Korean Job Discussion Forums

[jajdude]

Man.. I think the hagwon deal can be a drag.

If you just go half-assed and not care too much, realize they are just kids who would rather have fun, maybe you can do it for a while.

If they're allowed to speak korean all the time and not even work hard to listen or speak or read or write, they ain't gonna learn crap.

It could be the place you work. It could be you. It could be both. If you don't care, fine. If you do care, I hope you have a good thing going. Otherwise it isn't much fun, because your ideals die fast when kids here don't really give a crap about English. When you were a kid, did you care? Were you even aware there was a world out there?

Sadly, kids can learn a lot better than older people. But kids don't care. They just want fun. For adults, it's really late in the game. Adults know the world is there. Kids don't know and don't care about that. It's too abstract for them. But when they get older they might say, damn, wish I learned some English. Or damn, wish I learned to speak English, not just the other crap, though reading, writing and listening are useful.

Or they just say, well, I'm Korean and that's that. I'll never really communicate with anybody but Koreans.

Strange, isn't it?

[Kimchieluver]

Dude, I've been teaching here for three years, some kids don't want to learn. Don't get all down. Look for a different hogkwan. In the meantime, ride it out and try to have fun and just get them interested to learn what little they will.

[jajdude]

I know.

Been here over 5 years.

I know the scene.

I think the big problem is allowing Korean in class. They learn so little when they babble at each in their own language.

I taught in one place in Taiwan. "No Chinese" allowed. The kids were quiet except for basic English. Much easier. And they learned English more.

Here, where I work now, it's a joke. They gab in Korean. English is a joke to them.

I know in the future they might travel or whatever. But they will always be Korean and think their language is everything. Or not?

. I hope they find out sometime that "Hanguk mal" is very limited.

Or maybe they will never travel beyond glorious Jeju.

It's a small world world after alll......

Or they can just go to Koreatown in LA or NY. Cool. No need to deal with those weird foreigners and their weird language.

[drgoo]

Sounds like a question of who owns the classroom. Is it you? or them? If you need English only during class you must demand it. You own the stage, you're performing for them, not them for you. Take back your stage and do it with all the love you can muster, but make it tough love, and make it fun.

Now get out there, mister, and kick some little asses.

Big love to all,
dG

[Yu_Bum_suk]

[manlyboy]

I believe practically all problems in hagwons can be traced to the primary motive of seeking profit above all else.

Acquisition of profit supersedes everything in private education. Hagwon employees are not hired to teach, they are hired to generate income. The education of the "clients" is incidental, and dependant on what "customers" who think they know better than you want.

[some waygug-in]

While I believe that "English Only" is a great idea in theory, it's rather difficult to enforce if nobody else at the school is going to back you up.

I used to try to enforce English in my classrooms.

I found that I was stressed to the max, my students hated me, ridiculed me and in the end I realized that I really can't "force" them to do anything.

The best way I've found to get kids interested in English is to find activities that stimulate their curiosity, their competitive side, or their fun loving humorous side. It's not easy to do, and I don't always achieve what I set out to do, but I find that I am a lot less stressed about my classes, the students are learning, (albeit very slowly) and at the same time they are having fun and don't hate me.

Guessing games, spelling games, spelling races, pictionary, 20 questions.

I'm not saying I use "only games" either, it's just a lot easier to motivate students to play a game than it is to do some ..........ugggggggggggg
booooooooooookkkkkkkkkkkkkkk wwwwwwwwwwwwwooooooooorrrrrrrrrrrkkkkkkkkkkkk!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Things like crosswords and wordsearches are sometimes useful. I like to make word searches that have entire sentences hidden in them. That way the students are sitting there repeating the complete sentence over and over to themselves as they search for it.


Logic puzzles are cool if you can find some easy ones. Sometimes a simple math problem can be fun.

If I am doing something from their book, I've found that giving hints for the answers is a very useful tactic.

For example: If the question is,"What is his name"?

I would write a series of blanks, hangman style and give a
few letters as hints. Soon the students are trying to
guess the right answer.

"H__ _a_e __ Si____g".

Korean in class, yes there's a lot of it, but come to think of it, I use a lot of English in my Korean class.

[JacktheCat]

If you actually care about helping kids learn ...

.. get out of the hagwon system while you still have a shred of sanity.

[Len8]

Korean kids grow up on activities in their spare time. Have been to several camps where for an activity they brought in a Korean semi entertainer who had all the students sitting, standing, jumping up and down, turning around,clapping their hands in various ways and so on. Eventually they were all dancing on the stage.

Something they all took too. Now the closest thing I can think of remotely related is "simon says". There is another one involving movements for "sida","hamburger","french fries", and "chicken" and a few other things you have to do with it. Pass the message by whispering to the next person is another good one as well.

Could they be used in a class room setting. I have tried the " hamburger, french fries thing". Went over OK However I'm a little insecure with the others.

Anyone done this kind of thing, and if so anyone got any other ideas.

What about treasure hunts where you go out and place things like markers at strategically located places, then give written directions to two teams of students to go and find the stuff. I did that a winter and summer camps and it went over quite well. Kids love to search for hidden things. High level of excitement there maybe.

Was something in a previous thread about "Multiple Intelligence theory" wherein you can use any subject to terach English. Science , mathematics, music anything.

[guangho]

[drgoo]

[manlyboy]

[bosintang]

[TheUrbanMyth]