RANTING/VENTING MEGATHREAD 3.0

I find it pretty frustrating that Korean students don't know that Spanish is used outside of Spain and think they speak English in South America.  I've encountered this over and over.

Why, when I'm assisting other students, do Korean students think it's okay to yell "TEACHER" at me and get louder and louder as I ignore them?  These are 1st grade middle schoolers.  Shouldn't you know by age 14 or whatever that interrupting people like that is rude as hell?

I'm really tired of seeing this RIDICULOUS picture on Facebook.  Are people just being dicks to their friends in public now?  Not even behind their back, literally to their faces?

People spending their money on travel, I'm sitting here with my shiny new guitar like "Enjoy your dysentery and stolen passport."

I'm ready to be done with traveling. Been ready for a while now. I've found my last several trips to be exhausting and living here in Korea it almost feels like there's some compulsion to go out to another country during vacation time. I hate booking flights. I hate spending huge amounts of money to be stuck in places with huge amounts of people. No matter where you go these days it's hard to get away from the canned tourist experience, to the point where the places themselves feel more like some cheap plastic replica of their own once-defining characteristics. I don't like the sense among many travelers that the world is their playground and nice backdrop to their selfies. I enjoy the sense of discovery, but don't like feeling compelled to cram as much into one day as possible and or the feeling that I can't slow down for fear of missing out on something. Now that I know how terrible air travel is in terms of carbon emissions, there's a guilty sense of burning the path behind me as I romp across the globe in my personal quest for some fleeting sense of fulfillment, and spending thousands of dollars to do so.

The Nepal scenes from Doctor Strange had me averting my eyes in embarrassment.

I find it pretty frustrating that Korean students don't know that Spanish is used outside of Spain and think they speak English in South America.  I've encountered this over and over.

Who are you frustrated at? The kids?

Nah, it's not their fault.  I'm sure most adults don't know either.  Is it really not extremely common knowledge all over the world?

The cynic in me thinks that it would be best for Koreans to think that language lines up with country, with the exception of English.

This puts all languages at the same level. I think it would be quite shocking if it was shown in what rank Korean is spoken vs other languages.

Why, when I'm assisting other students, do Korean students think it's okay to yell "TEACHER" at me and get louder and louder as I ignore them?  These are 1st grade middle schoolers.  Shouldn't you know by age 14 or whatever that interrupting people like that is rude as hell?

All my students do this to me too. I've never found it rude, I just take it as getting my attention; I'm pretty sure I used to do this in high school myself. I usually just say "just a minute" and they will talk with their friends until I can go and help them.

The cynic in me thinks that it would be best for Koreans to think that language lines up with country, with the exception of English.

This puts all languages at the same level. I think it would be quite shocking if it was shown in what rank Korean is spoken vs other languages.

My students didn't seem too suffer to greatly when I did a lesson on the importance and usefulness of English, haha.

I got sick of students complaining about having to learn it, or saying stuff like "Why do we need this, we speak Korean." I threw together a presentation showing how many people speak it in the world, how many countries list it as an official language, and how many people around the world also learn it as a second language. I also pointed out fields where it's particularly useful, and even showed a ranking of languages used on the internet.

In doing so I also showed were Korean was in comparison (internet ranking, number of speakers, number of countries), and while there were a few exclamations of "Whoa!" or "Dang!" (in Korean), if anyone was shocked or overwhelmed in any way, it wasn't immediately obvious to me, haha.

I'm sure the students who complain about it weren't swayed in any way, but at least I can say I tried. 

Why, when I'm assisting other students, do Korean students think it's okay to yell "TEACHER" at me and get louder and louder as I ignore them?  These are 1st grade middle schoolers.  Shouldn't you know by age 14 or whatever that interrupting people like that is rude as hell?

All my students do this to me too. I've never found it rude, I just take it as getting my attention; I'm pretty sure I used to do this in high school myself. I usually just say "just a minute" and they will talk with their friends until I can go and help them.

that's well and good if they'll take that, but unless I'm really specific my students won't shut up. I can even make direct eye contact and give them the "one minute" gesture and they'll just yell more lol

Are Koreans better able to metabolize (simple) carbs? How are they not fat?

Metabolize. Don't know.
Digest. Yes.

But it's not just Koreans but East Asians in general.

Edit: Missed the 'simple' in there. What I said applies to complex carbs (shocker incoming, like those found in rice).

Why, when I'm assisting other students, do Korean students think it's okay to yell "TEACHER" at me and get louder and louder as I ignore them?  These are 1st grade middle schoolers.  Shouldn't you know by age 14 or whatever that interrupting people like that is rude as hell?

All my students do this to me too. I've never found it rude, I just take it as getting my attention; I'm pretty sure I used to do this in high school myself. I usually just say "just a minute" and they will talk with their friends until I can go and help them.

that's well and good if they'll take that, but unless I'm really specific my students won't shut up. I can even make direct eye contact and give them the "one minute" gesture and they'll just yell more lol

+1

Nothing stops them from yelling until I go over to them. If they know they have to wait, they just yell louder so I'll go to them first. It's pretty obnoxious behavior... that special kind of obnoxious behavior that's encouraged here.

Who can't relate?

I'm not sure this can actually be labeled as a cultural thing, as it seems more like a simple lack of parenting, which is kind of a cultural thing here ;)

At the start of every school year, we spend time "practicing" and modeling these types of appropriate behaviors, as most aren't getting them at home.

