RANTING/VENTING MEGATHREAD 3.0

My wife and I are all signed up for June 11 for the first shot.

Me, June 7.

Every single class was acting the fool today. Every_single_class. I had to cancel the game in all but one of them and made them complete worksheets instead.

Students tend to be super mellow/unenthusiastic on Mondays at my school. Not whateverthefuck this was. It felt weirdly planned.

I had a bad class with my top class today. Not that anyone was misbehaving or anything, but most of the students are at a decent level.
I have to teach the textbook and came to class with a bunch of the questions about the dialogue ready to go. Broke the questions down by level.
And the students struggling with the easiest questions threw me off and got me flustered. D: (Doesn't happen too often) Just makes me feel bad when one of my good classes struggle, as I think I made things too hard haha.

I had a bad class with my top class today. Not that anyone was misbehaving or anything, but most of the students are at a decent level.
I have to teach the textbook and came to class with a bunch of the questions about the dialogue ready to go. Broke the questions down by level.
And the students struggling with the easiest questions threw me off and got me flustered. D: (Doesn't happen too often) Just makes me feel bad when one of my good classes struggle, as I think I made things too hard haha.

I had one of those days too................ ............after 2nd period I wanted to slam my head on the desk and just nap........my students couldn't even read the word "I" so my coteacher says oh it's too hard............... ...........4th and 5th graders should understand and be able to read "I"

my students couldn't even read the word "I" so my coteacher says oh it's too hard............... ...........4th and 5th graders should understand and be able to read "I"

I've said it before and I'll say it again, if I can learn hangeul over a weekend, then you can learn to read hello/I am/this is/funny over the course of two or three years.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, if I can learn hangeul over a weekend, then you can learn to read hello/I am/this is/funny over the course of two or three years.

then my coteacher says its ok to not know there's no problem with that............... .he's right but after 2 years and you still can't read "I".......there are other problems besides my teaching

I had one of those days too................ ............after 2nd period I wanted to slam my head on the desk and just nap........my students couldn't even read the word "I" so my coteacher says oh it's too hard............... ...........4th and 5th graders should understand and be able to read "I"

I'm fully middle school. I have grade 1 students this year who practiced how are you. I'm __. for 5 weeks and still struggle with it.
I also have a grade 3 middle school student who can't even do that.
Today was middle school grade 2 at my main school. 5 of the students there, I'd personally recommend to go for the scholarship to study in an English country for a month.
But today just threw me off so much, cause I made small simple questions that were met with silence haha (Though I know those 5 students were itching to answer, but they also know that I typically choose a student to answer based on their level. for the lower level students, I'll give them a super simple question, those 5 I usually give the hardest questions too).

And I agree, after a year, they should be able to read the alphabet. :o

I had one of those days too................ ............after 2nd period I wanted to slam my head on the desk and just nap........my students couldn't even read the word "I" so my coteacher says oh it's too hard............... ...........4th and 5th graders should understand and be able to read "I"

It's partly my fault because frankly, I can't muster up the energy or motivation to teach phonics consistently when the CTs and curriculum are essentially reversing my efforts, I see these students once a week and I have no support base to work with (no communication with parents).

I'm trying to get the students to... read. Basic reading as in look at a CVC word and sound it out.

After 3yrs of English, many cant read 'cat', 'bet', 'mut', 'dig' etc.
So I'm starting the process of squeezing in a phonics lesson whenever I can.

It's difficult to not smack my CT over the head with a book. She has 3 teaching licenses (elementary, middle and adult) as well as her masters, yet she still defends her approach of making them write. "Where is the post office?" 20X for homework when they can't even sound at a basic CVC word.

My task was to get them to write 20, 3-letter CVC words using the vowels 'A' and 'E' as the middle letter so:

CAT, BET, MET, HAT etc.

I even wrote some consonants on the board and emphasised that they could be completely random words, they didn't have to mean anything. After that, one by one, they'd come to my desk and read out what they've written. If I'm satisfied, I'd sign their work and task them with helping the other students.

One girl actually panicked and broke down into tears because, from what I could tell, she was forced to think for herself and nobody was telling her exactly what to do. So many students struggled with the simple concept of making some random CVC words and while reading its absolutely certain that they were never taught the phonetic sounds of English letters and, by extension, how to actually read. As C02 said and the point I made against my CT who claimed reading CVC words was 'so hard' for them. If someone like me, who absolutely sucks at learning languages is able to read and write Hangul in a weekend then they can learn phonics if you do it properly and give them a bloody chance.

