Korean Job Discussion Forums

aldershot · Joined: 17 Jul 2006

i live in a port town. there are several large ship-building companies in my area, and they hire scores of foreigners from all over to do contract work.

my hagwon has recently assigned me 2 classes for French guys needing to learn english. 1 basic class, 1 intermediate. the basic class is at an Up&Away level 1, while the intermediate is all right at english.

it's just SO freakin' strange teaching these foreigners. i'm so used to my teaching methods for koreans (children, alults), that i'm stumped when it comes to these french dudes. when i joke for the koreans, they at least attempt to giggle/pretend they understand. these french dudes are pure stone-faces. no emotion. no response. it's like teaching a piles of bricks.
i even brought them baguettes one day, to which they were dismayed the bread wasn't REAL bread, just crappy korean knock-off bread. i almost put the baguette up the guy's *.

it's so wierd having them show up at 6pm amidst a sea of korean kids running around. the kids ask me if they are new teachers and i explain that they're students, just like them. the worst part is that the hagwon has taken away four of my favourite korean classes just to teach these 5 (yup, a total of 5) French guys.

ugh. exhausting.

anyway, that's my beef. anyone else teach waygookins?

laogaiguk · Joined: 06 Dec 2005 Location: somewhere in Korea

No, but being the only Western student in my Chinese hagwon (actually, there is only me, Korean students and four Chinese teachers) gets looks from tons of new students, and creates a funny atmosphere in the classes I am in.

Plus, if they are French being forced to learn English, that would be like forcing a "Dokdo is ours" t-shirt wearer to learn Takeshima in a Japanese class Wink

aldershot · Joined: 17 Jul 2006

Hater Depot · Joined: 29 Mar 2005

I briefly taught a Chinese student.

ChuckECheese · Joined: 20 Jul 2006

I taught Vietnamese students. They were nicer than Korean students.

kermo · Posted: Sun Sep 17, 2006 10:42 pm Post subject:

I used to teach French to Chinese engineers. Trippy!

Maybe instead of a baguette you should bring a bottle of wine next time?

endofthewor1d · Joined: 01 Apr 2003 Location: the end of the wor1d.

i've got a bunch of chinese and vietnamese students in my classes. last semester i had a mogolian student.

as for the baguette, it was a nice gesture. but if the french are sensitive about anything, it's their language and their food. i think you probably hit them with both barrels that class.

try french fries next time. (KIDDING!)

gang ah jee · Joined: 14 Jan 2003 Location: city of paper

All of my students are foreigners! Ha Ha Ha!

Hilarious joking aside, I had a Japanese student in a class in Korea which was fine, but she did seem a bit shocked by all the raucous ajumma-led humour that went. I also had a fair few Korean, Laotian and even a couple of Nicaraguan(!) students when I was teaching in Vietnam. Variety is the spice of life, unless it's French.

Hyeon Een · Joined: 24 Jun 2005

I've got about 15 chinese students this semester, one class in particular having 7.. about 1/4 of the class. They're all nice and a few of them are really funny. Some are ethnic Korean and speak korean well and are used to the food. Most of them are 'proper' Chinese though.

It's kinda funny that some of them don't speak Korean very well.. they'll sometimes talk to the Korean students in English because they're better at it than they are at Korea. I guess its kinda sucky for them actually since they have to take all the classes for their major in Korean and some of them can't cope. Also they sometimes get their L2 and L3 confused.. one chinese girl said to me "I'll graduate in two thousand and gu" which was pretty funny.

One of my chinese students is a chinese 'chinese delivery boy' haha.

They are forced to take my basic English class for some reason, and some of them are way way ahead of the Korean students who actually are beginners on the whole. One of my chinese students is actually an English teacher in a hagwan as her part time job. It's useful having her there to translate sometimes.

Some of their names are kinda difficult for me to say too. They always laugh when I say them (pesky tones..)

I also had an Uzbekistani student for a couple of classes in the summer, but my intermediate level class was too easy for him so he switched to some other class.

marcus · Joined: 12 Sep 2005

I would've been pissed about the baguettes not being real bread, too.

Paji eh Wong · Joined: 03 Jun 2003

I had a Russian student in a small class full of Koreans last semester. It worked out because he was a brilliant guy to talk to, fortunately for me. He could talk circles around anyone else in the class, so much so that I always had to do pairwork. If I didn't, he'd dominate the class. The thing was, the Korean students were far better at reading in English than he was.

Anyway, moral of the story, look at it as an opportunity to try new stuff.

The Hammer · Posted: Mon Sep 18, 2006 11:10 pm Post subject:

laogaiguk · Joined: 06 Dec 2005 Location: somewhere in Korea

I don't mean this in any kind of offensive way, but has no one here taught in any countries other than Korea???

redlightorchestra · Joined: 16 Jan 2006

It reminds me of an acronym my instructor coined.

He was teaching English in Dubai to Soldiers.

They were unwilling students.
he called his job, TEFNAR.

Teaching English For No Apparent Reason

MarionG · Joined: 14 Sep 2006

I taught Business English and American Investment Terminology to a number of French men in Paris and found them delightful.

Although I think it's true for everyone, it may be especially true of French men that they respond positively to praise, i.e. "because you're French, and the French are so cosmopolitan, I know that you must be enjoying the cultural challenge of your time in Korea." Then they can tell you, hopefully in a way that furthers their language acquisition, about the challenges they've faced and how they've overcome them.

Worked for me....