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ESL Daily: Korea: Shape Up or Ship Out
Korea: Shape Up or Ship Out
The economic crunch has once again reared its ugly head in South Korea. Once the land of “you foreign, have degree, you teacher”, it has now joined the ranks of Japan as a country that is demanding more and offering less. The 17 native English speakers that, “made trouble as a teacher”, and were deemed unfit to be offered a contract renewal, in the Ulsan Public School system, where so judge because they “often yelled at students, argued with Korean teachers...wore indecent clothes...had weight problems...and refused to teach after school”. Anyone that has taught in Korea, and understands the dichotomy between the Korean teachers (who often beat children) and the demands or expectations placed on the foreign staff, can see where this is going. This rather disturbing trend was forecast last year when Hogwans began getting pushed out of the ESL market by the government run public school system. For anyone that doesn’t consider ESL teaching a career (read: puts 110% into their “work”) best start looking at flights to China - Korea don’t want you no more!
5/16/2009Art Williams wrote:
This is interesting news. Certainly I have seen a lot of people walking around who I would describe as 'slouchy' and/or sloppy and I assumed were teachers.
And I often thought these people certainly didn't present a very favorable picture of Western culture. I mean, who would want to learn a language from a culture that produced them?
Of course I don't have any idea of these teacher's classroom performance so I can't say how much that had to do with their dismissal. I must assume that was a significant part of it.
But we, who are here, already know how little we can actually accomplish (I'm speaking of public schools because that's my experience). It's undeniable that around 25% of the kids in these classes could give a flying crap less about learning English.
I'll always remember reading, here, that Korea spends more money than anybody else on English education but still has the lowest scores. I thought that was an incredible stat.
Something's gotta be wrong on their side of the table because ALL the teachers in Korea aren't bad even if we're not all 'professional' educators.
With the recent negative currency exchange rates, I don't care what anybody says, being in this business in Korea isn't such a great deal from a strictly monetary viewpoint.
Honestly, I'm not sure the Koreans really know what they want. I suspect they think they need or ought to toughen up because they think there's other 'sources' of ESL teachers (e.g. Philippines and India). I think they'll eventually find out otherwise.
5/16/2009
ESL Daily wrote:
"I'm not sure the Koreans really know what they want"
That goes for the students too... I believe you must want to learn a language in order to learn it. It's nice to know that if you listen to music when you are younger and if you play subliminal messages it somehow gets into your head, but lets face it, we can not learn a language just by attending one class a week or even one class a day, where you hardly participate in. If we truly were sponges and could absorb language just from being in a class... Koreans would be the best in the world. English movies and shows are always on. Sign ads always have an English slogan. Most of the products in the country have huge English words and small Korean words under. If being in an English environment really holds that much value, Koreans should be doing a lot better than most other countries. But, that is not the case.
If I give homework to copy the dictionary most students will do it. However, if I give homework for students to talk to a friend in English or have an English dinner with their friends or family... 0/40 students will even attempt. Sorry teacher... I can't or no time or ... just about any excuse.
7/6/2009
ken wrote:
After being here for six months in a public school, I see the books, cd and tv projection system is actually quite good. I think that the educators fail to realize however, the need for actual conversation. You simply can not learn conversation with mini lessons that seem to repeat themselves. Anytime I try to intorduce just a little more info, I am usually met with at Korean teacher saying..too hard, too hard for students. Any chance I get, for the benefits of the students, I will break into a conversation about the lesson and they seem to respond to this too! Example. Lesson, where are you going? I am going shopping...Me, after answer, oh, are you going shopping for food?, Clothing...and so on. It is not perfect here, but most of all, the Korean teachers should be forced to work closer with the native teacher. Reply to this
7/7/2009art williams wrote:
It was a surprise to see this article/comment in my mailbox but.....I'll comment on it anyway.
I teach at a middle school in Suwon and they were very proud to point out to me the equipment they've got in their 'language lab'. At first I was kinda excited about it too but I've decided otherwise now.
First of all, it's way, way too frigging complicated. Using it takes all the spontaneity out of the efforts to teach conversational English. I remain convinced, after about 2 years in Korea now, that the kids get plenty of grammer. Their problem is that they don't get any practice.
For example today I wrote three questions on the board:
1. What do you want to do today? 2. When do you want to meet? 3. Where do you want to meet?
And, since I wanted the kids to understand both sides of the conversation, I told the kids, "Copy those sentences."
That's it. It was that frigging simple! Just.."Copy that!" Actually I think I said something like, "Write those questions down."
Out of about 40 kids in the room, one or two did what I told them. The rest of them sat there with that dumb look on their face. My co-teacher said something to them and then told me they didn't understand. But I realized he didn't understand either.
Point is, all this modern equipment is totally un-necessary. The system has problems that hi-tech equipment won't solve. I don't like it because it takes the 'conversation' out of the teaching.
The teachers, some of them anyway, like it because it makes them think they're accomplishing something. In fact though, they just we the victim of a good sales pitch by the people who make the equipment.
All we need (but don't have) is a way to write on a tablet and have it appear on a big screen. And I happen to know how to do that with a laptop and a little $50 pen that you can by from a company called Wacom. And of course you need to be able to hook your laptop into the screen.
But I'm constantly amazed at how little basic, functional, class-room English these kids know...and the Korean teachers never seem to think is important. If it was me, I wouldn't do one thing else until the kids understood basic stuff like, 'show me your pens', 'write this down', 'read...starting at line three.', 'answer the next question'....etc.
