Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Yu_Bum_suk]

I was trying out a new game today (a varient of Battleships) in two classes, a lower-level one and a higher level one. For the former I have a co-teacher and for the latter I don't. The instructions are a bit difficult to follow at first and in the first class I thought I had explained it properly to the co-teacher and he completely messed up the instructions, leaving everyone to do the opposite of what they were supposed to. Then he messed up the instructions again before we got it right. They were still making English sentences so it wasn't a loss pedagogically, but still a nuissance to try to get everyone doing the right thing.

In the class I teach solo I started explaining the instructions, and at the first light-bulb I saw go on I had the student translate what to do and everything went fine. On Friday I have a low-level class with a different co-teacher and I think I'm going to have a student from my class today explain the instructions to him earlier in the day.

Without doubt a few of my students have better listening comprehension abilities than the average Korean teacher. And you know that's the case when you've been standing outside a classroom listening in on a government listening test (a good way to get an idea of what level to teach) and afterwards more students are going to her to see if they got the right answers than the Korean English teacher who was invigilating it.

[pet lover]

I felt sorry for my new co-teacher today. She has been much heralded as an English major and all. However, the kindy kids are better. I asked her to translate something and she started and even I could tell that she was doing it wrong. I tried to gently stop her to get her corrected, but several kids interrupted and told her what I was trying to say. This was the first time that she actually tried to translate anything in class and she got shot down by some 6 year olds. Poor woman.

[Junior]

[cruisemonkey]

The fact of the matter is - in school, most kids a taught English by someone who can't speak English.

If they have any natural ability and attend a decent hogwan, they will be light years ahead of their 'teachers'.

[alinkorea]

I work in a rural elementary school, where the kids' English level is pretty low. However, there are five or six students whose spoken English is way better than my co-teacher

[Yu_Bum_suk]

Imagine if Korean English teachers actually had to pass tests proving language competency.

The shame is that there are a lot of Koreans here and there who happen to know English very well but can't qualify as teachers. I couldn't imagine in any Western country students spending eight years studying a language and still getting their native language as the language of instruction. My university Latin professor spoke more Latin in the classroom than some Korean 'English teachers' speak English.

[Juregen]

To my dismay .... i have an English teacher who wants me to teach her English ..... and she needs it.

In a way I am happy that i have the chance to improve upon the system.

[Doutdes]

[pet lover]

Our bus driver speaks English better than most Korean teachers I've ever worked with. However, he never graduated university, so he is our bus driver. He also speaks Russian and Japanese, but since he didn't graduate from a university, he can't find a decent job.

[babtangee]

[quote="Doutdes"]

[UncleAlex]

I have also experienced co-teachers distorting my instructions and confusing
the students with their erroneous translations, even making matters worse
by their feeble attempts at paraphrasing what I have said in English. To avoid
the poor translations I have made it a practice to submit a game plan in writing
a week before the lesson so that the co-teacher can read the instructions and
understand them by the time we meet in class. But there are two kinds of people
in the world: those who examine the instructions and those who fail to even
bother to do so. Alas, are public schools really worth it?

[kermo]

In my school, if they didn't have enough English teachers, they would prevail upon the newest, youngest most expendable teacher, like the computer science guy, regardless of proficiency. Nobody wanted to do it.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

Well the exact same thing happened to me again today. In the first class, with no co-teacher, it took the students a little bit longer but they figured it out. In the second, the 'co-teacher' wasn't to be found beforehand so I explained the game to the class prefect before class. Then she got called away on something and this 'co-teacher' did the same thing as the last one, but interrupted the game a lot more so that less English got spoken.