RANTING/VENTING MEGATHREAD 3.0

Korean food, being the spiciest and healthiest food EVAR ON EARF is the exact opposite. That's my theory. Just another superiority-inferiority complex.

Yes, Foreigners can't eat Korean food because it's too uniquely spicy. Foreigners should like and eat Korean food all the time because it's the best.

Make your mind up.

This is urgent, friends.

Sometimes I hate myself and therefore have a craving for hot dogs. But I have no idea which ones to buy as I fear that any Korean version is either: Five inches in circumference or disgusting or both. Has anyone found a brand here that might mimic the specific repulsiveness of an American hot dog?

And, to make this more rant-y, first grade middle schoolers are the worst people on the planet.

Fixed that for you.

At one school, my third years are okay but the first give less collective fucks than I do, and I'm all out of fucks to give. I just teach theough them and let them fail. Not my fault my coteacher neutered my classroom discipline plan on day one 

At one school, my third years are okay but the first give less collective fucks than I do, and I'm all out of fucks to give. I just teach theough them and let them fail. Not my fault my coteacher neutered my classroom discipline plan on day one 

Yeah I truly am baffled by how they manage to be a mix of everything terrible: roughhousing/screaming before class, slamming their books on the desks, and then during class they're either disruptive or unresponsive or both. Even games that my other grades go nuts for are treated as if it's some huge inconvenience.

My third graders are hilarious. My second graders think I'm hilarious. It's usually a good time. But the first graders just...ugh.

At one school, my third years are okay but the first give less collective fucks than I do, and I'm all out of fucks to give. I just teach theough them and let them fail. Not my fault my coteacher neutered my classroom discipline plan on day one 

Yeah I truly am baffled by how they manage to be a mix of everything terrible: roughhousing/screaming before class, slamming their books on the desks, and then during class they're either disruptive or unresponsive or both. Even games that my other grades go nuts for are treated as if it's some huge inconvenience.

My third graders are hilarious. My second graders think I'm hilarious. It's usually a good time. But the first graders just...ugh.

I have 4 schools: 2 middle and 2 elementary. At the elementary schools, the kids love me and the teachers love me and I love then and I get to play games and songs constantly because they all put in the effort to learn the lesson material each week.

At my midde schools, I try to do games and the like and get blank stares and blank papers. The English levels are SO varied there (and one is an all-girls school), that the lowest levels are lost, the highest levels are bored, and the middle levels don't care. It's a shit situation because I just don't have the time to plan so many disparate lessons and account for all the skill differences at my beginner level of teaching and I don't know many of my MS kids by name yet. This leads to boredom and acting out, compiled with no disciplinary ability on my end, a lack of experience and time and communication, and the fact that first years don't have midterms or finals. It's a perfect storm of shit.

Three weeks in and I'm being asked to change textbooks with one class!

Argh!

My knee hurts, but I can't think of a reason to blame it on Korea. Any suggestions?

My knee hurts, but I can't think of a reason to blame it on Korea. Any suggestions?

Rough terrain?
Uneven sidewalks?
Quickly swerved to avoid an entitled adjuma who wouldn't yield?

My knee hurts, but I can't think of a reason to blame it on Korea. Any suggestions?

"Because Korea" works in a pinch~

My knee hurts, but I can't think of a reason to blame it on Korea. Any suggestions?

"Because Korea" works in a pinch~

The food was so spicy you hit your knee on the table in surprise.

Context: During my mid-year evaluation, when it came time to offer my thoughts about what would be helpful in the coming semester, I said I'd like some sort of feedback about lessons. I wasn't looking to have some involved daily discussion -- just a quick minute after class here and there like, "Hey that lesson went well because A B C" or "I think this activity would be better if A B C."

Well, that was shot down because "so busy please understand our unique situation."

