Welcome to the forum raisedbywoolves and rianshearer. I'm glad to see more people joining and contributing. We kind of hit a slow stretch the last couple months.
Contrary to Epik rhetoric, the coteachers aren't involved whatsoever. Although it's technically illegal, they don't come to most of my classes, so the kids see this as rest time/study other classes time.
Yeah, that's pretty much how it works. The lack of interest on the part of coteachers, plus seeing each class only about six times a semester---once every two weeks, not taking into account holidays, tests, and random cancellations---makes me feel like an entertainer a lot of the time. Many Korean teachers feel the same way about our classes, telling us (and the students) that it's a chance to get away from the rigidity of the Korean English classes, and there are certain behavioral expectations in place for English teachers / monkeys. I work in a middle school, and even though a lot of students are bigger than me, I can still scare them if I need to, haha.
Look on the bright side, the semester's almost over and you can recharge over break, even if it's only for a little while. Start off the next time with something fun and relaxing. The "
find someone who . . . " activity works well for me on first classes. (Even though it won't be your first class with them, you could just pretend, haha). Not sure if they'd consider the bingo too childish, but whatever, you can also get them to make sentences from their answer sheets (ex: Whose favorite color is purple? ________'s favorite color is purple.) The drawback is that the students will have to move around the room, something I don't know'd work with high schoolers.
There's another thread on
classroom discipline with some good tips. I haven't tried many of them because I don't see them enough to have any consistant reward / punishment system. Plus, they kept moving the students around to different classes so the rosters don't stay the same for very long. I just try to keep looking on the bright side and not getting too frustrated with the students. Yes, they can be lazy and yes, there really ought to be someone in the room helping me and yes, the students really ought to be able to keep their mouths shut for two fucking seconds . . . but they're good kids, most of the time, and it's a good job, most of the time, so, yeah.
My lessons aren't high-tech because (a) I don't have the time, and (b) the equipment in the language lab doesn't work half the time. So I just try to keep it simple, making worksheets, activities, and trying to incorporate stuff from the book. Some of the lessons are brutal, though, so I've got to try to do more fun stuff. I don't give candy, though, because I don't believe in rewarding students for shit they're supposed to do.
As for coteachers, there are pros and cons to having them in the room. To generalize a little bit, they either never show up or they try to do everything (and do everything in Korean). Neither one is ideal, and so at the beginning of next semester at the workshop I'm going to try to come to an understanding about what would make our classes work best. Last semester I gave them the option of not coming to class if they didn't want to, since they always complained of being busy, and something like 75% never came. I'm going to try laying down the law a little bit more next time around. Raisedbywoolves, if the coteachers don't show up . . . meh, just do your best. It's frustrating to spin your wheels for five classes a day and have nothing go right, but if nobody else gives a damn about that, neither should you. Just do your best, try to teach them something (anything, even if it's not directly "English"), and look on the bright side.
You'll also gradually get a better understanding of Korea as your year goes on, so you can scout out better opportunities if you'd like to stay another year or more. You could always try Jeollanam-do, haha . . . I had never heard of Samcheok before you mentioned it. It looks very scenic, I'll give you that.