Things like: washing their hands, raising their hand to ask a question, covering their mouth with the inside of elbow when coughing (not hands), saying "please" and "thank you" in Korean and English, etc.

I feel so sorry for so many of these children, as I often wonder what sort of love and nurturing they receive at home.

They have a hagwon for everything in Korea, perhaps a mandatory "parenting"  hagwon wouldn't be such a bad idea.

To be clear, I'm will aware that Korea doesn't have a monopoly on poor parenting.

What I said applies to complex carbs (shocker incoming, like those found in rice).

Isn't brown rice a complex carb while white is a simple carb? Brown is much healthier than white, but most rice served in Korea is white rice.

What I said applies to complex carbs (shocker incoming, like those found in rice).

Isn't brown rice a complex carb while white is a simple carb? Brown is much healthier than white, but most rice served in Korea is white rice.

Rice in general is a complex carb. Also, brown is not that much healthier than white. Brown rice is just white rice with the husk still on. A little extra fiber and minerals, but no less of the "bad" stuff.

fun fact: if you cook rice with a fat and chill it in the fridge for 12 hours after cooking, somehow the calories in rice are halved!

I doubt Koreans are aware of this though haha

What I said applies to complex carbs (shocker incoming, like those found in rice).

Isn't brown rice a complex carb while white is a simple carb? Brown is much healthier than white, but most rice served in Korea is white rice.

Rice in general is a complex carb. Also, brown is not that much healthier than white. Brown rice is just white rice with the hisk still on. A little extra fiber and minerals, but no less of the "bad" stuff.

Yeah, but the fiber helps you feel fuller fr a longer time and results in the energy being absorbed by the body at a slower rate. This lessens blood sugar energy spikes. So yeah, the calories are still there, but you're ot getting them all in an hour and a half, you're getting them over 3 or 4 hours.

What I said applies to complex carbs (shocker incoming, like those found in rice).

Isn't brown rice a complex carb while white is a simple carb? Brown is much healthier than white, but most rice served in Korea is white rice.

Rice in general is a complex carb. Also, brown is not that much healthier than white. Brown rice is just white rice with the hisk still on. A little extra fiber and minerals, but no less of the "bad" stuff.

I can't  speak to brown rice but plant carbs tend to be more complex. Simple carbs are usually stuff like simple sugars.

As an example.

A car is more complex than a motorcycle but they are both complex in comparison to a bike.

Note: I learned this stuff in intro biochem like a decade ago. I'm not really a food guy. I'm sure an actual food scientist could come and tool me.

And I just realized saying a decade ago is no longer accurate. Well that's my rant for the day...

Are Koreans better able to metabolize (simple) carbs? How are they not fat?

Just got told no class today, so I'll have to waste time here till 430.

I think it's easy to notice that the younger generation of Koreans are much fatter than their parents. They eat crap convenience store noodles, on the go, gorge on sweets, sit in hagwons and sit with their smartphones or in front of computers during their free time.

If you're talking about your skinny CT eating a mountain of food, during lunch, here's what I've deduced:

- They throw half of it away
- This is probably the largest meal they'll eat of the day... sometimes the only one
- They diet/starve themselves
- You'll notice that whilst being thin, muscle is almost non-existent, their bodies keep breaking
  down muscle tissue since glycogen stores are perpetually low.
- Some will do regular cardio

The fast and slow metabolism excuse is... well... BS.
'Natural' metabolic speeds are only really 5% faster than normal, for people with fast metabolisms and 5% slower than normal for folks with slower metabolisms.
The thing that really slows down or kicks up your metabolic speeds is the amount of muscle your body carries. More muscle = faster metabolism and vice versa.

Korean woman, in particular, are starving themselves to look thinner.

First rant here.

Okay, so I'm at the school where kids are pretty unmotivated. I've successfully combated that by spending as little time in the book as possible, then playing a game where they'll get plenty of repetition of the target phrase.

So, today I'm teaching the 3rd grade middle school students, and they had a lot of fun with the game for the first phrase, and I just finished explaining the second phrase we would learn this week. I have only 10 minutes left, but that's fine, we should get through a couple of rounds of the game today and play it a couple of times.

But apparently one of the boys is acting up so much (admittedly, this student is usually half asleep, but I prefer that to disruptive), so my CoT proceeds to yell at him. In front of everyone. For the last ten minutes of class.

So now, the entire class is behind on the phrase, so I either have to cut it or cut off part of the next chapter to get some practice in.

We have a portable microphone salesman in the teacher office right now and he is not hesitant to sample his wares. Bother it all.

I am convinced that co-teaching would work much better if our salaries were kept private. 

If I were a Korean teacher, I probably could not help becoming envious and resentful if I knew someone who was not my superior, and did not have my training, was making more money than myself.   No matter how much I liked them or approved of their job performance, there would always be that resentment and working together would always be difficult.

Korean teachers will not consider their bonuses, income growth potential, and the sacrifices we have to make to live in a foreign culture away from our families.  If I was in their position, I would probably feel the same way.   

I am so sick of passive aggressive jabs at my income! 
I can see where salary transparency can help a company increase productivity and competitiveness - but in the case of teaching ESL, I think it's the main cause of problems with coworkers.   It has nothing to do with culture.  It's human nature.   

Koreans in general seem to think we get paid a lot more than we do. At a meetup with Americans and Koreans, one of the Americans offered to pay for the whole meal because it was one of the Koreans' birthday. The other was surprised, and birthday Korean said to her friend "oh, well, it's because foreign English teachers make a lot of money. 3mil won a month"

I wish!!!