RANTING/VENTING MEGATHREAD 3.0

Yeah, I've had 3rd grade middle schoolers that can't even read the alphabet. When it came time to play games and do activities my coteacher's attitude was "oh, she can't read so she just won't play the game" and let the student just sit there and sleep. I think it's really just from the students not wanting to do anything and the Korean teachers just allowing it and making excuses to not take the extra time to help them.

I also agree with the part about independent thinking not a real thing here. My students can really only copy/paste written examples from the book even when I encourage them to create their own examples.

Yes! It blows my mind. I don't know how any teacher could just accept that the kid doesn't know and ignore them. It's basically like "well, if they don't learn from the way we're teaching then they're not going to learn at all" There's no way people have different learning styles or you should try different methods once in a while!

Yeah, I've had 3rd grade middle schoolers that can't even read the alphabet. When it came time to play games and do activities my coteacher's attitude was "oh, she can't read so she just won't play the game" and let the student just sit there and sleep. I think it's really just from the students not wanting to do anything and the Korean teachers just allowing it and making excuses to not take the extra time to help them.

I also agree with the part about independent thinking not a real thing here. My students can really only copy/paste written examples from the book even when I encourage them to create their own examples.

Yes! It blows my mind. I don't know how any teacher could just accept that the kid doesn't know and ignore them. It's basically like "well, if they don't learn from the way we're teaching then they're not going to learn at all" There's no way people have different learning styles or you should try different methods once in a while!

I also forgot to mention my coteacher this year who, instead of just ignoring kids who don't know anything, goes over to them and gives them the answer. Not even just kids who are so behind and need the extra help, but ones who make simple mistakes. She just walks around and points to it and says "no, it's this one. This is the answer" like....why not point out that the answer is wrong but letting kids try to correct themselves, or helping them walk through the thought process to the correct answer? Am I expecting too much here? No wonder kids don't remember anything, either they are ignored or just spoon fed the answers and have no reason to actually think about anything.

Yeah, I've had 3rd grade middle schoolers that can't even read the alphabet. When it came time to play games and do activities my coteacher's attitude was "oh, she can't read so she just won't play the game" and let the student just sit there and sleep. I think it's really just from the students not wanting to do anything and the Korean teachers just allowing it and making excuses to not take the extra time to help them.

I also agree with the part about independent thinking not a real thing here. My students can really only copy/paste written examples from the book even when I encourage them to create their own examples.

Yes! It blows my mind. I don't know how any teacher could just accept that the kid doesn't know and ignore them. It's basically like "well, if they don't learn from the way we're teaching then they're not going to learn at all" There's no way people have different learning styles or you should try different methods once in a while!

I also forgot to mention my coteacher this year who, instead of just ignoring kids who don't know anything, goes over to them and gives them the answer. Not even just kids who are so behind and need the extra help, but ones who make simple mistakes. She just walks around and points to it and says "no, it's this one. This is the answer" like....why not point out that the answer is wrong but letting kids try to correct themselves, or helping them walk through the thought process to the correct answer? Am I expecting too much here? No wonder kids don't remember anything, either they are ignored or just spoon fed the answers and have no reason to actually think about anything.

Yeah. Lately I've been doing worksheets with my students where they have to either make or unscramble sentences (depending on the level), and I walk around marking which ones are correct, and incorrect ones I just underline or circle or put a carrot to show a word is missing and let them try to figure it out.

KOREAN HARASSMENT

Are you being harassed by your Korean co-teacher or coworkers? They like to hack on my computer. My gmail account, skype account, dropbox, and icloud is blocked.  I asked my co-teacher to unblock my dropbox account and nothing happened. In fact, all my apple features where blocked the next day. I can see if they were blocking adult or porn sites but gmail? skype? dropbox?

I do have my own laptop but I am afraid that they will hack into it too.  How to solve this harassment?

Let me know if you can access gmail, skype, dropbox, icloud ?


Thanks!

Is this a real post? Literally?


As other people were saying, they're not 'hacking your PC,' it's what happens when you're working at a place and using their network and their rules.

Not everyone knows how it works, it's okay. By the way, bringing your laptop won't help if you're going to log into the school's internet. It's still going to be blocked. But yeah, nobody's hacking you.

