After a year and a half at my school, they've finally killed my will to teach

[korr]

I know other people have said this already, but dude. Seriously, change schools next year. Your boss is starting to sound like one of those cartoonish evil bosses in Korean dramas.

[#basedcowboyshirt]

3 more months! 

I know what you mean. It's almost funny because it's just so ludicrously goofy here. I mean, sometimes it even works in my favour (I guess) - none of my coteachers could be bothered to set up an open class, so when I asked my boss (who is not my coteacher) he just said that he sent good scores.

[flasyb]

It's stunts like this that really make me relish my camp classes.

They give you no textbook, no input into exams, take away your materials and technology. Basically, they cut off your legs and tell you that your life is easy because you get to sit in a chair all day.

It angers me but doesn't surprise me that they would fire a KET for using too much English in English class  . Most of the KETs at my school conduct lessons almost entirely (95-99%) in Korean (I'm listening to one teach right now!). To have one making the effort to teach in English would be amazing. Of course, the Korean students at my school might complain too. They just want the easy translation life that they've been used to for years - from middle school to high school. To have a teacher who breaks that cycle of Korean lecture about English is just too radical for them to take. "We don't understand because you didn't translate everything!" - at least some KETs are realising that an understanding of English, in English is preferable to just translation.

The irony of your boss asking you to come it at 7 to break the fast with the students and presumably speak English with them and yet at the same time firing a teacher because she spoke "too much English" is not lost on me either.

Leave these clowns in cloud cuckoo land!

[Andyroo]

Contract KT for one of my afterschool classes gets fired because students complain that she spoke too much English in class and blamed their low attendance on her. Her English was flawless and she was an incredibly good teacher.

Last year the students at my school loved to play me and the contract teacher off each other. They would complain to her that my classes were too hard (too much English) and her classes were boring.
She took a sense in pride in the first but was beating herself up about the later.

So I told her to put two and two together; their perfect lesson would be all games and zero English.
That is why the students aren't in charge of their own education :)

[DWAEDGIMORIGUKBAP]

Boss tells me I 'should' come to school at 7 (work starts at 8 ) to 'eat the earlybird breakfast with students.'

Yes please be 'dilligent.'    :)

I have been reading a lot of posts here and on eslcafe recently about this new trend of public school NETS having to talk to the kids during lunch breaks (but not paid ot because it's not defined as teaching, even though you essentially are not taking time off to relax and eat but are instead educating your students) or before classes in the morning or other desk warming periods.

It's like they want to give the kids an immersion experience with you as the star, without realising the impacts it has on your private time and life outside of school.  No longer just a teacher but new social being in their lives.

How soon will it be until NETS have to have a few kids sleeping over on a rotation basis or meet and greet kids outside their apartments on the way to school to make conversation lol, all without any overtime pay of course.  Visiting kids apts to have dinner with them and their famillies, tag along to familly vacations to practice 'how are you I'm fine thank N you' all day long lol.

All because they wont just accept western ways of English education and stop insisting that English is 'fun and easy!' and treat it like any other subject where, you know - the kids have to actually makew consious effort to improve.  Or try to remove the cultural invisible wall that makes the kids think you are an alien from out of space and thus they can never really communicate with you, although I guess this new trend is a way of them doing this, but really is not enough, the kids need less cultural uri nara programming from a young age and taught that koreans are not a distinct, unique breed, seperate form the rest of the human race.

Man reading these posts, writing these posts from here in China I really still find it hard to beleive how bloody absurd that country is in it's dealings with foriegners etc, it just all seems too magic realist even though I lived it for 8 years, when you're not there it just seems to silly to be true sometimes.  At the same time, I understand how Korean history and events has shaped this outlook they have and the need for a strong identity in the face of constantly having it tried to be erased by other nations.  Still, it makes for some good absurdist comedy - even though it is not truth being transmorgrified through surrealist techiniques - it is just the plain truth presented as it is lol.

Man oh man, Korea...  They were the best of times, they were the worst of times....  Nervous I was indeed and am, but why would you then say that I am mad?  etc....

[flasyb]

Boss tells me I 'should' come to school at 7 (work starts at 8 ) to 'eat the earlybird breakfast with students.'

Or try to remove the cultural invisible wall that makes the kids think you are an alien from out of space and thus they can never really communicate with you, although I guess this new trend is a way of them doing this, but really is not enough, the kids need less cultural uri nara programming from a young age and taught that koreans are not a distinct, unique breed, seperate form the rest of the human race.

Funnily enough, my CT told me yesterday during our smoke break that, "All students think what foreigners do is strange."*

Just a couple of weeks ago, after I'd finished a camp (7-9pm every night for a week), my second grade high school students seemed to really enjoy it and they told me as much afterwards (I loved the camp too, a great bunch of kids!). Then they said, "We really like you. You are good foreigner," to me.

Then you have posters talking about being told not to discipline the students because they are "scared of foreigners".

What is it that they teach these kids to make them think that foreigners are so weird, so scary, so other? These behaviours are taught, not acquired. You teach them foreigners are scary and then tell the foreigner to smile more because he scares the kids. Where does the presupposition that because you are foreign, you are bad come from?

* Of course, I remember learning about other countries in geography class and thinking some things were strange but he wasn't talking about that. He was saying that they think the things I do are strange because I'm foreign.

[Andyroo]

What is it that they teach these kids to make them think that foreigners are so weird, so scary, so other? These behaviours are taught, not acquired. You teach them foreigners are scary and then tell the foreigner to smile more because he scares the kids. Where does the presupposition that because you are foreign, you are bad come from?

I can understand pre middle school kids because there are not a lot of foreigners around so gawking at them and asking stupid questions is a natural reaction.... I think their parents should be embarrassed but kids will be kids.

I teach High School and don't encounter the scared of foreigners thing from many students. A lot of them had a foreign teacher in middle school. You see them at least an hour a week so even those that seem really shy at the start of the year will be fine soon enough.

It's really the teachers who are letting the side down.

Also in defence of the people being told not to discipline them I think the reason given might be just a face saver. The Korean Teachers normally like to handle discipline (or ignore it) and don't want the NET yelling in English at kids that don't understand why they are in trouble i.e.  going off at a kid for sleeping.

Or they work in a hogwon where discipline no matter how much it's deserved might upset the customers ..... don't worry about the other students getting a worse experience as a result of no discipline.

[peasgoodnonsuch]

You know, I'm currently in my 3rd year here and the good 'ole "but there aren't many foreigners" thing is starting to wear really thin. Unless they live outside of Gyeonggi-do, most Koreans are exposed to foreigners plenty.

Back in my hometown, I could count the black people that lived there on ONE HAND and the Asians on 2. And yet, I am not afraid of black people or Asians. Nor did I ever stare, point, and say "black person" when I saw one as a child. It's a matter of what's a culturally acceptable way to view anyone belonging to the "other". Children here don't get corrected when they point and yell out, they get positively reinforced, often by foreigners themselves. The problem is, it's not our job or place to teach these kids they're being rude. It's their parents job. But the parents don't see anything wrong with it, so it never get's fixed.

Take a look at this Korea Tourism ad. It's the perfect example of how deeply rooted their view of foreigners as an extreme "other" is. It's also a good example of why the Korea Tourism board continually fails to make good ads for their country. Honestly, I don't know if they can ever change the way they view foreigners, and if they do it's going to happen LONG after I'm gone.



While I'm at it. Enjoy this rather amusing and all too
 apt one.

[#basedcowboyshirt]

Oh Peas - I'm dying.

Also, I just told my three coteachers that actually do come to class and work with me that the other three don't do anything.

Now the three dilligent ones are super riled up. Good.