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Being told by principal to 'Raise English Ability'

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Wretchard:
I have been at my school for a while. I know my co-workers well. I get along with my co-teachers well. I know the curriculum. I teach 10 extra classes a week in the afternoons.

But my principal has told a Korean teacher that that I must find a way to raise their English ability, and he is going to tell me this next week. She is giving me a heads up.

I teach 22 classes from grade three to grade 6 a week, meaning I see each class once a week... And I work in a public school in Seoul.

I am just looking for advice or and ideas or methods people have tried that have raised their students ability.

Learning a language is not something that happens overnight, but maybe my principal wants it to be that way.

eggieguffer:
Isn't 'raising students' English ability' just the same as 'teaching the students English'? I mean what does he think you're doing now, making them worse?

matthews_world:
Just nod your head and say 'Yes.'  Don't speak out against this.    Don't tell him that you are too busy as they will become disgruntled with you and come evaluation time, this might be a mark against you and future employment.

Continue to do your job well. There may be something that they don't like about you.  Ask them if there are any complaints at this time which could be addressed.

You may want to give suggestions on further avenues achieve these lofty aims - morning broadcast time, etc. but just keep with the status quo and try to always improve your teaching.

woman-king:

--- Quote from: matthews_world on May 15, 2012, 10:00:14 PM ---Just nod your head and say 'Yes.'  Don't speak out against this.    Don't tell him that you are too busy as they will become disgruntled with you and come evaluation time, this might be a mark against you and future employment.

Continue to do your job well. There may be something that they don't like about you.  Ask them if there are any complaints at this time which could be addressed.

You may want to give suggestions on further avenues achieve these lofty aims - morning broadcast time, etc. but just keep with the status quo and try to always improve your teaching.

--- End quote ---

Yep.  Smile, nod, say you are working hard to do so and give one or two examples of things you do in class to, you know, teach English.  Then keep on doing what you're doing--you sound like you're already working hard at being an English teacher.  Keep improving and learning more, but no, there's not a magical method to "raise their level" overnight.  Some Koreans seem to believe that just being in the presence of a native English speaker is powerful enough to raise someone's English ability almost by osmosis or something.  There's not much else you can do besides do your job well.

In Korea, the role of principals' is to make suggestions to their subordinates and be the "idea person" who implements new things in the school, which teachers are responsible for actually carrying out, and then take credit for the ideas that seem successful.  If he wanted something concrete, like another after-school program or an English drama club or something, I'd suggest you at least make an effort to follow that up, but if he's being as vague as "raise their English level" he's either just spouting platitudes to sound like a good "idea man," or he has comically unrealistic expectations about what English speakers can accomplish by their mere existence in a classroom.

Keep doing what you're doing, and don't sweat it too much.  :)

hilarity ensues:
It's just one of those meaningless things that principals say because they don't have a clue and they don't know what else to say to you.
It could also be that he's applying pressure because he plans on asking you to do some extra classes or something.

I received a talk like this from my new principal, and a few weeks later I've got these ridiculous 1 hour 'free talking' lessons where I'm supposed to just talk to children about random things and it was made very clear to me that there should be no attempt whatsoever to actually structure it in any way… and it's one of the worst things I have ever had to do.

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