Korean Job Discussion Forums

[ella]

This is related to the "What's your daily routine?" thread on the General Discussion Forum. What is your typical class like, start to finish?

[robot]

hmm lemme see

my school's so chill. i can start like 5 minutes late chatting with the crew, which is awesome as i was probably out drinking the night before so i'm a little hung over, you know how it is!! no worries though as the kids all have their gameboys they're usually playing with all period. theyre tired too so we all just take it easy for a bit, hang out.

then i do some conversation while the kids trickle in. keep it relaxing, putting off the boring text that is so prevelent in korean schools. but also i do this conversation as listening practice and most importantly as a cultural ambasseder i feel it's kinda my duty to expand the kids' minds a bit about the world. had an awesome chat this week about how most scientists know that weed has totally been villified, that alcohol is in every way worse, and that korea is 50 years behind the times. i've got a bunch of cool kids, and i think i reached a couple of them.

now i dont know if this sounds like im slacking, i'm absolutley not, dont get me wrong. but luckily our school has a core text i can go off, so i just never need to prep. usually in the mornings open to the next page in the book and assign the kids the reading to read independently for 15-20 minutes. then next i have them do some questions in class and read through the answers. then they write out the vocabulary they don't know 10 times each. pretty straightforward. they love it and it gives me some time to duck out and check the email or whatnot!! like i said, a sweet setup! i know of some teachers who are doing twice the work i am for basically the same pay, it's all about finding the right gig, my friend.

and what's a class without a game??!! if the kiddies have been good i'll do some hangman for the last 20 minutes -- practice up some spelling! sometimes if they've done real good and not cocked off i'll bring out a board game as a special treat for friday morning.

then it's just homework and i'm out. it sucks, though, as my school assigns 1 hour of homework a day and vocabularies so hard even i dont know them!!. it's too crazy for the kids, they've got no life, i feel sorry for them. since the korean education system sucks, i have no problem cutting homework out somedays as another treat (and a way to get on their good side)!

thats my day in a nut shell. what about you guys?

[flotsam]

Robt goes medi�val on KorESLea.

Dark clouds on the horizon.

[Yo!Chingo]

I show up at about 12:45 to chill at the school before my 1:40pm class on M,W, and F and maybe do some planning. I leave at 5:45 pm; that's not a bad week I'd say. I try to get at least part of my daily agenda done, but sometimes it's just not gonna happen. I always make sure that they learn something relevant for the day though.
I generally try to play at least 1 round of Hangman each week or some other game like BINGO. I almost never give my kids homework unless they've been real stinkers that day! That's my threat when they start to get roudy!

[Qinella]

Yo!Chingo!!!! You work 15 hours a week? Did I read that correctly? What's the catch?


Anyhoo (haha, that cracks you Canucks up, doesn't it), my hagwon has a fairly regimented regimen. Four teachers, each with a different role. My role, as you can probably imagine, is mostly conversation. They have a lot of homework, so I also have to make sure to correct their answers and help them understand the ones they got wrong.

I was told last week that students are complaining from my classes being boring and that I should play games. Okay, so games it is now. Whatever keeps the customers happy.

So I spend about 10-15 minutes at the beginning talking and trying to elicit as much speech from them as I can. Then I do the homework thing as quickly as possible, and then I move on to a game. However, I don't play Hangman or BINGO or other slackerass teacher games that also bore me mindless. On Thursday and Friday the game du'jour was Scattergories. That game kicks ass.

Another fun one is to fill a container with words, and then the students have to take turns describing the words so that the other students can guess what the word is. 2 Truths 1 Lie is fun, as is 20 Questions.

But that's neither here nor there. Basically, I talk and play games. Find a job like that, Ella.

Q.