KOREAN HARASSMENT

Are you being harassed by your Korean co-teacher or coworkers? They like to hack on my computer. My gmail account, skype account, dropbox, and icloud is blocked.  I asked my co-teacher to unblock my dropbox account and nothing happened. In fact, all my apple features where blocked the next day. I can see if they were blocking adult or porn sites but gmail? skype? dropbox?

I do have my own laptop but I am afraid that they will hack into it too.  How to solve this harassment?

Let me know if you can access gmail, skype, dropbox, icloud ?


Thanks!

That's not harassment or hacking. That's your school or MOE/POE blocking certain websites on their networks. It sucks, but it's nothing that your coteachers are doing personally. If they wanted to harass you, I think blocking your email would be the last thing they'd do.

Indeed, some school networks are ridiculous, blocking any URL that doesn't end in ".kr" or not government websites. Take advantage of Korea's fantastic data plans and tether off your phone.

My school blocked google for like 3 days last year. lol

Depending on what day it is, I wont be able to access my gmail account sometimes. It seems to only happen when i really need to access it. I do remember my coteacher saying that all personal emails would be blocked starting in April, but that hasnt seemed to be the case.

Likely they just blocked Naver, Daum, etc.

KOREAN HARASSMENT

Are you being harassed by your Korean co-teacher or coworkers? They like to hack on my computer. My gmail account, skype account, dropbox, and icloud is blocked.  I asked my co-teacher to unblock my dropbox account and nothing happened. In fact, all my apple features where blocked the next day. I can see if they were blocking adult or porn sites but gmail? skype? dropbox?

I do have my own laptop but I am afraid that they will hack into it too.  How to solve this harassment?

Let me know if you can access gmail, skype, dropbox, icloud ?


Thanks!

That's not harassment or hacking. That's your school or MOE/POE blocking certain websites on their networks. It sucks, but it's nothing that your coteachers are doing personally. If they wanted to harass you, I think blocking your email would be the last thing they'd do.

Indeed, some school networks are ridiculous, blocking any URL that doesn't end in ".kr" or not government websites. Take advantage of Korea's fantastic data plans and tether off your phone.

My school blocked google for like 3 days last year. lol

Depending on what day it is, I wont be able to access my gmail account sometimes. It seems to only happen when i really need to access it. I do remember my coteacher saying that all personal emails would be blocked starting in April, but that hasnt seemed to be the case.

Likely they just blocked Naver, Daum, etc.

I can't access google.com anymore. I have to type in google.co.kr now. It's such a minor thing but it's annoying because I was used to typing "goo" and then pressing "enter" but that one goes to google.com so then I have to go back and actually type out the latter.

I just can't comprehend how students can go so many years and not speak any English. I teach high school now, and the 1/2 graders I taught at a private academy have better English than most of the kids I teach now. I just finished a class where a student was held back and is repeating first year HS now (no one told me and this was the first class he has showed up to so I tried kicking him out, long story) but his English is so horrible he didn't even understand me telling him to go. I think he only understands yes and no.

Yeah, I get that people learn different ways and at different speeds, but c'mon sometimes.

You're in grade 6 and you don't know how to answer to "How are you?" or "What's your name?" or "Do you have a pencil?"

Like, WTF?

Yeah it's weird. I did a MASH style game with my 2nd graders a few weeks ago. They had to come up with a total of 8 things on their own (to add to the 12 or so items already there):

Two places
Two things to do
Two people/animals/whatever
Two adjectives

They seriously struggled. Like, really? I tested myself to see if I could fill out my own worksheet in French - a language I took almost 10 years ago for little more than two years in high school and did it with no problems.

I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that independent/free-thinking is not really an encouraged thing here. So there's little motivation to retain anything that can't be regurgitated for an exam. Any time I try to do something that allows them to be creative, they either make exact copies of the examples I show or must be fed answers. It's frustrating and depressing.

I usually don't agree with the people who are all, "Bawwwww why they dun English good bawww," but after reading your bit about trying to do a similar activity in French, I realized, I was a terrible French student, and barely studied it at all in elementary school. And yet, my French is better than probably 20% of my grade 6 students' English, and they've had hundreds of hours of instruction.