So, according to my CT. They're simply taught:

The names of the English letters (typically hangulised), not their phonetic sounds
Spelling and sighting words without reading
How not to hold a pen/pencil (not a single 6th grader in a class of 15 is able to hold a pen properly).

No surprise, my CT with all her qualifications can't pronounce the vowels properly and speaks at an English level worse than your average rural, black South African (speaking English as a 3rd language) person with little formal education.

It's partly my fault because frankly, I can't muster up the energy or motivation to teach phonics consistently when the CTs and curriculum are essentially reversing my efforts, I see these students once a week and I have no support base to work with (no communication with parents).

I'm trying to get the students to... read. Basic reading as in look at a CVC word and sound it out.

After 3yrs of English, many cant read 'cat', 'bet', 'mut', 'dig' etc.
So I'm starting the process of squeezing in a phonics lesson whenever I can.

It's difficult to not smack my CT over the head with a book. She has 3 teaching licenses (elementary, middle and adult) as well as her masters, yet she still defends her approach of making them write. "Where is the post office?" 20X for homework when they can't even sound at a basic CVC word.

My task was to get them to write 20, 3-letter CVC words using the vowels 'A' and 'E' as the middle letter so:

CAT, BET, MET, HAT etc.

I even wrote some consonants on the board and emphasised that they could be completely random words, they didn't have to mean anything. After that, one by one, they'd come to my desk and read out what they've written. If I'm satisfied, I'd sign their work and task them with helping the other students.

One girl actually panicked and broke down into tears because, from what I could tell, she was forced to think for herself and nobody was telling her exactly what to do. So many students struggled with the simple concept of making some random CVC words and while reading its absolutely certain that they were never taught the phonetic sounds of English letters and, by extension, how to actually read. As C02 said and the point I made against my CT who claimed reading CVC words was 'so hard' for them. If someone like me, who absolutely sucks at learning languages is able to read and write Hangul in a weekend then they can learn phonics if you do it properly and give them a bloody chance.

So, according to my CT. They're simply taught:

The names of the English letters (typically hangulised), not their phonetic sounds
Spelling and sighting words without reading
How not to hold a pen/pencil (not a single 6th grader in a class of 15 is able to hold a pen properly).

No surprise, my CT with all her qualifications can't pronounce the vowels properly and speaks at an English level worse than your average rural, black South African (speaking English as a 3rd language) person with little formal education.

The sad truth is your battle is not with your KET, but with the suneung (and explains why she can't speak well either).  Being able to sight-read for comprehension, not the ability to sound out new words, is what is valued in the exam.  Well, a little; it is mostly to wrestle with grammar points that would make Strunk and White scratch their chins.  I used to teach HS and every year one question (maybe more) on the test would perplex me.  I would know the answer, but struggle to explain it. 

It's the nature of the beast--we want to teach communicative competence but that's hard to test in the suneung format, so they test what is easy to test.  That said, I have now taught at three different elementary schools in Seoul, and only one or two in a class can't do basic phonics. 

Every month I have a "read-aloud" activity, usually a story, where I go around the room and have each student read a sentence or two from a slide, and mix in some new/unfamiliar words.  Most students can do it, the few cannot, and a few can do it with some phonics prompting.  We use these activities as an informal assessment.  Of course, one technique is to pick a strong student for really hard slides, and easy ones for the weakest--this builds confidence.  Today, the 6th grade did my "roadside attractions" read-aloud (I'm going to go on a trip, etc) and as expected one or two per class have to be fed every word.

Hangeulizing English words is simply a big no-no for me, and I always get my Cos to stop doing it.  But the books persist, only in reverse.  This lesson on future tense has visits to Cheomseongdae going on, and a trip to Yongin--one of the better students absolutely could not figure out where or what Yongin is!  And if "library" was a vocab word in the previous lesson, why is the picture in this lesson labeled with 도서관 ?!?

Anyway, I feel your pain.

It's partly my fault because frankly, I can't muster up the energy or motivation to teach phonics consistently when the CTs and curriculum are essentially reversing my efforts, I see these students once a week and I have no support base to work with (no communication with parents).

I'm trying to get the students to... read. Basic reading as in look at a CVC word and sound it out.

After 3yrs of English, many cant read 'cat', 'bet', 'mut', 'dig' etc.
So I'm starting the process of squeezing in a phonics lesson whenever I can.

It's difficult to not smack my CT over the head with a book. She has 3 teaching licenses (elementary, middle and adult) as well as her masters, yet she still defends her approach of making them write. "Where is the post office?" 20X for homework when they can't even sound at a basic CVC word.

