Korean Job Discussion Forums

[winterfall]

I'm looking for advice. I thought my school finalized the summer camp plans months ago but, apparently they didn't and its only 2 weeks a way. Either way I'm going to teach it. This is Korea, in the worst case scenario they're wing it and I've got to clean up the mess. So I want to iron out as many of the details as soon as possible. And this is a tech school so the levels are REALLY LOW.

So here was the set up for the last winter camp.

Supposedly they selected the best students based on their test scores. In reality I had:

1 class of 25 for 3 hours everyday. But only 12 showed up daily. Very, very mixed levels (4 students needed me to teach the alphabet, 2 students were learning pictionaries with verbs like sleeping and eating, 2 were learning phonics, and 2 were writing semi-coherent sentences "I was jumped")

On top of that, I taught without a co-teacher and this school doesn't have any multimedia.

Winter Camp was HELL. I've never been that close to a nervous breakdown.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

I don't want a repeat. For the Summer camp. I'm trying to get:

3 classes for 1 hr each or 2 classes for an hr and a half each. There's no way I can avoid the mixed levels. But, I'm hoping if the students are chosen by who wants to come instead of test scores. I might have a much easier time.

Anything else I should try to get? Multimedia isn't an option and no chance of a co-teacher

[oldfatfarang]

I had a similar, but not as bad situation, once. Basically, your school is setting you up to be a baby sitter. Korean parents love this: "Look, Minsuk is learning Englishee by studying hard in vacation." Yeah, right.

I turned my 'everyone is coming' nightmare into a really good winter camp. Only 5 girls who really wanted to come attended.

My trick: I made a very strongly worded Behavior Contract. I told the school that every student attending camp had to sign it, and that any kid who violated any of the rules would be immediately kicked out of the camp.

The school wasn't happy, but none of the ratbags signed, and I had a great time with 5 lovely kids.

Good luck.

[jonpurdy]

[TheUrbanMyth]

Be aware that not all schools are going to be as accommodating as Mr. oldfatfarang's was.