Yeah, normally I'm all about getting the students to at least try and it doesn't matter if you aren't good at the language as long as you try... but not only does this kid not try but he is a sophomore in high school and can't understand go.

Also, with trying it in a second language, I haven't taken Spanish in a long time but I still could do the basic things.

Yeah, normally I'm all about getting the students to at least try and it doesn't matter if you aren't good at the language as long as you try... but not only does this kid not try but he is a sophomore in high school and can't understand go.
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I fukk up everything I say in Korean, but my effort and charm is more important to my communication than nailing everything spot on. No one learns a language by not speaking it. Speaking it and trying is 70% of the whole experience of learning it.

Everyone loves my Korean because I just wing it. A lot of Koreans have told me it makes them look at their own language in a new way because when I don't know something I'll just construct a sentence out of what I know and see if it sticks.

Like when my GF said er uncle was a Fly Soldier. 

She meant he was in the Airforce.  But, hey! She tried and I got it.

Yeah, normally I'm all about getting the students to at least try and it doesn't matter if you aren't good at the language as long as you try... but not only does this kid not try but he is a sophomore in high school and can't understand go.

I fukk up everything I say in Korean, but my effort and charm is more important to my communication than nailing everything spot on. No one learns a language by not speaking it. Speaking it and trying is 70% of the whole experience of learning it.

Everyone loves my Korean because I just wing it. A lot of Koreans have told me it makes them look at their own language in a new way because when I don't know something I'll just construct a sentence out of what I know and see if it sticks.

Like when my GF said er uncle was a Fly Soldier. 

She meant he was in the Airforce.  But, hey! She tried and I got it.

Yeah. I'm the same way. If I don't know a word, I just stitch together some other words and people usually get it.

And that is the beauty of language but Koreans seem to think that language is only acceptable when it is correct. Which is ironic because a lot of them don't even know their own language that well.

Yeah, normally I'm all about getting the students to at least try and it doesn't matter if you aren't good at the language as long as you try... but not only does this kid not try but he is a sophomore in high school and can't understand go.

I fukk up everything I say in Korean, but my effort and charm is more important to my communication than nailing everything spot on. No one learns a language by not speaking it. Speaking it and trying is 70% of the whole experience of learning it.

Everyone loves my Korean because I just wing it. A lot of Koreans have told me it makes them look at their own language in a new way because when I don't know something I'll just construct a sentence out of what I know and see if it sticks.

Like when my GF said er uncle was a Fly Soldier. 

She meant he was in the Airforce.  But, hey! She tried and I got it.

Yeah. I'm the same way. If I don't know a word, I just stitch together some other words and people usually get it.

And that is the beauty of language but Koreans seem to think that language is only acceptable when it is correct. Which is ironic because a lot of them don't even know their own language that well.

Thank you for fixing the quote chain, haha.

I have been told by a lot that I speak like a child in Korean, so while they may laugh, they can usually at least understand my gist. I also understand that a lot of the kids get beaten down by the system, but still.

Erm... what is TEE?

Teaching English English. Brits love to use it, it means "Real English."

Do we? I'm a Brit... never heard of it

Yeah, normally I'm all about getting the students to at least try and it doesn't matter if you aren't good at the language as long as you try... but not only does this kid not try but he is a sophomore in high school and can't understand go.

I fukk up everything I say in Korean, but my effort and charm is more important to my communication than nailing everything spot on. No one learns a language by not speaking it. Speaking it and trying is 70% of the whole experience of learning it.

Everyone loves my Korean because I just wing it. A lot of Koreans have told me it makes them look at their own language in a new way because when I don't know something I'll just construct a sentence out of what I know and see if it sticks.

Like when my GF said er uncle was a Fly Soldier. 

She meant he was in the Airforce.  But, hey! She tried and I got it.

Yeah. I'm the same way. If I don't know a word, I just stitch together some other words and people usually get it.

And that is the beauty of language but Koreans seem to think that language is only acceptable when it is correct. Which is ironic because a lot of them don't even know their own language that well.

Thank you for fixing the quote chain, haha.

I have been told by a lot that I speak like a child in Korean, so while they may laugh, they can usually at least understand my gist. I also understand that a lot of the kids get beaten down by the system, but still.

