Korean Job Discussion Forums

[UncleAlex]

The Gyonngi-do Office of Eduction now requires that native English teachers
conduct two team-teaching demo-classes a year instead of one. The decision
was made half way through the first semester. I had a difficult time finding another
co-teacher to join me in the extra class. Nobody else wanted to do it because
they claimed to be "too busy" although I'm the one expected to plan and prepare
the entire lesson. My original demo-class has been slotted for November, but now
I've got to do another one in late June to entertain and amuse the old goats
from the Education Office.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

Why not just do nothing special and put on a regular lesson?

Reading about these morons in the Gyonngi-do Office of Eduction sure makes me happy I don't work in that school district. Some Koreans really have no clue how foolish they come across, do they?

[Demophobe]

There really needs to be a union-type agreement on this issue because any teacher doing a well-rehearsed lesson in front of the big wigs is simply going to make the ordinary-class-teachers look bad.

The BOE will certainly look upon the multi-media, scripted, over-planned and perfectly-executed demos favorably; that's what they want to see. If it reflects the reality of teaching in Korean ESL is beside the point, sadly.

Everyone has to band together and do regular classes, or else you had better have something special lined up. That is, if you want to look good.

I don't know what a poor review from those sessions would bring, but it would certainly let down the principal and staff at your school. They want you to shine as well, again, real or unreal, they want their school to look good.

If you decide to do a regular class, be prepared for the consequences. It may not matter how effective the class is, but simply how much fun the class is percieved to be, how many resources you use and how 'interesting' the overall appeal of the class that will have any meaning at all.

Also, if you think there won't be any "shiny, happy" classes going down, even after all agree not to, you are mistaken. It's competition, folks.

[TheUrbanMyth]

[UncleAlex]

I intend to plan and conduct my demo-classes as I always have: a simple
and practical approach based on a regular text lesson. Of course, I shall
again encounter the lone individual who finds such a class monotonous and
uncreative, although I incorporate creative exercises and activities for the students
and apply sound EFL teaching principles and methods. I aplologize to my viewers
for failing to provide strobe lights and dolby surround sound along with exquisite
costumes and stage props that would make Cirque du Soleil green with envy.