Korean Job Discussion Forums

[superhal]

I did a little searching and saw this thread: http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/korea/viewtopic.php?t=33145&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=keeping&start=0

but i wonder if other people can chime in.

my first time through, the first 3 months were pretty easy. all the students stuck together and moved on to the next level. after that though it was pretty hellish. up until i left, i just couldn't figure out why one student stayed 9 months while another couldn't last a week in the same class.

I had classes close, and i guess i was pretty average...my boss told me stories of teachers who had to leave because they didn't have enough students to make the minimum (5 classes/day) salary.

Now though, since i got my MA, i decided to try a new technique: actually having students learn. in the beginning, it seemed to work. students were visibly improving at the end of every class. but again, students started dropping out. my prof at school suggested making group work mandatory, thus there is social motivation between students to pressure each other to come to class. that doesn't seem to work that well either, as the students don't especially like each other that much to begin with.

in korea, i did 'the dancing monkey' thing that was talked about in the other thread, where teachers spent more time entertaining than actually teaching. i was pretty disheartened afterwards, as i felt that i wasn't actually a teacher.

however, some things i did pick up:
1. actual learning: this is the hardest, imho, as usually i have to make custom-made lessons everyday, as the learning theory i subscribe to (VanPatten's Input Processing theory) doesn't have any published textbooks.

2. social inclusion activities: i observed my middle school students do this. whenever a new student came, they would play some variation of a rock-paper-scissors game, and the group would be cohesive after that. i didn't have to do anything except give them space, as they did this in korean and i had no idea what was going on.

3. overlapping lessons: have two lessons planned every day, and at the end of the class, either say that you will continue the first lesson tomorrow, or here's tomorrow's lesson you can prepare.

4. "the missing something" feeling: my old boss told me about this. he said the best way to keep students was to generate a feeling that if they didn't come, they would miss something important. i didn't really understand what he was talking about until i started using VanPatten, and you could see students visibly improve. They would get really excited, and tell the absent students about it later. This worked for a little while, but doesn't work so well now.

So, my question is: for those of you who manage to keep a group together for over 3 months, could you describe what you try to do each day, or anything particular you do to make sure students have good attendance? My goal, if i ever end up in a korean hagwon again, is to have at least 1 class stay together for the entire twelve months.

ps. i tried the calling thing too, that doesn't do squat.

[some waygug-in]

I refuse to get into that game. If students don't want to come, they don't want to come. The best thing you can do is accept it and move on.

The worst thing you can do is have a bunch of students who don't really want to be there. If they only come because of some short-term entertaiment value, I'd much rather they leave than have them stay and expect me to "perform" for them day after day.

Could be why I'm 2 months behind on my pay, but at least I feel like I am really teaching the ones who do come.

Just my 2 cents.

best of luck

[bellum99]

You have to actually have students to get paid for teaching them.

[casey's moon]

Superhal -- sounds like the hagwon is putting too much pressure on you. I hope you're not losing sleep over this. Don't forget that no matter what you do, some parents will find that they can't afford a hagwon, or have other issues that have nothing to do with you or with how much fun the kids are having. Sounds like you care, which is nice. But I also think that you should put your efforts into teaching the kids who are there, while the director and office personell worry about enrollment.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

Are you talking uni or hogwan? At hogwan it's all a matter of keeping the parents convinced they're getting what they pay for, from what I can tell. I've been disappointed, though, in that a couple of kids who were really enjoying it and whom I really liked left, while some I don't care for and who hate being there - and I don't hide that I don't care for them - stay on. Thankfully I don't think it affects my job security much at all.

[peemil]

I've had about 50% of my students for about three years. 30% for about two and the rest about a year or have just really started.

I still see a lot of my old middle school students who go to High School now and have a yarn ocassionally.

[dbee]

I am nearing the end of my second year of hogwon teaching in Korea. Around the middle of this year I developed a policy of teaching through games (or should I say 'fun activites'). I figured if you kept the standard stimulus (information gap exercises, etc... ) and combined it with an element of competition and rolled it all together with a large element of social inclusion (as stated above), you'd have pretty much the perfect lesson.

My lesson plans were pretty much as follows, I'd select games based on their values for teaching certain areas ( some games are better for grammar, others for vocab etc ...) from a large list (compiled by me). I'd pick maybe 8 games which would be reasonably suitable. Then when I started to teach I'd choose maybe 3 or 4 games for the lesson (based mostly on class personality, classroom energy etc...). After a while I got pretty good at running these activites, I think you need to do them a couple of times at least before you get them down properly.

At all times the criteria for a lesson would be firstly, for the kids to learn. Secondly for them to enjoy themselves. Thirdly to eliminate their boredom, fatigue and the inevitable discipline problems that go with these symptoms.

The results were excellent (at first), I got some great feedback from students and management. I really felt that the kids performance increased exponentially. The kids would go crazy over my lessons and it was hard not to think of myself as 'super teacher'. As time went on however there were some unwanted side-effects. I felt personally that other teachers (mostly Korean teachers) started becoming less and less supportive of my 'teaching style'. It may or may not have been jealousy, but I felt that they had adopted a 'well of course the kids like him, all he ever does is play games' attitude (this seemed to be the most prevelent with the teachers whom the kids disliked the most). Management were very happy at the time, but would still ask me at times to 'not just play games', so I got the impression that they didn't really understand what i ws trying to do and just thought it was a bit of a cop out.

The thing about it is though, that to keep a class of kids both learning and entertained takes a large amount of energy probably twice as much energy as a normal lesson would. I could just as easily get away with handing out worksheets and doing listening activities. Sure the kids started to get bored again, but it made my life a whole lot easier. I think in Korea (and possibly elsewhere) there is a way of thinking that dictates that kids shouldn't like school too much. Sure have fun in class and all, but as everyone knows ... at the end of the day school is boring.