I was told by a Korean friend that Koreans give UN Secretary Genreal Moon a 3/10 grade for English, but English Speakers give him a 9/10.

Erm... what is TEE?

Teaching English English. Brits love to use it, it means "Real English."

Do we? I'm a Brit... never heard of it

He was joking. TEE is  a Korean term meaning what I said before.

Yeah, normally I'm all about getting the students to at least try and it doesn't matter if you aren't good at the language as long as you try... but not only does this kid not try but he is a sophomore in high school and can't understand go.

I fukk up everything I say in Korean, but my effort and charm is more important to my communication than nailing everything spot on. No one learns a language by not speaking it. Speaking it and trying is 70% of the whole experience of learning it.

Everyone loves my Korean because I just wing it. A lot of Koreans have told me it makes them look at their own language in a new way because when I don't know something I'll just construct a sentence out of what I know and see if it sticks.

Like when my GF said er uncle was a Fly Soldier. 

She meant he was in the Airforce.  But, hey! She tried and I got it.

Yeah. I'm the same way. If I don't know a word, I just stitch together some other words and people usually get it.

And that is the beauty of language but Koreans seem to think that language is only acceptable when it is correct. Which is ironic because a lot of them don't even know their own language that well.

Thank you for fixing the quote chain, haha.

I have been told by a lot that I speak like a child in Korean, so while they may laugh, they can usually at least understand my gist. I also understand that a lot of the kids get beaten down by the system, but still.

I was told by a Korean friend that Koreans give UN Secretary Genreal Moon a 3/10 grade for English, but English Speakers give him a 9/10.

Oh really? Wow, that is pretty harsh.

Koreans count mistakes, so to look at my previous sentence,

I was told by a Korean friend that Koreans give UN Secretary Genreal Moon a 3/10 grade for English, but English Speakers give him a 9/10.

I misspelled (at least) one word, and had an extra capital letter, so 0/10 for me.  Some would even insist that I should have repeared "grade for English" at the end, and other would insist that it is a "grade in English."

The average English speaker might not have noticed any of this, and even an English teacher would likely give me a some marks for it.

Yesterday, after months of somehow managing to avoid installing a bunch of 'security' and 'privacy' programs that every school PC has to have, they finally came to my desk with a USB stick and made me install them on my already-struggling, more-than-a-decade old PoS. Clicked 'finish' on the final install and it crashed. They're determined to make every single school PC run as poorly as possible. I'm going back to paper.

I hate speaking tests. so. much.

This seems pretty universal. Why? I kind of dig them, personally.

Well for myself, they're incredibly monotonous, especially since I've got to do it for over 600 students.

I also think they're a big waste of time -- most of the students just give a lot of pre-memorized answers, and that doesn't really reflect conversation ability. Only a handful of students have decent English speaking ability, and an even smaller pool of them choose to use what they know in an engaging manner. I do get a lot of funny answers from kids who are relaxed enough to spit them out (these actually come from my lower level students), but... yeah.

If I had fewer students and didn't have to finish the exams within such a short space of time, this could be a fun project/activity opportunity, but with so many students and the small amount of time they give me to complete the tests, it's just dull and tedious.

Well for myself, they're incredibly monotonous, especially since I've got to do it for over 600 students.

I also think they're a big waste of time -- most of the students just give a lot of pre-memorized answers, and that doesn't really reflect conversation ability. Only a handful of students have decent English speaking ability, and an even smaller pool of them choose to use what they know in an engaging manner. I do get a lot of funny answers from kids who are relaxed enough to spit them out (these actually come from my lower level students), but... yeah.

If I had fewer students and didn't have to finish the exams within such a short space of time, this could be a fun project/activity opportunity, but with so many students and the small amount of time they give me to complete the tests, it's just dull and tedious.

It's the same for me.  I have 30 students to test in 45 minutes.  It's so repetitive.  I ask the same questions about 500 times and get the same answer maybe 475 times.

Ct told me on Wednesday that she'll tell me "later" if Friday's class is canceled.  20 minutes to class time and I'd still love to know...

It's the same for me.  I have 30 students to test in 45 minutes.  It's so repetitive.  I ask the same questions about 500 times and get the same answer maybe 475 times.

You should vary the questions so the students who take it later in the period don't have an unfair advantage.