My task was to get them to write 20, 3-letter CVC words using the vowels 'A' and 'E' as the middle letter so:

CAT, BET, MET, HAT etc.

I even wrote some consonants on the board and emphasised that they could be completely random words, they didn't have to mean anything. After that, one by one, they'd come to my desk and read out what they've written. If I'm satisfied, I'd sign their work and task them with helping the other students.

One girl actually panicked and broke down into tears because, from what I could tell, she was forced to think for herself and nobody was telling her exactly what to do. So many students struggled with the simple concept of making some random CVC words and while reading its absolutely certain that they were never taught the phonetic sounds of English letters and, by extension, how to actually read. As C02 said and the point I made against my CT who claimed reading CVC words was 'so hard' for them. If someone like me, who absolutely sucks at learning languages is able to read and write Hangul in a weekend then they can learn phonics if you do it properly and give them a bloody chance.

So, according to my CT. They're simply taught:

The names of the English letters (typically hangulised), not their phonetic sounds
Spelling and sighting words without reading
How not to hold a pen/pencil (not a single 6th grader in a class of 15 is able to hold a pen properly).

No surprise, my CT with all her qualifications can't pronounce the vowels properly and speaks at an English level worse than your average rural, black South African (speaking English as a 3rd language) person with little formal education.

when the students stop being spoon fed everything, every test answer etc and learn to use their heads it will be better........i hate it when a student says a different answer or a unique answer and then immediately says sorry because they think it is wrong.............. I applaud you for trying rather than the right answer so why say sorry?

when the students stop being spoon fed everything, every test answer etc and learn to use their heads it will be better........i hate it when a student says a different answer or a unique answer and then immediately says sorry because they think it is wrong.............. I applaud you for trying rather than the right answer so why say sorry?

I agree with that too. What I started doing is saying: Don't say sorry. English isn't always a math problem where a question will have a single correct answer. Sometimes there are many different ways to answer a question in English. (My co-teacher usually translates that into Korean for them). My higher level students have become more willing to try their own answers. The lower level students are still kinda looking for -the- answer though.

Was walking home from the supermarket and a group of old guys (about 6 of them) came to join me at the crosswalk, I could smell the soju through my mask. Only two of them were wearing a masks and one of them (no mask) was having a sneezing bout, sneezing all over the place, wiping the mucus off his nose and flicking it on the street. Then they started hocking and I decided to jaywalk before this disgusting thing deposited his phlegm near me.

I moved to Jeju from Seoul in 2020. I have never seen this type of behavior down here but I saw it a lot in Seoul. 

A global pandemic seems to do little to civilise this type. Like small children, it seems they'll only follow rules or etiquette when there's a guaranteed punishment.   

I agree with that too. What I started doing is saying: Don't say sorry. English isn't always a math problem where a question will have a single correct answer. Sometimes there are many different ways to answer a question in English. (My co-teacher usually translates that into Korean for them). My higher level students have become more willing to try their own answers. The lower level students are still kinda looking for -the- answer though.

I'm going to sound totally ignorant and generalising here, but here it goes.

Listen to Koreans speak to each other.

  와, 맛있어

  "네, 맛있어!!!"

Think of if you were in a group of Canadians, or Brits and it went like that

  Delicious!

  Yes, delicious!

This would NEVER happen. You'd get people saying different things in response. If you saw the English exchange above, you'd think it was a cult.

This isn't a knock against Korean, but it does appear like there is a method of HOW you say things that is more concrete. The age reverence thing doesn't help, there are RULES on what to say, when and how.

I'm going to sound totally ignorant and generalising here, but here it goes.

Listen to Koreans speak to each other.

  와, 맛있어

  "네, 맛있어!!!"

Think of if you were in a group of Canadians, or Brits and it went like that

  Delicious!

  Yes, delicious!

This would NEVER happen. You'd get people saying different things in response. If you saw the English exchange above, you'd think it was a cult.

This isn't a knock against Korean, but it does appear like there is a method of HOW you say things that are more concrete. The age reverence thing doesn't help, there are RULES on what to say, when and how.

Good point!

At the risk of sounding like a hypocrite given how poor my Korean skills are, ESL teachers should at least have an idea of how Korean works or the cultural components of the language, it really help to understand how alien English is to Korean.

Compared to English, there seems to be a much stronger cultural emphasise, in Korean, on the appropriate thing to say rather than expressing oneself.

