Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Emark]

I can't believe what the GEPIK teachers are teaching in the P.S. I'm working at. This is for the Grade 6 kids, but still, their in grade 6!

Ke$ha video: Tik Tok!

I can't help but over-hear because it's in the next room. I came out and observed the class from the hall. The teachers are using it as a listening comprehension exercise, but the kids are watching the video and enamored with the blond Ke$sha zipping around the screen doing her "crazy" thing. When it came to answering the questions, hardly any kids could give correct responses to the fill in the blank questions.

In another class, the Korean teacher (minus the NET) is showing the video with the lyrics in hopes that it the students can at least write the answers.

I'm sure some of the students are wondering about what the song really means after they see and hear the word "BEER".

Showing these videos is part of the GEPIK program? Wow! I wonder if someone can animate Jinho and Mina to dance and sing this song as a parody! ㅋㅋㅋ!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iP6XpLQM2Cs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQ3f9UfTcVQ

FAIL! (I M H O)

[viciousdinosaur]

Seriously, dude. I can just see some principal or board director rubbing their hands over this. They love this stuff. They can't wait until public schools throw in the towel with regards to ESL and everything goes back to the way it was. Let's face it. The government is pandering to the public with white faces whilst actively sabotaging English language education. Why do they hire only inexperienced newbies to teach at their schools? Why do they make no attempt at all to develop a proper curriculum? Why do they let moron teachers embarrass the school while quashing any real attempt to educate the children?

[Emark]

[tideout]

It's all part of a very sad legacy really. I've taken some stuff off of the net (the usual sites) only to ditch it after looking at it. I'm stunned at what's being used for lesson making sometimes.

Let's not even get started on a lot of (not all) of the textbook material.

What's just as bad is the "approach" used by some of the KTs. Lessons built from phrases that are awkward sounding at best to truckloads of vocabulary w/o the slightest idea of how to use the words. An educational "system" that is at least as interested in creating a social pecking order as teaching anything.

The really sad part of this is the number of kids who are genuinely trying, even excited about something outside of their culture whose main take away from the English classroom may very well be that they just can't get their heads around English or that they can't possibly understand something so "foreign". I've sometimes wondered if the best approach would be to ban English for a decade and start all over. I really think there are too many layers of problems to sort out for the majority of the kids I see in school.

[tideout]

[bojangles]

[some waygug-in]

[tardisrider]

[tideout]

[Weigookin74]

Well, you don't need rocket scientists unless you're willing to pay them rocket science salaries. But for 2 point whatever million won, you're not going to get mini Einsteins. That said, the few of us who have stayed for a few years and have learned through trial and error can do something better than that.

But what would be ideal would be to have some special curriculum in place with pre made power points, activities, and games based on the textbook with full english instructions. That said, each school uses different text books but would have to teach the same phrases but in different order. So, each phrase or grammar piece ought to have one of these "special lessons" attached to it. The order they would be taught would be based on which text is being used.

In my opinion, the textbooks are kind of boring and difficult for the native teacher to teach by themselves because we only get partial grasp as things in the teachers book is written in Korean. Having something pre planned to accompany what the KT's teach in the book in their own classes would be the way to go. It would be wise for the MOE to take some experienced and popular teachers along with some Koreans "off the floor" for a year to write curriculum to be used.

Is it the fault of the employee or the boss for not providing instruction or giving any preparation? Experienced people seem to complain on this board of being shunned by EPIK nowadays. Pay rates are not enough for trained teachers. What do you expect?

When I first got here, I had a couple of hostile teachers that didn't want a foriegner and looked for every obstructionist excuse to block me. I was inexperienced, to be sure. But I got no guidance, no help, no advice, and wasn't told what to teach. But had this one nazi biatch keep telling me to improve my teaching and to make it interesting for the students. But when I asked what to teach, all that followed was utter silence. Thankfully, the local ed office was desperate for teachers or she might have had me non renewed. (This was pre-recession.) I would later find out she used a Korean teachers book which had a lesson plan and activities, ect. Without it, she was as lost as a pig out of mud.

I have come across better teachers that can teach and even know how to find alternate activities without the teachers book or even substitute them. But that's not always consistent.

Sites such as waygook can be good or bad. Depending on the lesson, it can be hit or miss.

[plchron]

[tideout]

RE:Weigookin74

Really agree with your post.


plchron

I'm unfamiliar with Ulsan but I think that's the trend we're seeing in general.

There's another post regarding the overall job market (ESL) here. 50% are seeing more applicants and fewer jobs. A few specifically mention good sized Hogwons that are struggling.

Normally I think people would expect Hogwons to pick up some of the public school drop off but I'm not sure that's what's going on.

[chickenpie]

[tideout]

[s.tickbeat]

Korea is beginning to reach a breaking point more generally - not just regarding education. The social contract here is that you study hard (and have natural talent, and your family had money) and you will get good grades, thus you will go to a good university and never have to worry about work again (because WORK will come to YOU). Once you have a job, you work your ass off and are able to save money, send your children to good hagwons, and the cycle continues. . .

Except that it's beginning to break down. The middle class in Korea has been growing as long as there's been an export market for Korean products. I'm not talking about Samsung and LG (though they've been the big money-makers int he past 10 years) but shipbuilding, transport, and heavy industry. Now the middle class is large, and powerful in a way that hasn't happened here before. Schools are grossly under-funded and the standard of education in a public school here is just awful (why do you think parents send their kids to hagwons?). Elderly people are left to make money where they can, picking up trash or taking in washing. Basic costs like food and fuel keep increasing, and the only way to keep up is to pull your kids out of the hagwons. . .

Which means that pressure is mounting to improve the standard of public education in Korea. Problem is, that no one knows what that even means here.