Korean Job Discussion Forums

[dharma bum]

Teaching Children vs. Teaching Adults:
How do the two compare? What do you think are the pros and cons of each?

I've personally never taught adults, but I would imagine that doing so would allow me to hold more interesting classroom conversations and to focus less on disciplining the students. On the other hand, students might be more demanding about having things done their way; there's also the chance of having to tread lightly with students who are much older than you are (maybe?).

What do you think?

[Son Deureo!]

The best thing about teaching adults instead of kids is that classroom discipline is not an issue. Mr. Park and Mr. Lee do not start fighting in class. If I don't see Miss Kim in the classroom I do not have to look for her under the table. Adult students never try to stick their fingers up my ass, or each others'. At least not in the classroom.

The biggest downside to teaching adults is that most of the adults who can afford to pay for English classes work from 9 to 5, if not longer. This means that it's hard to find full time work teaching them that doesn't involve split shifts. With kids that is a lot less likely to happen.

[twg]

I found adults were kind of unreliable. Not that they're lazy or anything, they just stuff to do like working until 1am, or going drinking with their bosses.

But depending up the hagwon, you might be responsible for making sure they don't do that. Someone once told me that the big two Pagoda and YBM have their teachers rated by the students constantly so the boss can hang that over their heads if attendance drops. But never having worked for either, I don't know if that's true or some vindictive ESL chimp talking smack...

But regardless, split-shifts are crap.

[venus]

I found teaching adults a sweet relief to teaching kids.

Firstly, they are choosing to be there, so are more intentive, want to learn and don't act like brats.

Secondly, I enjoyed the classes more as I just felt as though I was more of a real teacher doing a respectable, proffessional job.

Thirdly, you can converse with them in class, which is nice and often make friends with them. I had some great times with some of my students outside of class.

Only possible gripe is that the younger adults in perhaps the 20-25 age group treat choosing hakwans as a polularity contest. This means that if you don't act wacky or fun all the time, they'll think it's boring and switch schools. These are known as serial hakawan whores.

They are in the minority though. But I honest to god actually had a 28 year old ex pro baseball player who used to act like a teenager all the time. He would even mutter aloud 'jemi obsoyo, jemi obsoyo' when we had to do serious study....

Overal, I found teaching adults to be a much less stressful and a more enjoyable, rewarding experience.

Of course the split shifts can be a pain in the bum though...

[Julius]

Adults can be a pain I find. Impossible to please all of them , they have their own agendas. They are also obsessed with status and quite sensitive to whatever you say or do. tricky.

much prefer kids. You can just have fun.

[Captain Corea]

A way to get away from the "status" bitwith adults is to teach 1:1. Then the class is private and they don't have to worry about their "face" too much.




Adults hug you less

[laogaiguk]

[twg]

[Hotpants]

Kids - fun; receptive to new ideas; you can teach them many things for the first time in their lives; arguably more about edutainment than adults; can pass wind and look unkempt in class without criticism.

Adults - don't need to shout 'sit down and shut up' a zillion times; leave you with more energy left at the end of the day; often not so fun; can apply 'real' ESL/linguistic theory approaches that you've learnt from your TEFL courses.

Overall, I like kindergarten best - a barrel of laughs, and you can really leave a lasting impression on them of what foreigners are all about.

[Pa Jan Jo A Hamnida]

Adults are better even though the pay is less and you will have a split shift.