Korean Job Discussion Forums

[bosintang]

A good 30-40% of my students are a waste of my time and theirs. Teaching low-level and mixed classes is starting to feel more like glorified bootcamp rather than a classroom.

Welcome to the wonderful world of the Korean public education system, where you'll get the same crap-ass education as everyone else unless your mommy forces you to attend that other great institution of learning, the Korean hagwon.

[Kimchieluver]

If Korean students weren't guaranteed to move to the next grade, they would actually try and make some effort to learn. It is not only the public schools fault for passing them, but their parents who let them get away with failing grades year after year.

If I received an undesirable grade when I was young, I was punished. Sometimes this meant no TV or computer time for a month. Sometimes it was threatening to take me out of football or hockey.

I can't imagine what a parent here tells their kid who has 14% in middle school grade 2 English and doesn't know the answer to "How are You?". I mean after learning English since grade 3, the little idiot should no how to say "I'm fine, thank you.".

[hubba bubba]

hahaha

Minji, if you don't get an A in Engrishee I'm taking you out of Chinese and piano and taekwondo and art and math and science hogwan!!!

[Kimchieluver]

[EFLtrainer]

[bellum99]

[Kimchieluver]

[Yu_Bum_suk]

Yeah, it's downright astounding how little some kids can learn here, isn't it? Imagine what it would be like if, after a compulsory year, English were no longer a compulsory subject and students had to pass to move on to the next level.

However, there's a lot we can do and a lot of small victories we can make, even if you're constantly making screw-ups like I am. My worst days at public school still trump hogwan by a mile. Today I was doing a simplified version of my grade one middle school lesson with my grade one high school vocational class. At least all of them stay in their seats and only 3 or 4 were chatty. Half the class actually did all the work without any proding, a couple of them knew most of the answers, I only had to confiscate two hand mirrors, only two came in a minute late, and only one student I'd classify as utterly useless and she still said 'I lub you teachah' and waved goodbye after class. That would have been a great class at hogwan.

Then at lunch I was doing some extra work with two middle school students and was describing something about a map when another English teacher was around. The English teacher didn't understand something that the student did, and I know that's only because of my prior work with the student. Students like her more than make up for the ones for whom my only goal is to make them not distrupt class.

[wylies99]

[thegadfly]

Ya know, I wish ONLY 30-40% of the teachers in the Korean ESL market were a waste of people's time and effort...every time I had to hire a new teacher for the school, I would wade through 50-150 resumes to do 10-12 interviews, and often there wouldn't be a person worth hiring in that second round.

Huge difference between someone who is wasting time and someone on whom time is wasted...the biggest part of a teacher's job is to motivate students to learn, however that motivation can be done, candy or caning, sweet words or icy glares...but to just give up straight out the gate?

Perhaps you make a mistake -- just because 60-70% of your students learn something doesn't mean your teaching is the cause -- medical school cadavers teach students a great deal, but would we say that the cadavers are good teachers? Some students learn no matter the source...honestly, it is no measure of my skill if my best students can get my lectures the first time through, it is what I do with the struggling ones, if anything...just like a real teacher isn't measured by how well the good classes go, but how well he holds it together on the bad days.

[Young FRANKenstein]

[ddeubel]

[bosintang]

[Yu_Bum_suk]

[jvalmer]

In my school in Alberta, Canada, French classes were mandatory for me from grade 3 to 10. Starting in middle school, almost all of my French teachers were from Quebec. But I'd say most of my classmates would not be able to hold a conversation in French (85%). The French classes and watching hockey games on the French channel were my only exposure to French.