Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Ya-ta Boy]

The pathetic, miserable little soap opera of my life continues.

For those who have been following the plot, you know that I legally added on a second work place to my work load (and ARC). When I agreed to work there two afternoons a week they also asked me to work one Sat. a month. I agreed to it when I thought I was going to be paid much more than I ended up getting paid. I think I was blinded by the Won signs in my eyes.

Anyway, today just before class, the only English-speaker in the building gave me the following info:

a) the first Sat. will be this coming Sat. (Tuesday is better than Thurs.)

b) we don't know who is coming (It's elective and can include elementary students...and who knows who else)

c) not only that, we don't know how many of them there will be. (We'll know Sat. morning.)

Korean kids go to school some Sat. a month. Why didn't it occur to me that this Sat. thing wouldn't be a regular Sat. class? Just longer.

A little stunned, I said I wasn't delighted with the idea of bringing in random elementary kids and throwing them in with whatever middle school kids show up. I mentioned I wasn't delighted that instead of two groups, 14 students and 15 students, I would have one big group + whoever else showed up for one 3 1/2 hour session.

It's one thing to say, "Do your homework". But how do you prepare for stuff that didn't occur to you?

I have several weeks worth of lessons planned, based on Side-By-Side. I chose good expansion and review activities that a) teach the vocabulary of the unit, that practice listening, writing, speaking and reading; b) that build on the last unit...the whole thing is pretty carefully worked out. Now, I find out Sat. classes will be 'special' and might include different students, or at best, some but not all of my regular students. So regular, but longer, classes are no go.

I'm just ranting and feeling frustrated and sorry for myself. I'll figure something out. But if anyone has any brilliant ideas, I won't scream at you
to butt out and mind your own business. (My first instinct is to find some meaningless and very time-consuming activities that will kill the time and keep the kids out of my hair...instead of trying to figure out a way to teach something.)

Part of my motivation for this post is to alert newbies to the pitfalls. I've been around ages, almost entirely with adults, but still.... I can usually figure out and handle the way Korean thinking/culture impact my job. But there are situations that you just can't predict. You can ask all the questions you can think of based on the information you have, but there is just no way you can ask about something that you have no clue might happen. It's something like, "But why weren't you prepared for that tree to turn into a frog and eat your house?" To me, that expresses the absurdity of ESL teaching in Korea. (And it is ALWAYS introduced into the equation by the administration. Working with the students is a blast.)

[Angelus]

I'm assuming you signed a formal contract for this additional job because you said you "legally" added a place of work to you ARC. If so, were the contractual stipulations made clear: payment, hours, etc.?
If the answer to the question is yes, then I guess you'll have to suck it up and just do it.
One thing I have learned while working in Korea, is to get EVERYTHING in writing before you agree to do it. Not only to protect yourself, but also seeing things in print can help you to think of things you might have missed or neglected altogether.

Conversely, (assuming you did not sign a contract and merely agreed to an implied or informal contract) you can refuse to do all of these extra classes or just the Saturday classes, which you don't seem too pleased to teach.

The consequences of this action, however, would most likely be an inevitable rift in your relationship between you and your employer. So I guess, it's up to you to weigh the importance of your present happiness with your future happiness.

[elynnor]

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[Ya-ta Boy]