Korean Job Discussion Forums

[vermouth]

I normally don't make posts like this but my first year is almost over and I'm being a bit reflective today.

How does this industry make any sense for anyone?

Stop me if you've heard this before but almost every Hagwon instructor I've ever talked to says the only ones who are really, really strong speakers are the kids who've lived in English speaking countries.

They aren't teaching anyone English. And it doesn't even seem like it's set up to make people into conversational English speakers. Their written English, is even more frightening at times.

And yet people keep dumping absurd amounts of money into this system.


Maybe I'm just at a bad one but it seems to me the universal features of hagwons include disposable teachers who have almost no time to go through a learning curve, curriculum with terrible subjects that aren't going to interest the students to speak English and instead will make English and obligation rather than an avocation that they'll pursue because they enjoy it.

Forgive me for ranting but I just wonder what the hell people think they're getting out of this aside from very expensive baby-sitting services.

[Louis VI]

[DorkothyParker]

I saw improvement in many of my students last year.

I've only been at my current school a month, but I can see my students have a better understanding of the material presented than they did in the beginning. For example, they went from recognizing nouns to recognizing nouns and converting them to pronouns. It's not a huge leap but you didn't exactly understand grammar and writing instinctively even as a native speaker. It's a gradual learning process.
Not everyone is going to be totally awesome, but try your best.



I do agree that there are many hagwons where the materials are not right for ESL or the level of the students. That can make it very difficult and sometimes near impossible for both students and teachers. That's a whole other can of worms, though.

[Globutron]

The evidence I see it as being purely for the money is when I see students who can barely read sentences shoved into the 'Talking Master' classes which discusses the depth and composition of sedimentation in the stones of the Egyptian pyramids (or whatever) and then I have to get through the book by the end of the month, because their parents will not sign the contract if their kid has to go through the 'shame' of being at a lower level.

This happens allll too much at my place, but usually these ones are the most fun students because we both know they're a lost cause and I just spoon feed them quickly and then teach them what I think they need to know.

However I came to Korea knowing this stuff so I'm not particularly bothered.

Saying that, I had 8 new students who didn't know the letter A from the letter B, as my first class ever, and now they're reading unfamiliar sentences and answering simple questions about a story book, and speaking things such as 'how do you spell ____' and 'I've finished, check this please'.

This is my golden class of pride because It has only been me and my korean partner who have been teaching them from scratch. I'm working on giving them British accents.

[SinclairLondon]

[sulperman]

I think one thing that every new teacher has to be reminded of is that learning is a slow-ass process. Think back to what you learned in 3rd grade. You read maybe two little books, learned the multiplication tables, learned a bit about Martin Luther King, and went on a few field trips. And that is all you did the whole year!

Learning is sloooooooow. It is shoving information into unwilling minds. You do the same stuff over and over and over again until you finally get it stuck in your head. So to expect to see any major change in kids over a year at hagwon may not be reasonable. (except of course with kindy kids, with whom the progress can be very obvious. Plus, a lot of teachers, both Korean and foreign are pretty crap, so that doesn't help.

I agree with Louis VI. As the years go on, Korean will be speaking better and better, and hagwons are a big part of that. They have their problems, but they do get the job done, at least to some degree.

[meangradin]

OP, I know how you feel, and I think that some "schools" are more of a business than a place of education, but I can attest, as an owner, that some schools achieve tremendous results. However, saying that, I by no means kick back with my 10 years olds and talk about metaphors in Hamlet. I think what is important is to have achievable goals and try and meet them. Let's face it, no one is going to achieve fluency at a hagwan, but students can develop the basics and build a foundation from which they can improve as they get older.

[lichtarbeiter]

I wouldn't exactly call hagwons "a giant con-game" any more than I would call any other private business "a giant con-game." Like any private business, the primary goal of any hagwon is profit, not the education the children. Now obviously a hagwon needs to provide reasonably adequate education or parents will pull their children out and the hagwon will not succeed in its primary goal. However, it's obviously not the case that the hagwon will maximize its profits by providing the best possible education for the children because that would require the hagwon to only hire certified teachers with several years of experience for a much higher salary. They would also have to invest much more in learning materials. While parents might be pleased with the better results, the hagwons would not be maximizing their profits because they would be investing too much.

That's the main flaw with privatized education. Money comes first, the children come second. Convincing parents that their children are learning is more important than the children actually learning. It just works like any other business. Investment is made only to the extent that it's profitable for your business. The same goes for every business. McDonald's doesn't invest in healthier ingredients because while it would be better for the customers, it wouldn't be as profitable for McDonald's.

So as long as a hagwon is running at full capacity, it has no incentive to make any changes that would improve the education of its students.

[vermouth]

[vermouth]

You know I get the it's slow thing. I'm bilingual myself and working very hard on my Korean for language #3.

The frustration for me is I feel like the school picks topics for their texts with the aim of impressing parents how hard and advanced the curriculum rather than building solid fundamentals.

That and they delay advancing the smart ones as long as they can to get the maximum number of terms out of them before they go to a middle school level Hagwon to get the most money out and they forcibly advance the dumb ones to keep getting money with everyone including parents knowing this isn't a good idea.

The whole thing just feels like they're trying to bilk parents of their money and it's one of the most successful chains in Korea.

[tua111111]

[jammo]

In my experience it isn't just the students that have lived abroad that are doing well. I have a few students that haven't left the country and are pretty amazing for their level

Globutron are you teaching at Ee bo young?

[Wishmaster]

Be thankful that Koreans are drones and accept anything that a lying, corrupt hagwon owner says. That and the "have to be number 1" mentality assures that the sheeple will keep fueling the esl industry here.

[bobbybigfoot]

"A giant con game" might be extreme, but Op, you aren't far from the truth. English education is a sorry state in Korea.

I've worked for two major chains in Korea for more than 3 years and I've yet to experience any real concern for the children's wellbeing. Not once have I had a moment where I said to myself, "Ah, they've really thought about this and I can see the vision behind this work."

Of the near 100 teachers I've worked with over the years, and 30 or 40 staff members (supervisors, directors), I've encountered a handful of people who had some "expertise" in language education.

I've never used proper books.

I've never taught in a proper classroom.

I've never taught for a school with proper disciplinary procedures.

I've never taught proper curricula.

-----

The kids do learn but for the amount of money and time invested, the kids should be fluent after a few years.

If parents were wise, they would team up, hire a teacher themselves and have the kids spent four hours a day with this teacher, playing soccer, doing math problems, watching movies, cooking, all in English. The kids would be fluent in no time.

10 kids @ 400,000 a month = 4 million. Enough to attract a qualified candidate. Three years. True fluency.

[Fox]