Korean Job Discussion Forums

[periwinkle]

I'll try to make this a short story. Last Friday, my husband (a corporate trainer) was teaching a class- 10% of a certain work group at our company are foreign, so there are usually a handful of foreigners in the classes that our dept. teaches. One of the foreigners complained to him about the lack of English (the classes are taught in Korean). There is an unspoken understanding of the situation among the foreign contingent, so they are largely ignored. They sit and read the paper, sleep, etc. (they are getting paid to attend these classes, btw). This is annual training, and they have full knowledge of the subject matter- the classes are "refreshers", if you will.

Anyway, my husband tells the next instructor about the complaint. That instructor begins the class with an apology for the lack of English, and then explains to the class (don't know why) that the foreigners complained. Toward the end of the class, a very angry ajossi stands-up, and he had obviously been brewing about the situation. He wanted the instructor to translate what he was saying to the foreigners. He said that they were rude to talk to each other during the class when everyone else was being quiet. Later, the ajossi wrote-up the 3 foreigners in the class for talking during the class. The foreigners and the ajossi in the class were all in their 50's, btw.

Bad blood in the office that day- lots of people discussing the foreigner's bad behavior. The only thing that my husband remarked upon was how surprised he was that so many people banded together against the foreigners. I feel sorry that all 3 of the foreigners were written-up, but it was only 1 guy that complained. Also, someone usually complains every class or challeges the instructor on something, so complaining in and of itself is ok. Just this time it turned into a drama.

I'll leave my opinion out so I don't get flamed.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

Foreigners from where? Holland and Germany who can presumably speak English better than Korean English teachers? That would be funny if they made them take an English class taught mostly in Korean.

[I_Am_Wrong]

Why do so many people on here fail to understand posts?

CORPORATE TRAINER

[BigBlackEquus]

[Homer]

There is some confusion there indeed!

[canuckistan]

I don't see the confusion. They could be boning up on Just-In-Time style classes or management techniques etc etc. Since the foreigners are part of the dept that's getting the mandatory training, it would be in Korean and they're obviously having a hard time following.
They should either qualify for an exemption from attending (because of the language barrier) or just do their best to muddle along.

[periwinkle]

Canuckistan got it! Sorry to be so vague!! 2 of the guys were Aussie, 1 Russian. They aren't trainees- just in a gov't mandated recurrent training course. they do do their best to muddle along, but i can see why some it as a waste of time (for me, though, as long as I'm getting paid, I could care less!).

[Homer]

Ok..much clearer now.

An exemption would have been a good choice here!