Korean Job Discussion Forums

[cayce23]

I teach an advanced class of seven 12-13 year olds. They are the highest level at my school and are quite fluent. That being said, one of the 7 is a new student who came in with high expectations and excitement for learning even more about English. He is, by far, the most enthusiastic student of English I have met.

Today, he came to class without two small writing assignments I had given a week previous. Because our school emphasizes punishment for the students that don't do homework (because their mothers will become furious and blame the teachers for not doing their jobs properly), I gave him an extra 150 words to write about on top of the existing homework of 200 words.

He had known about the homework since I wrote it on the board 40 minutes ago, but when I mentioned it to him, he broke down and started bawling and trying to rip his hair out. I had to pull him out of the room and talk to him for 10 minutes to calm him down. He was asking me to reduce the amount to 125 words for the extra writing, and I told him I really didn't care how much he wrote, as long as he put thought into it.

Do you think this was an unreasonable assignment or just a unique case with a stressed-out student?

[tanklor1]

[lifeinkorea]

Talking to the co-teacher is probably the best way to secure your job. Another way to assign it is instead of making it 150 more on the next assignment assign 50 more on the next 3 assignments. You'll get your 150, and he won't have to "cram" to get 150 more than everyone else.