Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Hater Depot]

My girlfriend, who teaches Japanese, made the wise observation that the best students are those who want to go slowly through the textbook, and the worst are those who insist in racing through the material so they can get to the next level. I saw this recently with a nice lady who did not improve at all in the three months I had her. One of her last lessons literally went down like this. Our topic was dreams.

HD: Did you have any dreams last night?

Anise: Yes.

HD: Ok, good. What was it about?

Anise: Run... run.. (points at herself) black wear.

HD: Black wear?

Anise: Yes. (makes gestures which loosely resemble putting on a jacket)

HD: Ok, so you were wearing black clothing?

Anise: (looks at me like she cannot believe what I just said) No, the devil.


But when 3 months were up, she insisted on going to the next level. And holy shit was she excited about it. I guess he didn't notice that she had not improved one iota.

Another student decided he wanted to level up to the native speaker's class. So I gave him the level test, in which he proceeded to regurgitate something he had obviously memorized and ignored all my attempts to elicit anything spontaneous. Ok, fine, I have seen this before and I put him in my basic class. Congrats, says I, you're in the native speaker class. Oh, was he upset. He demanded to know why I hadn't put him in the highest level. I gently explained that he was not ready for it (those students are near-native, one has Canadian citizenship). He pouted and wanted to know how much time it would take to get there. I generously said one or two years. Unsurprisingly he never came to class.

Meanwhile, my best students often insist on staying in the basic class, and I have to order them to go to intermediate and never come back.