Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Yu_Bum_suk]

Yesterday I heard something about Japanese visitors coming to our school. Today I found out that they were coming specifically to observe my fourth-block class of second-grade middle schoolers. This week's textbook lesson theme is on the Internet, so I had prepared a lesson involving, you guessed it, the Internet. The VP says the school district chose me because 'you are best teacher in geun (county)' but I think he's just being flattering. I go talk to co-teach.

'Is the 2-1 classroom computer working all right?' I asked my co-teacher.

'Oh yes, I checked it this morning' she replied.

I gathered they'd want to see a lesson plan so I filled out an entire page with as much detail and as many sub-points as possible and made 10 copies, as opposed to my usual 4-6 point plan which is really just a checklist. I thought they'd really be impressed: an introduction on what they did during Chuseok using the past tense, a phonics lesson, the textbook dialogue, re-writing the dialogue, a review of movie genres (the dialogue theme), a lesson on English websites, and then a song-listening excercise if there was still time. Yep, the Japs should be really impressed, I thought. I gave the Internet handout with a list of vocab to the co-teacher in case she wanted something to translate instead of just standing at the back doing nothing like usual.

I go early to check on the computer and the Internet isn't working. Well, this is a fucking surprise. 'Quick, get the computer teacher' I tell a student and go downstairs to wait.

Well, the Japs are late. 'No', says the VP, 'don't start yet'. Five or ten minutes later, 'yes', says the VP, start without us. I start while the computer teacher's frantically trying to get the Net working again. Missing the phonics lesson and coming in half-through the dialogue, the Japs arrive along with the administrations of both my middle and high schools, all the English teachers from both schools, and a bunch of school district officials. The back of the classroom is packed. Surprise! the girls go scared stiff and silent. But we press on, me dragging out the first half of the lesson as long as possible since we can't really do the Internet stuff. One of the Japs is trying to yak away to a student in English while I'm teaching. I have a handout so the students can also re-write the dialogue while I'm writing on the board. I notice that about 1/3 of them aren't writing anything down. Should I stop and demonstrate how lazy and / or thick about 1/3 of Korean students are or just carry on? I'll just carry on. With about five minutes left we've pretty well exhusted the non-Net material. It's situations like this for which I normally reserve hang-man and bingo, but I'll just start the Internet hand-out without the Internet. The bell goes and I figure this lesson has been about a 50% success.

'I think you did a really good job' says one English teacher.

'Oh very good, very thank-you' says the VP.

The Japs all seem super impressed and delighted.

I'm up for a big round of praise about a lesson that would have left me feeling mediocre at best if what transpired would have happened without the help of the delegation. The delegation thinks that what I did was so original despite the fact that they only saw about a third of my intended lesson.

Then everyone wants to drag me off on a tour of the school and then to lunch, so that I end up missing my next class. What educational value this visit has produced.

It was, however, very interesting talking to the Japanese English teachers, one of whom had superbly fluent English. They were surprised at how much time our students have to spend at school, and Japan has a bad reputation itself when it comes to overworking kids.

Now the delegation is off to see an Elementary school and an English camp before flying home on Thursday. I just see so many similarities between their problems and ours.

[bosintang]

I can only speak from my short experiences in Japan, but in my board of education the school day is actually longer in Japan (for middle-school students), but the day includes many non-academic activities like running training, sports, school council meetings, and clubs. My students were basically at school from about 7am until 6pm. However, the students didn't suffer the same hagwon craziness as Korean students and even the most studious students would only go to 'juku' once or twice a week and not until the crazy hours of the night that Korean students go to them.

Another thing, as bad as the English program in Korea is (or may seem), if my BoE is at all representative, I think Japan's is much worse. The textbooks are worse (basically organised the same as Korean textbooks with even more cultural ass-kissing, retarded topics and stories, and instead of focus on four skills, only focus on rote reading and writing. As much as Korean students might dislike studying English, Japanese students *hate* studying English. English ALTs (Assistant Language Teachers) are very under-utilised (and paid accordingly, it really is a bottom-feeder job in Japan), and most are glorified tape-recorders. However like Korea, its varies a bit from school to school and teacher to teacher (maybe not as much as Korea though). In all, even my top students in my school in Japan would fall well within the bottom half of my students in Korea in English ability.

One other thing, it seems Japanese are obsessed with trying to learn English using the audiolingual method (mindless repetition drills: "Everyone, repeat after me three times.."). It's brainless, boring, and an awful way to try to effectively learn a language beyond learning a few short phrases. See the post on the 'Best of Utube' thread for that tv show where they combine learning English with aerobics to see what I mean.

EDIT: Shoot me now please. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5qoMfBJUeI

[Yu_Bum_suk]

[cruisemonkey]

The same delegation dropped by my class yesterday when I was doing 'Airport' dialogues - they were videotaping and snapping pics like crazy... at the time, of course, I was working with the shyest, least accomplished student in the class.

[Yu_Bum_suk]