The Week in Review

(My school in Cheonsang)

First of all, thank you to some of my fellow EFL teachers in Korea and around the world who commented on the post about my first day of work. It's good to know that I'm not completely off-base with my observations.

Even if the hagwon system has its flaws, it's well-established here, so I don't think it's up to me to go about changing things. Especially in Korea, where criticism is unwelcome and must be passed through the proper chain of command. I count myself lucky to be working for a good, kind director (unlike some unfortunate souls whose stories I've heard of) and to be given this opportunity in the first place. I can, however, change some things in the classroom seeing as I have basically been given carte blanche by the school to teach however I want to.

To fill in some background for my readers, I came to Korea having taught for a year in the Czech Republic, most of which was done on-site in factories, banks, and offices, all with adult students, and all of it conversation based. I used newspaper articles more often than books. This situation is entirely different, which is exactly what I wanted. Teaching children, although difficult at times, is infinitely more rewarding. After some adjustment, on my part and on the part of my students, most of my classes have accepted me as their new teacher, are beginning to understand my teaching style, and I am beginning to be able to curb the bad behavior of the troublemakers. The latter applies mostly to the elementary school students; a quick "ha-ji-ma!" or "Sit down!" usually takes care of the problem. These are the majority of my classes, thankfully. However, the middle school students are a different story. They are just at the age where kids start developing an attitude and it's all I can do to try and control them. One class in particular is an absolute horror. Unfortunately, the more time and energy I spend trying to reign in the bad ones, the less of the actual lesson we get to cover and the students who really do want to learn English (and I think there are some in there) get shorted. And in a half-hour class, there isn't much time to do both effectively. I hate to chalk up a class as a loss, but I had to a few times this week. Anyone out there who has more experience than I do dealing with Korean middle-schoolers and can suggest something is more than welcome to leave a comment. Next week the problem will be lessened as the trouble class has been split in two (due to the middle-schoolers going back to school this week), and I will only have to teach them two days per week, one of which is taken up by one-on-one interviews and "game day," which is actually a lot more of an energy-drain than it sounds. At any rate, I can only assume that it will get better from here on out.

And now for a complete non-sequitur (although it does have to do with the week in review): In the words of Jadakiss, "Why Team USA keep gettin' blown out?"