actually finish teaching for free?

[Tobias]

[Xuanzang]

Well the boss would never indite himself if he was a gambling, barberpole using, son of a gun. In addition to our "pay" going up, the blaming incidences will rise too.

[sojusucks]

[Draz]