And the one of my Korean co-teachers whose English is the worst (even though he is really a nice guy) is the most fanatical about using that stupid English lab equipment and just standing up there and droning on and on, reading bullshit from the book that it's plainly obvious to any observer the kids couldn't care less about.
But regarding one other point you mentioned...I have been told that some of the ideas I have are too difficult for the kids too. I don't think they were but I went along, in most cases. I know I'm not going to change the system.
I'm just trying to dance between the raindrops and get my check. Other than that, I like the job. Reply to this
This is interesting news. Certainly I have seen a lot of people walking around who I would describe as 'slouchy' and/or sloppy and I assumed were teachers.
And I often thought these people certainly didn't present a very favorable picture of Western culture. I mean, who would want to learn a language from a culture that produced them?
Of course I don't have any idea of these teacher's classroom performance so I can't say how much that had to do with their dismissal. I must assume that was a significant part of it.
But we, who are here, already know how little we can actually accomplish (I'm speaking of public schools because that's my experience). It's undeniable that around 25% of the kids in these classes could give a flying crap less about learning English.
I'll always remember reading, here, that Korea spends more money than anybody else on English education but still has the lowest scores. I thought that was an incredible stat.
Something's gotta be wrong on their side of the table because ALL the teachers in Korea aren't bad even if we're not all 'professional' educators.
With the recent negative currency exchange rates, I don't care what anybody says, being in this business in Korea isn't such a great deal from a strictly monetary viewpoint.
Honestly, I'm not sure the Koreans really know what they want. I suspect they think they need or ought to toughen up because they think there's other 'sources' of ESL teachers (e.g. Philippines and India). I think they'll eventually find out otherwise.
Art
Reply to this
"I'm not sure the Koreans really know what they want"
That goes for the students too... I believe you must want to learn a language in order to learn it. It's nice to know that if you listen to music when you are younger and if you play subliminal messages it somehow gets into your head, but lets face it, we can not learn a language just by attending one class a week or even one class a day, where you hardly participate in. If we truly were sponges and could absorb language just from being in a class... Koreans would be the best in the world. English movies and shows are always on. Sign ads always have an English slogan. Most of the products in the country have huge English words and small Korean words under. If being in an English environment really holds that much value, Koreans should be doing a lot better than most other countries. But, that is not the case.
If I give homework to copy the dictionary most students will do it. However, if I give homework for students to talk to a friend in English or have an English dinner with their friends or family... 0/40 students will even attempt. Sorry teacher... I can't or no time or ... just about any excuse.
Practice makes perfect!
Reply to this
After being here for six months in a public school, I see the books, cd and tv projection system is actually quite good. I think that the educators fail to realize however, the need for actual conversation. You simply can not learn conversation with mini lessons that seem to repeat themselves. Anytime I try to intorduce just a little more info, I am usually met with at Korean teacher saying..too hard, too hard for students. Any chance I get, for the benefits of the students, I will break into a conversation about the lesson and they seem to respond to this too! Example. Lesson, where are you going? I am going shopping...Me, after answer, oh, are you going shopping for food?, Clothing...and so on. It is not perfect here, but most of all, the Korean teachers should be forced to work closer with the native teacher.
Reply to this
It was a surprise to see this article/comment in my mailbox but.....I'll comment on it anyway.
I teach at a middle school in Suwon and they were very proud to point out to me the equipment they've got in their 'language lab'. At first I was kinda excited about it too but I've decided otherwise now.
First of all, it's way, way too frigging complicated. Using it takes all the spontaneity out of the efforts to teach conversational English. I remain convinced, after about 2 years in Korea now, that the kids get plenty of grammer. Their problem is that they don't get any practice.
For example today I wrote three questions on the board:
1. What do you want to do today?
2. When do you want to meet?
3. Where do you want to meet?
And, since I wanted the kids to understand both sides of the conversation, I told the kids, "Copy those sentences."
That's it. It was that frigging simple! Just.."Copy that!" Actually I think I said something like, "Write those questions down."
Out of about 40 kids in the room, one or two did what I told them. The rest of them sat there with that dumb look on their face. My co-teacher said something to them and then told me they didn't understand. But I realized he didn't understand either.
Point is, all this modern equipment is totally un-necessary. The system has problems that hi-tech equipment won't solve. I don't like it because it takes the 'conversation' out of the teaching.
The teachers, some of them anyway, like it because it makes them think they're accomplishing something. In fact though, they just we the victim of a good sales pitch by the people who make the equipment.
All we need (but don't have) is a way to write on a tablet and have it appear on a big screen. And I happen to know how to do that with a laptop and a little $50 pen that you can by from a company called Wacom. And of course you need to be able to hook your laptop into the screen.
But I'm constantly amazed at how little basic, functional, class-room English these kids know...and the Korean teachers never seem to think is important. If it was me, I wouldn't do one thing else until the kids understood basic stuff like, 'show me your pens', 'write this down', 'read...starting at line three.',
'answer the next question'....etc.
And the one of my Korean co-teachers whose English is the worst (even though he is really a nice guy) is the most fanatical about using that stupid English lab equipment and just standing up there and droning on and on, reading bullshit from the book that it's plainly obvious to any observer the kids couldn't care less about.
But regarding one other point you mentioned...I have been told that some of the ideas I have are too difficult for the kids too. I don't think they were but I went along, in most cases. I know I'm not going to change the system.
I'm just trying to dance between the raindrops and get my check. Other than that, I like the job.
Reply to this