Read 568 times

  • L I
  • Waygook Lord

    • 7777

    • October 03, 2011, 01:50:58 pm
Will you teach zoom / phone lessons? Have you in the past? Any advice?


  • Rye
  • Expert Waygook

    • 718

    • March 20, 2022, 03:43:11 pm
    • A side street near Cheongju
Phone lessons are excruciating. They make a teacher go bald, and kids not to want to ever study English again. Whoever thinks that by including them, or insisting on them, as a teaching tool for young learners, needs to be removed from any program decision making, regarding English education. Even as a fun exercise, phone conversations with young learners, for the most part, do not work. They are really not fun in most instances.

Here's why:

* Parents forget pre-arranged times and get annoyed when you phone.
* No one home when you phone. Then the angry parent wonders why their little darling missed out.
* Siblings answer and then hang-up.
* Siblings take the mickey out of you.
* Students and parents also hang-up for no apparent reason.
* Siblings or friends yelling and screaming in the background.
* Uncontrollable laughing from the student when you are trying to converse with them.
* Long periods of silence
* Yes/no to everything.
* Mothers answering all the questions in the background.
* And the best one....total silence.

If you must do it then:

* Keep it super easy.
* Aim the content at the slowest and least able.
* Don't introduce any new ideas or words.
* Speak super clearly and slow down. They can't see your mouth, eyes, or gestures.
* Brush up on your introductory Korean. Always start in Korean. It saves the phone slams.
* Keep it to a minute or two. It gets tough even for the chatty ones.

Look, others may of had some success, but the teachers that I observed, and the ones that have complained to me about having to do phone teaching, all came up with the same problems. Good luck if you are doing it LI.




I had to do this a number of years ago. I sent each number a text message in advance. Inevitably some never picked up but most did in the end. If all else fails, you can always ask them if their refrigerator is running.
« Last Edit: July 11, 2022, 10:22:33 pm by Billy Herrington »
A proud member of The Hateful Eight


  • 745sticky
  • The Legend

    • 2200

    • March 26, 2020, 01:52:57 pm
    • Korea
i did video calls for a few camps when I first arrived (don't have to do those anymore, thank god). if you can, insist on video, phone has to be absolutely miserable.

i had 15 minutes with each student, the one that worked best for me was a "movie camp" where i just pulled up scene-it on zoom. just make sure to also throw in some vocab and maybe a crossword puzzle and a word search and whatnot for them to do at home to appease the coteacher, assuming they care, and you're good to go.


  • hangook77
  • Waygook Lord

    • 5489

    • September 14, 2017, 09:10:12 am
    • Near Busan
Man, I did some calling during covid in 2020.  But my school at the time sent me home at noon and I had to call a few kids in the afternoon.  Good trade off as far as I was concerned,  But then my Friday school had me start calling every single kid I taught on Fridays and talk for a couple of minutes asking basic questions to.  That was irritating but it didn't really go on for too long in the spring of 2020.  I was fortunately at mostly smaller elementary schools where kids mostly came in from June 2020 and beyond.  Some larger schools had only some kids come in and some stay home.  Middle schools even worse.  For friend who taught there and had to do online classes and more call outs for most of 2020 and even into 2021.  I think it really burned them out.  So glad I could mostly avoid it. 

My main school has always wanted camps even during the height of covid while all my others have cancelled them ever since.  I read the kids "books" or "story" ppts for elementary and add some game or activity then tell my co teacher to find a craft or something to add to it based on the theme.  Problem solved.  (I pull the boss card.  Mwa ha ha ha.)  I have a 3 day one at the end of the month just as schools end. 

Then August, it's off to a beach location like Pohang or Busan or if too expensive, or it's off to Seoul instead.  Motels and hotels along the coast getting booked up and too expensive like crazy.  So, probably off to Seoul.  Plenty of deals.  We shall see. 
745sticky, Augustiner, Bakeacake, D.L.Orean, Lazio, Mithras, Renma, Rye are losers who are blocked.  Good riddance to them. They will still be in Korea 10 years from now unless they are retired.  Either way, they will be poor since all they know how to do is troll rather than work for something more


* Mothers answering all the questions in the background.

Additionally, mothers answering them incorrectly.


  • Rye
  • Expert Waygook

    • 718

    • March 20, 2022, 03:43:11 pm
    • A side street near Cheongju
Additionally, mothers answering them incorrectly.

 ;D ;D ;D


  • Kyndo
  • Moderator LVL 1

    • I am a geek!!

    • March 02, 2027, 11:00:00 pm
    • Gyeongsangbuk-do
Then August, it's off to a beach location like Pohang or Busan or if too expensive, or it's off to Seoul instead.  Motels and hotels along the coast getting booked up and too expensive like crazy.  So, probably off to Seoul.  Plenty of deals.  We shall see. 

      Some unasked for advice: don't go to either Pohang or Busan. Go to the smaller cities and towns along the coast! The beaches are just as good, and they're a lot less likely to be crowded.
Also, motels and hotels kind of suck. One should be looking into pensions, or AirbnBs. If you go with a friend or 2, they're more or less the same price, but you get an entire home to yourself. Last winter vacation, we ended up near Gangneun, rented a pension 5 with a big yard, a deck, and a hot-tub. As there were 4 and half of us splitting the bill, per person it ended up being about the same as a cheap motel. And there's *loads* of stuff to do if you have a vehicle and enjoy a bit of exploring!


  • Bakeacake
  • Super Waygook

    • 440

    • July 12, 2010, 01:35:40 pm
    • Pohang South Korea
      Some unasked for advice: don't go to either Pohang or Busan. Go to the smaller cities and towns along the coast! The beaches are just as good, and they're a lot less likely to be crowded.
Also, motels and hotels kind of suck. One should be looking into pensions, or AirbnBs. If you go with a friend or 2, they're more or less the same price, but you get an entire home to yourself. Last winter vacation, we ended up near Gangneun, rented a pension 5 with a big yard, a deck, and a hot-tub. As there were 4 and half of us splitting the bill, per person it ended up being about the same as a cheap motel. And there's *loads* of stuff to do if you have a vehicle and enjoy a bit of exploring!

I second this.  Don't go to Pohang.