My Korean listening skills are far better than my speaking skills and oftentimes, particularly when it's a bunch of people talking in a group, I get the impression that a hell of a lot of their conversation is them being fake AF. From a Westerner's perspective it might seem fake, but in Korean culture it's seen more as maintaining a semblance of harmony by giving the generic response; to an extent, I can understand the sense in this.

This bleeds into their English too. A few weeks ago I did a conversation class with some of the other teachers, 2 younger teachers in their 20s and 4 older teachers in their 40s and 50s. the dynamic of the conversation shifted dramatically when the older teachers joined in (previously it was only the younger teachers). Suddenly, the younger teachers seemed reluctant to express themselves or "show off" their English and the older Koreans adopted a patronising and condescending tone.

I get the impression that a hell of a lot of their conversation is them being fake AF.

I totally get the 엉~~~~~ 엄~~~~~~~~ (awwwwwwwwww sound?) agreeing, looking directly at the speaker and nodding your head and saying 맞아 every 4 seconds in the Korean context, but my Canadian brain still has that little voice that sees a MASSIVE sarcastic response. hahahahaha

I just transpose it onto my mom telling a story and I'm just staring at her nodding, incessantly saying, "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH, YUP YUP, AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HHH" *nods head*

After all of 4 seconds she'd say "Kevin, what the hell is wrong with you?" hahahahahaha 

I think this might give some insight, including our own version of this. Of course I think its a bit generalized, and that rather than really being that different, we are all basically doing a similar dance, just to a different tune. But it can help us understand.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20151214-why-do-brits-talk-about-the-weather-so-much

I'm going to sound totally ignorant and generalising here, but here it goes.

Listen to Koreans speak to each other.

  와, 맛있어

  "네, 맛있어!!!"

Think of if you were in a group of Canadians, or Brits and it went like that

  Delicious!

  Yes, delicious!

This would NEVER happen. You'd get people saying different things in response. If you saw the English exchange above, you'd think it was a cult.

This isn't a knock against Korean, but it does appear like there is a method of HOW you say things that is more concrete. The age reverence thing doesn't help, there are RULES on what to say, when and how.

It is diverse because on every TV cooking/variety you've got 맛있어! 정말  맛있어! and also 맛있어! 진짜 맛있어!. Then there's....um....maybe... nope, got nothing else.

I totally get the 엉~~~~~ 엄~~~~~~~~ (awwwwwwwwww sound?) agreeing, looking directly at the speaker and nodding your head and saying 맞아 every 4 seconds in the Korean context, but my Canadian brain still has that little voice that sees a MASSIVE sarcastic response. hahahahaha

I just transpose it onto my mom telling a story and I'm just staring at her nodding, incessantly saying, "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH, YUP YUP, AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HHH" *nods head*

After all of 4 seconds she'd say "Kevin, what the hell is wrong with you?" hahahahahaha 

Yes, when I hear 네 like 79 times in one conversation drives me a bit crazy, but yeah there is a cultural aspect of it.....always catches me off guard when a phone call just seems to end or end with 음...

Here's a cultural difference.

GF and I were watching Kim's Convenience on Sat and (this isn't really a spoiler, don't worry, it's 20 secs from one episode, it's NOT important) Kimchee went into the loading bay to grab a file whilst on a very important call to HQ. There's a woman sat in front of a rental car crying her eyes out. Kimchee looks at her, winces, rummages through the filing cabinet, grabs the file and runs out back to the call.

Well, inevitably, Kimchee gets shit for this from the staff. Words like callous and uncaring are thrown around.


Enter GF and I. This show is perfect for us, it's literally my hometown and it's about Korean culture, too.

  Wait, what? He's in trouble for that???

  Yeah, like BARE minimum he should have asked if she was okay.

  That's so weird. In Korea we don't do anything.
 
  In Canada, you'd have to ask if they're okay. And the rental place in the show has something like SEVEN employees, haha. IT's not like you can just walk by some random co-worker you've never met from a different floor.

  I don't think people like me in the office in Canada maybe.

  

Yes, when I hear 네 like 79 times in one conversation drives me a bit crazy, but yeah there is a cultural aspect of it.....always catches me off guard when a phone call just seems to end or end with 음...

For sure. I'm sure we have our oddly repeated words and things other people are like "Why do they do that?"

Like conversations that are just little more than "Dude" and "Shit" Constant "like" and "mannnn" A language that seems absolutely anarchic when it comes to spelling and pronunciation. That's before we get to our constantly updating lexicon of taboo words.