Korean Job Discussion Forums

[tomato]

I would like to see who could write the best essay on "What ESL in Korea Means to Me."
I'll start with an entry of my own, but I would like for readers to wait a few days before voting.
That way, the later entrants will have a fair chance.

[tomato]

What ESL in Korea Means to Me


The mention of ESL in Korea arouses all of my senses. I see the director who stands over me and berates me in front of the students. I hear the third-year students saying, "Teacher, pencil no!" I taste the rice cakes which are served in the teachers' office. I smell the candy and crunchie-wunchies which are brought into my classroom. I feel the anal injections.

Next, I think of professionalism. The highly-qualified directors, who are ready and willing to help their employees in any way possible, come to mind. So do the Korean teachers, who so impeccably translate everything in the textbook. Likewise the foreign teachers, who are are so carefully chosen on the basis of hair color and eye color.

Also, I think of the enthusiastic minds at work--the recitation and rote memorization, the frenetic race to get through textbooks in record time, and the frenetic cramming before taking the TOEIC.

Furthermore, I think of everyone working together harmoniously. This includes the directors, helping the teachers find constructive solutions to problems. This includes the Korean teachers and the foreign teachers, patiently discussing their differences. This includes the parents, who are so eager to accept their share of the responsibility by practicing English at home.

Last but not least, I think of mutual respect. I think of the directors, who never use other people as scapegoats. I think of the Korean teachers, who always treat foreign teachers as unique individuals rather than according to stereotypes. I think of the students, who never talk while the teacher is talking. I think of the foreign teachers, who say nice things about the students on Dave's ESL Cafe.

So that, in a nutshell, is what ESL in Korea means to me. What does it mean to you?

[seoulmon]

Can you transalte this into Korean please? I'm having trouble speed reading it...

[VanIslander]

Why ESL in Korea is Mean to Me

Teaching ESL isn't nice for those of us who have to show up for work by 2 p.m., an hour earlier if we want to join the staff for lunch delivered fresh and hot, and by noon if we decide to do some extra prep, even though the director doesn't expect it. Designing review games to challenge the energetic and bright kids can take up as much or as little time as one cares to put into it; that is to say, Isn't it mean to have to do a job which can soak up every waking minute, and yet which demands no more of oneself than is needed after a late night of norebanging?

There's something cruel in having to babysit kids who will put only as much effort into a class as you do while bringing twice the vitality and thrice the audacity; trying to teach to balls of energy flowing in unexpected directions is like sticking your finger in a socket only to discover you've been goosed yourself in the meantime.

Nothing's meaner than doing your all and having it seem like all was for nothing. Only, before you can give it up and mean it, another afternoon moves everything along at a pleasant pace and with hope that these turtle eggs make it into deeper waters eventually, as you remind yourself than shallow is progress and life is good.

Does any career require as much humility, feed as much pride and provide as many hollow moments of silent acclaim as ESL teaching your way up a short ladder to a pay that's just big enough to keep you in the game a bit longer than you used to want?

No. Teaching ESL is not nice. It's incredible. In every sense of the word.

[captain kirk]

Teaching ESL in Korea means 4 worlds.

The world of the kids at the hagwon is the primary world, about which the other worlds turn. They are miniature beings all their own, multi-faceted. It's not often that they are 'simply small adults', bearers of stereotypes, but if they don't like you they will become less the 'magical child' and more the 'little bastard'. Having them like you is easy, as long as you don't let them annoy you. And that's the hard part. Especially after eight months. Tending the potential little rotters is trippy. It's fifty-fifty, a joyous pretence. It's rather insane in some ways, but I like it.
The world of the K-teachers is 'professional'. To give you an idea of how professional I am I'm not sure if I've just spelled 'professional' right. Nevertheless my spelling is probably better than theirs. This world differs from 'K-kids world' in that they are adults, and culturally set in cement/adulthood. But, like me, they groove on encountering the free-to-be magical children. Like me, they experience how time stops at these moments with kids. We are, the K-teachers and I, both absorbed in the wonderful, consuming, inane but not because it's so freely given and sincere, grooviness of 'kid's world'. However, the K-teacher world is strictly defined, when they 'come to' out of kid's world, by their funny (not funny haha) way of categorizing everything in goofy hierarchies. They hate it themselves but what can they do? So forget about it. Be in kid's world most of the time, what we're there for.
The world of the management is like the rational and the creative perfectly balanced. They are the nexus between parents and their children, the switchboard. They balance all the goings on and sum it up but are patient and consider the long term. It's not a world I'd like to live in, that's for sure. They miss out on the magical child fix, the infinite spontaneity kick. But quite a bit goes screaming around their front counter so I'm sure they're all right
The 'living in Korea world' is the opposite of 'kid's world'. It's having some time to think and step back from non-stop emotional cabaret, room to room, being madly enthusiastic about Let's Go books. It's a loon on a lake, the open road, almost too much time to think. It's looking at transit, factories, consumers, then woods, mountains, and beaches. It's time to do as you will, and to act your age. Which can be good and it can be bad.
But by then it's back to what Lisa is asking John in the playground, and where is the bat, remember use in, on, under, or beside!