Korean Job Discussion Forums

[FistFace]

I have always had very good student evaluations at my job. Then last semester, trying to follow what I was taught in one of my education classes, I decided to have my students do extra work to benefit their English learning. I added journal writing assignments, mainly. As a result, my evaluations were barely mediocre, and contained several complaints that I "gave too much homework."

Fast-Forward one semester. My classes are not filling-up like they once were. I have two of them that normally would be, but are less than half full. Rumors are that I am "too difficult" and "give a lot of work like writing stuff." This wouldn't be a problem if my school didn't rank us based on popularity and compare us on a scale (visible to all) within our department.

So much for trying to improve my classes. I now feel I need to be more concerned with my evaluations than educating.

[gaffe]

Seems like you've learned a lot this year, Fistface. Congratulations.

[Carla]

Steps to gaining back your popularity position

Step 1: Drop the extra work (even though from a learn perspective, I agree with you completely, but we're not talking about them learning, we're talking about you getting back on top!)

Step 2: Bring Candy.

Step 3: Repeat Step 2.

[iggyb]

Maybe adjust what you get them to write and what you do with it.

Think about things students have shown interest in. Handout index cards the last 5-10 minutes of class from time to time and ask students to write down a couple of words concerning what they have been talking about with friends or family or thinking about that week. Then, think of ways to turn those interests into the writing.

On doing with it - start a class blog.
http://esolers.org/blog/
That one is pretty bare right now since I stopped teaching at a high school in the US and dropped the domain I had started for that TESOL work. I opened a new one in preparation for going to Korea.

You can either have students upload their corrected writing onto the blog or upload it yourself if you don't want to give them access to the site admin.

Since class sizes in ESL in my state are small (max 11), I also used many of our writing projects to create a "newsletter" for each class. It worked great in the US because the mostly Hispanic students enjoyed writing about their native home and culture and sharing it with the rest of the student body.

http://www.esolers.org/finalproducts.html

You could sell the blog as doing the same thing - selling Korean culture abroad via the Internet.

The idea of wide distribution tends to result in them putting more pride into their effort.

Another writing project we'd do periodically involved pen-pal letters with a "sister class" in Korea I set up with someone after making contact with them here at Dave's.

http://www.esolers.org/lessons/WritingCentered/penpals.html

You could locate TESOL teachers in public schools in your home country and send out emails asking if one of them would like to set up an exchange. If you're teaching college aged kids, they might still go for pen-palling with high school students in your home country.

Class size might be a factor in using a blog. You might not want to upload 35 different entries at a time. Maybe you could divide the class into sections and only upload one section each writing process and rotate randomly which group will be uploaded. Or, assign a number to each student in the class and then have a lottery drawing to see which finished products are going to be uploaded.

[PRagic]

University position? Still getting paid on time? Roll with it and keep your pride.

If it's a university position, do they employ term limits? If they do, then your feedback isn't worth squat anyway. For instructor positions, they usually don't ask for your evaluation results from prior jobs.

[Hanson]