[marlow]

Games are great for elementary students. If the game is thought out properly it can use all the day's target language.

My public school elementary lessons were all based on games, role-play, or singing. Before starting a game we would practice the target language. During the games the students would be in small groups and speaking the target language. It was written on the board if they couldn't remember. Since elementary students often can't do "free talking", actually having them speak the target language in a relaxed setting is gold.

[Pyongshin Sangja]

I tried doing the month-to-month with one of my students but she got the days confused and we had a bit of an accident.

[superhal]

casey's moon: actually i like this pressure. i'm rather sick of the zombies in college. but, pretty much no matter what school you work at, attendance matters, but it's not month-to-month like a hagwon.

yu_bum_suk: actually, if the parents control attendance, that's relatively easy. i worked at an american tutoring place that simply generated tons of evidence that the child did work (although i did question whether coloring stuff and connecting dots actually did anything for learning.) imho, adult, post-college students are the hardest to keep.

peemil: middle school only? i think it's a little easier to keep kids than adults, but still even dealing with middle school kids hard. how do you get them to accept you? what i found was that they would band together to give the teacher a hard time.

dbee: yeah i got that too. some people like it, some love it, and some hate it. that's why i think this entire subject is so mysterious. why are some students drawn to dull, dry lecture-style teachers, while others like play-only teachers? personally, i found that koreans automatically think "games" are for children, and they don't want to do it when they are older, which is why my boss told me the same as your boss told you. it's nothing against the game, it's just the attitude towards games.

wow, looks like the problem is more widespread than i thought. here's another anecdote: i met two teachers, a relatively young chinese woman and an almost retired vietnamese man, who are extremely successful in keeping students from semester to semester in an adult ESL night-school class. the man tells me he keeps around 90-100% over the semester, while the woman says she keeps around 75%. this would be roughly equivalent to what a hagwon does over a 4 month period. the class is free, at night, for 2-2.5 hours, so the motivation is very low. these two teachers even kept their students through a bus strike.

what is really interesting though is that they have almost opposite teaching styles. the woman acts like a mother, constantly calling students and bugging them at home. in class, she doesn't do anything exceptional other than the typical "english only" type teacher-led convo class. the man doesn't appear to do jack. he just copies stuff and has students take turns reading it, and they discuss the meaning. personally though, the trait these two teachers share is that they genuinely care about people; all people, not just their students, and you get this feeling just being around them.

[peemil]

[guangho]

Hakwons are the hardest because the kids-through their moms- call the shots and they know it. (As an aside, i'd be shocked if i make it to June, never mind December- now may be a swell time to send me job leads via PM.) Learning is not on their agenda: "Teacher game!" "Teacher hangman!" "Teacher computer!" and then of course they go home and say "we played hangman"- my haggie needs to figure out if they are A SERIOUS ENGLISH SCHOOL or a playcenter- which is not necessary a bad thing to be.

Also, since you are a foreigner and not part of their social fabric- we're a dime a dozen- they DO NOT respect you, or grow truly attached to you (they may pretend- some girls may play at being in love with me in that little girl way) but they have seen foreigners come and go through hakwons their whole life- i replaced a guy fired 7 months into his contract- and so you just don't have the same currency with them. In public schools, the korean coteacher may at least give you a sheen of legitimacy.

P.S.: Sorry if I'm ranting- it's one of those days.

[superhal]

i worked at a primarily elementary student tutoring place (not a hagwon). to get parents on your side is pretty easy. just give the students worksheets to do in class and take home, and put a big star or something on it. it works something like this:

[on the way home]
mom: what did you do today?
student: [pulls a stack of worksheets out] this.
mom: oh, that's good. did you have fun?
student: [remembering hangman] yep!

[superhal]

so has anybody kept all the students together in an adult program for a whole year? 6 months?

[buymybook]

The results were excellent (at first), I got some great feedback from students and management. I really felt that the kids performance increased exponentially. The kids would go crazy over my lessons and it was hard not to think of myself as 'super teacher'. As time went on however there were some unwanted side-effects. I felt personally that other teachers (mostly Korean teachers) started becoming less and less supportive of my 'teaching style'. It may or may not have been jealousy, but I felt that they had adopted a 'well of course the kids like him, all he ever does is play games' attitude (this seemed to be the most prevelent with the teachers whom the kids disliked the most). Management were very happy at the time, but would still ask me at times to 'not just play games', so I got the impression that they didn't really understand what i ws trying to do and just thought it was a bit of a cop out.[/quote]

I commend you on your new or learned style. Feel free to P.M. me or whatever with more information on that, type of games etc...

However, to change your style without ill feelings from your Korean co-workers you should try taking "super teacher" out of the situation. At least at work, you can always pat yourself on the back outside of work. The trick is to do things without telling anyone. So, you were great! I believe you, but I don't think you really wanted to give the Korean teachers another reason to dislike you or be jealous of you. When they get wind that the children suddenly are having fun in your class just leave it at that. If you don't tell them exactly why or what you do in class then they only get one side of the possitive news. This is fine, you don't have to report how well your classes are managed. Most people wouldn't like to hear too much about it. That is why the Korean teachers may have rebelled against you, they wanted to make your life as difficult as possible because they may think their life is sooooooooooooooooooooo bad.

I knew a foreign teacher who took a ball to each and every class. Who cares? The Korean teachers! A ball can be inside of class but it doesn't have to be used each class, just be nonchalant about the way you teach or use a ball so that it's not an issue. Just a little bit of fun, you really don't want to have too much fun in class do you? Today in conversation class we discussed the Korean male phobia(and/or Christian Reverends, Korean or otherwise, but especially Korean) towards gay people.