Korean Job Discussion Forums

Wrench · Joined: 07 Apr 2005

I love my Job I am pretty damn good at it. They just wont let me teach. In the last two months I taught less then 15 days put together and half of those days were cancelled for some thing. I ended up geting two new partner teachers which I don't think have more then 1 year of experience between them. They decided they needed an entire week to do introductions.. Seriously.. Introductions take 10 minutes or less not 40 minutes. More then 75% of the kids know me anyway, since I was their teacher last year.

The new teachers were concerned that the kids will not understand me.. I just noded and smiled. I had at least one class. It was a blast I was glad to see the kids and they were glad to see me. After the class was over the new teacher was in shock that the kids had an easy and a fun time in my class. They were also suprised at the amount of energy I put into my class (since I am very calm and reserved otherwise) Good god they really have no faith in foreign teachers here do they? Whats more scary is that they have no faith in these kids either..

passport220 · Joined: 14 Jun 2006 Location: Gyeongsangbuk-do province

I had one teacher explain to me that he wanted me to sit out my first week of his classes as it was an important time for him to set the tone and expectations he will have of his class in the coming semester. He will shoulder the bulk of the load in teaching his classes so, it makes sense. I would not take it personally.

rawiri · Joined: 01 Jun 2003 Location: Lovely day for a fire drill.

My old co teacher who was superb has been replaced by someone who cn't really speak any english. God it's frustrating, just heightens the hate magnitude i have going on with koreans at the moment, some are really getting on my wick.

dridgway · Joined: 18 Sep 2006 Location: Suwon, S. Korea

I'm just getting back into teaching and with all new co-teachers as well. I'm finding it pretty frustrating that just as I was getting used to the people I worked with on a daily basis and they were getting used to me it all got shuffled around. It sounds like this is generally what happens with all public school teachers though so I'll just have to get used to that part. It seemed easier the first time around, probably because it was my first time teaching and I had no expectations at all.

Do others in public schools, specifically highschools, do all of the lesson planning or is it a shared thing with co-teachers?

Kimchieluver · Joined: 02 Mar 2005

bosintang · Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2007 8:23 pm Post subject:

I've had a rotation of co-teachers, and yeah, it's a bit frustrating, trying to work out expectation and capabilities with them. The biggest difficulty (like last term) is that they don't see eye-to-eye on anything. Last term, it pretty well reverted to me making and delivering a lesson plan and they just sitting at the back of the class picking their nails (if they came at all), which I was perfectly fine with. I hope it goes back to the same.

dridgway · Joined: 18 Sep 2006 Location: Suwon, S. Korea

I did all of the lesson planning last term as well and I'd like that to be different this time around, but the more I try the more I think it may be easier to do it myself than deal with all of the communication problems. haha

Wrench · Joined: 07 Apr 2005

I told the teachers to participate more but these are females and they just don't do that kind of thing.. Got not clue why.. I prefer males as coteachers.

Are they intimidated by me?

dridgway · Joined: 18 Sep 2006 Location: Suwon, S. Korea

I hear that.

yingwenlaoshi · Joined: 12 Feb 2007 Location: ... location, location!

Sounds like your new co-teachers believe that they know more than you about teaching because they're Korean, the kids are Korean, and you're not.

Kind of like having an extra badly-behaved kid in the class. Like telling them not to do something and they go ahead and continue right on doing it. "I won't let this monkey tell me what to do."

I seriously don't know how you guys put up with it. Sure, in some cases these dolts are good to control the class, but the class should be behaving anyway.

And 40 students!

What a crappy situation.

ilovebdt · Joined: 03 Jun 2005 Location: Nr Seoul

nautilus · Joined: 26 Nov 2005 Location: Je jump, Tu jump, oui jump!

rawiri · Joined: 01 Jun 2003 Location: Lovely day for a fire drill.

Exactly right about the stresses. For me the job itself isn't really that difficult and i enjoy teaching now that i have a good grasp of the material and have pretty much figured out how best to get it out to the majority of my kids.

The stresses are dealing with supervisors with little to no english ability, knowing that i'm not and never will be considered a real part of the team regardless of my teaching ability, not being able to explain myself fully and speak up for myself, having to whether coworkers looks of derision and suspicion even though i've been there 10 months and put in a solid effort, being uncomfortable at obligatory dinners/noraebangings etc, putting up with passive aggressive behaviour by some ajosshi coworkers/"alumni".

It's not all bad but problems do periodically seem compounded for some strange reason.

I had a semi argument with a 5th grade teacher today, he told me off for not speaking korean at lunch, i told him that if he wanted me to be able to be able to sit down and converse in korean with him in a natural way then he would have to wait a while because it takes a long time to learn, to which he said "if i went to america i would learn english very fast", then started on a tirade about why foreigners are bad becuse they come here just for the money.

Good lord i can't understand these people sometimes, thankfully the kids are just kids and i usually get more sense from them than i do after speaking to my coworkers.

poet13 · Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2007 10:46 pm Post subject:

"I used to dispense discipline instantaneously myself but got into trouble last month for belting 3 kids with a strap (the parents went nuts) so now I'm on orders to not to handle anything myself, which is frustrating."

You administered corporal punishment? I'm surprised someone didn't demand your head.

dmbfan · Joined: 09 Mar 2006

Oh, the joys of teaching ESL, eh? I do hope that I, we, will look back on this one day and laugh.

I am in a similar situation as most of you. 22 classes a week.........each class is taught only once. Each class has between 36-40 kids. I teach mainly 4th - 6th grade (with one 3rd grade class on Fridays........and rotates through the other six). Yeah, I there are 7 classes in each grade..................sigh. We use, or they wanted to use, these stupid books from the GEPIK program.......the ones with "Jinho" and "Nami"........ya'll know the ones. But, no big deal. I requested to do my own material.......no problem with that.

Today, being the second day of classes, is just like yesterday. Intro's, expectations, team assignments (I divide the class into six teams.....I usually give them soccer team names). No problems, really. I have some new co-teachers though..........oh, I'll get to a story on that after I finish the first part.

All of the classes were pretty good both yesterday and today. But, there was this one 5th grade class in particular. It took them 20 minutes to sit down and shut up, with the female korean co-teacher sitting there. She asked when I was going to start teaching, and I said that I would begin when the are quiet. She stat back down............and just stat there. No big deal. So, after the 20 minutes, I got up. I pointed to 4 consistant trouble makers, and had them come up to the front of the class. Then, I opened to the door, and told the rest of the class to get out. The Korean teacher kind of freaked out, ya know........making excuses, blah-blah. I told her that ................

...........wait, I have to chang rooms. There will be a teachers meeting in my classroom in about 5 minutes...........I shall return.

dmbfan.