[jlb]

[poet13]

I do an adult class at 11 am for 50 minutes. Then I'm off until 2:30, except Mon and Thurs when I have my monk from 1:20 to 2. Start with the littlest ones, 8-10 yrs, until I get to the 16 and 17 yrs, finishing at 6. Each class is thirty minutes. One more adult class 7:40 to 8:30, then I'm done. Ah, on friday, I have a public class. 2 hours, adult conversation. Now that summer holidays is coming, I will likely pick up two or three short term classes of uni students. They're awful, they really are. They dont want to be there, and they think it's their god given right to text and talk on their cell phones during class. The thing that gets me the most bent with them though, is when i have to ask a pair of students three, four, and five times to stop talking. I use a small classroom, so it is a disturbance.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

I'm up at 6 or 7am shaking off any hangover I may have, making breakfast and having a coffee and a smoke.

Around 8am, usually, I head from my house to the staff room, which is about about a 2-minute walk. Fire up the computer, check emails and see what's on Dave's, check the latest scores, sip the cup of coffee that has magically arrived on my desk, then Tuesday to Thursday and sometimes Monday I'm off to teach one of my vocational high school classes. These ones aren't so serious and I do more English 'activities' than an English lesson.

Back to the staff room and then later in the day I'm off to teach a middle school class M-T or high school class W-F. Most of my classes go really well; there are none I don't like and while I may have to get on a few students' cases most are a pleasure to teach. My MS lessons are 45 minutes long and my HS lessons 50 miuntes. I usually find myself running out of time. My middle school and vocational HS classes are in a different building so I'm constantly going back and forth between the two.

Between lessons I'm usually farting around on the net, making and revising lessons, making photocopies, or sometimes doing all three at once.

If I'm not teaching during fourth block I eat lunch then with some of the other teachers around 12pm. If I am teaching fourth block I eat lunch at 1.10 and usually sit with the students, having the same inane conversation. 'Yes, I like Korean food but I don't like Kimchi. Yes I'm good at using chopsticks - oh look, you're good at using a spoon. What's this called? I don't remember what I did last weekend. Yes, I watched the soccer match..." They're not deep thinkers but they're still the loveliest kids you could imagine.

Twice a week I have classes that go from 4 to 4.50pm but usually I'm done well before 5pm and left with time to kill. Then it's off to the 식덩 to see if dinner's any good or if I should eat at home. On occasion I've stayed at school from around 5.30 to 6.30 to help students with extra stuff, and last year I helped a KT teach an evening course once or twice a week.

Spending so much time at school and teaching less than 50% of the time would really annoy some people, but I enjoy being here and rarely feel bored. The staff and students are really friendly and helpful and, despite some minor annoyances, I think that of all the jobs in the world this one is the one I could do the best.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

[jlb]

In defense of Bingo, it is lame if you just say the word and they have to find it but if you give them clues and they actually have to use their little brains to think of the word, it's not so bad.

[sadsac]

0700 Adult conversation class M-F
0800 Business class M-W-F
1100 Business Class T-W-T
1350 - 1530 Elementary school W-F
1600-2100 Regular classes M-F

All classes before 1600 are overtime. I have a laid back teaching style, but the classroom is for learning, so whether book work or game playing they both have a learning element. We have fun.

[flotsam]

[Yo!Chingo]

[Qinella]

Yeah BINGO can be good. I used a custom set of cards I made at my last school to drill irregular verbs and it seemed to work well. I did find it spectacularly boring for myself, though.

B Fly ... B Fly ...
O Draw ... O Draw ...
G Write ... RIDE OR WRITE TEACHER!? WRITE? 쓰다!? G Write ... G WRITE ...
G Lay ... G Lay ...
TEACHER, B! B! FASTER!!


Usually when I hear some teacher playing Hangman and BINGO, I think ok, slacker. Probably plays that connect-the-word game, too. But it can be good.

[tiger fancini]

I play hangman and bingo as vocab/listening tests. With Bingo, I choose a bunch of words from a story and have my students pick 9. Then I read the story, and when they hear their words they cross them off. If I'm playing Hangman its usually with words or phrases from the book/dialogue, and obviously all books must be closed.