Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Ya-ta Boy]

I've been on the job about 2 weeks. Before that I taught adults except for a couple of kid camps in the summer.

So far I've noticed:

1) The text book doesn't seem to have a teacher's manual.

VOCABULARY
2) The vocabulary words for each unit are listed alphabetically at the back of the book and no where are they listed in a way useful for a teacher to teach them.
3) Each unit has about 90 words but no activities to actually teach those words. (Maybe other units are better, but the one we've been working with isn't.)

READING
4) Reading is not taught separately. I wonder if it is ever taught. Our boys (Grades 1 and 2) can't read.
5) The vocabulary and sentence structures in the reading sections are simply too far beyond all but a small handful of our students.

SPEAKING
6) The speaking section of the book is hopeless. It assumes the kids can actually speak and have understood the reading in that unit.
7) There is no Survival English taught. There are no speaking models provided.

WRITING
Neither of the two co-teachers I work with have ever asked their students to write anything longer than a completion question. One of them says there is very little writing in Korean either.

LISTENING
9) My main co-teacher doesn't like to use the dialog tapes, so I end up reading the dialogs. I don't mind it but I think my time could be better spent.

It seems to me that the boys are expected to be fluent by the end of high school. The elementary English system that I saw in action a few years ago was great. I wonder what happened to it. I wonder if it is used in elementary school and then the old traditional model takes over in Middle School. That reasonably good system is nowhere in sight in our high school.

DISCIPLINE
The boys are generally well-behaved and are always respectful to me. The misbehavior is at the level a normal teenage kid would display. Nothing seriously out of line.

Several of the other teachers carry 'love sticks'. One of them has very clearly been used over the years. I asked my co-teacher about hitting students. She said it is illegal but 'everyone' still does it.

Yesterday I took a fly swatter to class for a pronunciation activity. During another part of the lesson my co-teacher carried it around and swatted several students with it. I didn't like it but didn't say anything. Today she had a long plastic ruler and hit a kid during my part of the lesson. I told her never to hit a kid during my portion of the class. She didn't react.

I'm a fairly strict teacher in terms of not talking during class, not throwing/hitting. She is a beginner and had the class for 2 weeks before I got here. The class is hers. My role in the class keeps changing and is never very clear. The students don't know, she doesn't know and I don't know. It's awkward. I'm not interested in being the disiplinarian for another teacher.

I'm making a pitch tomorrow for a better role for me. Fingers crossed.

[JacktheCat]

Teaching in a Public High School:

1: Ditch the textbook you are given, and/or ignore the directions give you by the admin. Make up your own cirriculum and choose your own textbook. I've been using 'A Conversation Book:English in Everyday Life', mass copied for the students down at the local print shop, with great success.

2: If you have a co-teacher, make sure let him/her know you are the boss of the classroom. It's your class, you lead, they follow.

3: Corporal punishment. It's a fact of life in Korean schools, and part of Korean culture. As a liberal westerner you have to learn to except that.

4: You are a very precious and valuable asset to your school, especially if you teach in a rural area. You'll be surprised what your school will do for you if you push hard enough for it.

[Veronica]

I work in a high school.

I have no set curriculum.

I devise or copy all my own material, from dialogues to Britney.

I have no discipline issues whatsoever.

I have the respect of, I am guessing, about 975 of my 1000 students.

I have the respect of all the teachers.

I love my job and I have a lot of time for 999 of my students.

I am paid well for what I do, but I do long hours, sadly including Saturdays, but only after consultation from the staff. That will hopefully change next year.

High school rocks.

[fidel]

[ilovebdt]

[Ya-ta Boy]

Question for those who have ditched the text book:

Are your classes in addition to their regular grammar-laden explain-every-phrase-in-Korean-for-10-minutes class?

Last week I was allowed to take 1/3 of the students out of each class and teach what I want. It went well. Then the co-teacher decided that the students are missing out on her class material (she's not the swiftest) and now I'm back to getting 15-20 minutes with all the students at once. I can still teach what I want.

Not sure what it is about corporal punishment and women this week. Yesterday Ms Park whacked several kids with my fly swatter. Today she whaled on one with her long, thick plastic ruler. Then Mrs. Choi had two groups of 4 lined up in the hall for a session with her love stick. (One kid called out, "Help me! Help me!" I guess she took a break between groups to rest up her swinging arm. A few minutes later the guys were running down the hall upstairs laughing. It must not have been as traumatic as the moans and groans that came with each whack.)

I think it's an interesting insight into Korea that corporal punishment has been illegal for several years but that law is openly and daily flouted. Other teachers, the administration and the kids don't object. Conclusion: people in 'authority' can ignore the laws at their discretion. A great lesson for kids to learn.

[fidel]

[JacktheCat]

[SPINOZA]

[Yu_Bum_suk]

I work for the same school district as Ya-ta Boy, five weeks into the job now. My observations are very similar.

Vocab: A lot of time wasted memorising vocab they'll soon forget. I'm drawing up work-bingo cards for each grade that I can use to re-enforce some of the words and work on the pronounciation of more difficult words. I'm doing my best to try to recycle words in my lessons so that they at least get some practice actually using the words they learn.

Reading: My students aren't bad readers, but the material is generally a tad too difficult. I'm going over a few short readings every class relating to class themes. Then I do a Q&A that hopefully helps long-term with listening comprehension as well.

Speaking: Big knowledge and pychological hurdles here, but it is getting noticeably better with some students. They feel far more confident talking to me in small groups outside the classroom, which is encouraging. Still, by far my biggest challenge, one that still has me largely stumped, is how to get most of them at least saying something every lesson. I suppose that this is the greatest problem for foreign public school teachers the nation over.

Writing: They're great at copying, hopeless at thiniking up things themselves. How to write a sentence seems to be something that's slipped through the cracks in six years of learning middle and high school English. Since almost no one can come up with a spoken sentence on the spot, I have them write responses to discussion questions and then share them, thus killing two birds with one stone.

Listening: Improving aural comprehension is one of my biggest goals. I invigilated a listening test last week and it was obvious most of them aren't up to government standards. Since I have explain all things in such detail they're at least getting lots of practice listening to me.

Discipline: Same story at my place. The homeroom teachers all have sticks and there are a few other teachers whose sticks seem to be glued to their hands, but I don't see it as any of my business. The ridiculous hours they make them keep and the occasional cuffing a student across the head still makes me cringe. In my lessons I have the odd students who tunes out but generally I've been amazed by the students' level of attentiveness, enthusiasm, and respect. It seems that compared to what they get in most other lessons it's so easy to make mine interesting.


I have to say that based on what I've seen so far I agree with JackTheCat 100%.

[Kenny Kimchee]

The talk about the Love Stick reminds me of something I read on Ulsan Web a few years back. It was two "Top 10" style lists: "You know you've been in Korea too long when" and "You know you've been in Korea far too long when"...

- You know you've been in Korea too long when you use a "Love Stick"

- You know you've been in Korea far too long when you use a "Love Stick" - and it feels strangely powerful

You guys with these high school jobs: you hook these gigs up yourselves or did you go through EPIK?

[fidel]

I found this sweet, sweet, sweet gig myself and isn't through EPIK, GEPIK or any other PIK, and I'm leaving at the end of this year....

[SPINOZA]

[Yu_Bum_suk]

I found my job through a school district that was hiring. I had one offer for a high school through work-and-play (went to the school to interview) that I turned down. I also turned down EPIK, largely because I wouldn't know where I was working. I'm pretty happy with my decision.

[fidel]