What in your view is the main mismanagement issue at hogwons?To me that's easy.1. The middle manager. Most schools appoint a manager on the cheap, who must answer to the owner and get results. I know its a difficult position but almost invariably they are in it for theri own ego. This means they either bully or oppress the staff while having little or no management experience or ability.2. Obsession with paperwork. Many Koreans think work = typing everything onto paper.. which nobody ever reads. Often poor managers make up for their lack of skills by resorting to excessive paperwork. They don't seem to get that writing lengthy lesson plans and daily reports every day is mostly unnecessary, exhausting and time wasting. Its simply the wrong focus for a school. 3. A reliance on rules. Once again, a long list of rules does not make a good school. Teaching young people is a dynamic environment that needs flexibility and adaptibility. There is no one size fits all. Usually it is inexperienced and unskilled management that thinks a rules system is all they need.
Why the hell was that deleted?
Because "hakwan". Hurts the eyes, it does.NB: I'm not being serious. I don't know the answer.
Yeah, hahah, what a douche! *nervous laughter*
... uh... uh... uh...I have been teaching in only hagwons here since December 2002 and NONE of those 3 apply.If you work in a smaller hagwon, there is no middle manager. There is a receptionist who also takes on office manager duties, but she (has always been a woman where I've worked) is a fountain of help, a real trooper in times of need. Paperwork? I never had to put ink on paper until my 15th year (other than the yearly contract), but this hagwon needs two-line prep and review notes, and coronovirus negative symptoms checks. Rules? ... I rule my classroom. No one has ever told me what to do or not do, other than finish on time (am sometimes late) and give - or don't give - homework (different hagwons have different such preferences).I was told at my first hagwon on Day 1 to use the audio cassette and computer DVD (this was 2002) and I said flatly "Thanks but I'll only use the book" and acted out the scenes with myself and the more courageous students (as the only foreigner they had just paid to fly overseas, i knew i had leverage).I visit every hagwon BEFORE accepting a job (except my first, which i interviewed on phone the previous foreigner, a famous ESL Cafe/book author who later went to China and supposedly fell off a building to his death). It is important to find a great match between employer and employee.My beef with hagwons? ... ... The dinner break is sometimes 10 minutes long. ... Can't think of anything else (based on my experience - i have had beers over horror stories, but in each case, the teacher has been a bit oblivious to the culture and added fuel rather than water to fire.
Off topic, but on a related note, this being brought up again for the 473rd time in a Korean ESL Forum is even more painful. Hakwan, hagwan, hogwon...The only people that care are those foreigners you tend to duck from when you spot them because they want to tell about how much of the Korean language they've mastered. You know, the ones that when someone says Latte Mart they pretend they mean a coffee shop so that they act surprised when they "get" that you mean Lotte Mart. That literally happened to me in my second year. This tool kept trying to pretend he didn't know where I was talking about so I just pointed to the Lotte Mart across the street and he was like "Ohhh, Lotte Mart." Needless to say I made no attempt to hang out with that douche.
I visit every hagwon BEFORE accepting a job (except my first, which i interviewed on phone the previous foreigner, a famous ESL Cafe/book author who later went to China and supposedly fell off a building to his death).
I'm sure it was just a glitch or technical malfunction. I'll go with benefit of the doubt here. I'm sure no one could be so sensitive as to delete posts just because they argue against their own posts. If that's now against the T.O.S. there are whole threads that are going to get wiped out.
Doesn't this describe pretty much any bureaucracy and most corporate structures? I don't think obsessive record keeping is unique to Korean academies. "Why are they so obsessed with rules? Gets in the way.""Why aren't they following the rules? It creates chaos!""Why are they having us keeping records of everything?""Why are there no records? Who is organizing things here?"Middle management is indeed a problem, but you have to have someone in charge...
Doesn't this describe pretty much any bureaucracy and most corporate structures? I don't think obsessive record keeping is unique to Korean academies.