Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Juggertha]

Well I looked in the FAQ and didn't see anything on this so I htought i'd see what everyones thoughts on it are.

I have just ben offered 150k per month for 15 mins a day "teaching" on the telephone. I've looked into it before and it never apealed to me. Either the hours or the pay always seemed "off". This offer however fits nicely into my schedule and i'm considering doing it. Heres what I was thinking though...

To actually "teach" on the telephone would be the absolute bugger of a job. Personally i'm not a fan of talking to my Korean friends on the phone for any great length of time. The conversation is choppy and often uncomfortable. I beleive it would be FAR more productive to have a face to face class. That not being possible I was htinking of organizing the "class" like this;

Two day topics. ie: day one is an initial topic on say "traveling". We have a breif discussion on it and I give a list (short but practical) of vocab for day two. Day two we use the vocab to have an "improved discussion" about the topic. I would like to make out a list of topics a month in advance so that the student (and I) could have some time to prepare and plan for each day.

The "classes" are only 15 minutes long so there won't be ALOT of time there. The truth is I am just hoping to improve the students ability to converse casually on the phone.

So, is anyone out there doing this ATM? or any advice for actually doing it effectively?

[Ya-ta Boy]

I did it for a short time with a relative beginner. We used a text called "English Firsthand" because it has a LOT of communicative activities that worked pretty well on the phone. After we did the activities we would do free-talking on that topic.

It seemed to go over pretty well.

[Eazy_E]

Juggertha, I'm forced to do telephone interviews with our hagwon kids every day after class. It takes about 15-20 minutes, usually 6 kids at 2 minutes per kid. It's much harder for them speaking over the telephone.

Teaching over the telephone tends to encourage the mechanical Question - Answer, Question - Answer format whereas real conversations are usually much more natural and you also have body language as an aid. The kids get very nervous over the phone and I'm sure they dislike it more than I do.

Personally, I feel that our telephone interviews are a waste of everyone's time. The conversations in class are much more meaningful. But like so much else that we do, it's all about the parents. They think it's important that the kids can talk to a waygook one on one, even though the questions are carefully rehearsed beforehand.

Maybe this will help you make your decision.

[Alex Buffa]

Sounds interesting. About as interesting as a job that makes you call people to ask if they want their carpets cleaned.

Every consider that telephone soliciting is NOT the way to go in teaching??

btw...that'll be 3000won the first min, 500won each additional minute

[Son Deureo!]

This probably won't have all the answers you're looking for, since you want advice on materials to use, but phone teaching was discussed once before here: http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/korea/viewtopic.php?t=7691&highlight=phone+teaching.

I keep seeing ads for phone teaching in the Herald. There seems to be quite a bit of demand for it.

[Juggertha]

Thanks guys. I think some of you may have "skimmed" over the initial post though. I'm not really a fan of teaching on the telephone. As a matter of fact I pretty mch refuse to do it (don't beleive it works).

But i've been offered by more than a few adults to hold "paid" conversations over the phone. All of them i've recomended to get personal clases, but it seems more and more of them are just claiming they don't have the time in their schedules.

I think kids would be horrible on the phone, adults maybe less so. As always, I supose it depends on the money.

[bithy75]

DON'T do phone teaching unless you are looking for a long, slow and painful way to kill yourself and dull your brain cells. I hate to sound so extreme, but I've been stuck doing it with adults and kids for the last eight months, and I'm on the brink of insanity! Most of the people I talk to work for large corporations and are being forced to do it by their employers. The kids are the worst form of torture, that is, when they decide to say anything more than "yes," "no" or "I don't know." I tried for so long to be positive about it...to make the best of it...but enough is enough. What's even worse - I got tricked into this ridiculous job (it's a long story) after having taught in an American university for 2 years and getting my MATESOL! (Obviously, I didn't know that phone teaching would be part of my responsibilities here.) I'm counting the days on the calendar...only 16.5 weeks left on my contract. It's still too long.

[goodfella]

just play a recording of youre voice every day for 15 min. hahah