Instead, last week I got a paragraph of passive aggressive feedback detailing how I shouldn't repeat activities ever because the students get bored (Uh, I could shoot fireworks out of my ass and they will still find a way to be bored). Now, I've done this twice -- once by request of the students and another because it forces the kids to actually, you know, use the language and do the work (running dictation). The rest of the time usually involves card games, board games, pictionary, and the like. It's not like I'm doing bomb games the whole time.

I'm trying to SNIP but this is just kind of a thorn in my paw. I did an ~investigatory~ stroll through the halls and, as expected saw one of three things: teachers droning into microphones with half the kids sleeping, some sort of video with half the kids sleeping, and teachers at their desks while their students did **** all.

I'm not the best English Clown to ever live but there's something that feels highly uncomfortable about being held to different standards that typically result in having just enough rope to hang yourself.

SNIP, I know. SNIP. But still  .

^

One of the joys of teaching here. They have no idea what they are doing, so they need to criticise to save face. Virtually all of my co-workers just translate the reading sections out of the textbook and talk about grammar.  That's a "lesson" to them.

I was told "too many activities", but, later, that same co-teacher said she doesn't do any activities at all so was just throwing her weight around for no reason other than making her feel good.

I'd like a foreign teacher trainer to observe the old duck in my school who brags how she's always on business trips "consulting" on other English teachers. She'd be less than a novice if put in the private system. Her students hate her classes - they told me when I teach alone with them. Poor old dear.

My knee hurts, but I can't think of a reason to blame it on Korea. Any suggestions?

Blame it on Japan and you will be a hero here.

Context: During my mid-year evaluation, when it came time to offer my thoughts about what would be helpful in the coming semester, I said I'd like some sort of feedback about lessons. I wasn't looking to have some involved daily discussion -- just a quick minute after class here and there like, "Hey that lesson went well because A B C" or "I think this activity would be better if A B C."

Well, that was shot down because "so busy please understand our unique situation."

Instead, last week I got a paragraph of passive aggressive feedback detailing how I shouldn't repeat activities ever because the students get bored (Uh, I could shoot fireworks out of my ass and they will still find a way to be bored). Now, I've done this twice -- once by request of the students and another because it forces the kids to actually, you know, use the language and do the work (running dictation). The rest of the time usually involves card games, board games, pictionary, and the like. It's not like I'm doing bomb games the whole time.

I'm trying to SNIP but this is just kind of a thorn in my paw. I did an ~investigatory~ stroll through the halls and, as expected saw one of three things: teachers droning into microphones with half the kids sleeping, some sort of video with half the kids sleeping, and teachers at their desks while their students did **** all.

I'm not the best English Clown to ever live but there's something that feels highly uncomfortable about being held to different standards that typically result in having just enough rope to hang yourself.

SNIP, I know. SNIP. But still  .

I am annoyed for you!!!

I've a new CT and I'm seeing a disturbing indication of things to come: she naps in the afternoon and as soon as the last school bell rings she wants to discuss class planning. Once was OK, but now there's a definite pattern filled with lots of round and round the mulberry bush.

I've a new CT and I'm seeing a disturbing indication of things to come: she naps in the afternoon and as soon as the last school bell rings she wants to discuss class planning. Once was OK, but now there's a definite pattern filled with lots of round and round the mulberry bush.

Time your own nap strategically~

I'm better with blunt instruments than strategic thinking. How would you strategically nap?

Stop trying to indoctrinate every Tom, Mohammad and Lin who steps onto Korean soil with effin' Dokdo! Dokdo doesn't represent world peace AT ALL!!!

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2017/08/177_235580.html

Goodbye, awesome principal 

May your replacement not be horrible. 

Stop trying to indoctrinate every Tom, Mohammad and Lin who steps onto Korean soil with effin' Dokdo! Dokdo doesn't represent world peace AT ALL!!!

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2017/08/177_235580.html

If anything it represents the opposite since Dokdo's history begins and ends with the current 70 year dispute over its ownership. Both sides' historical arguments for ownership are vague and inconclusive. The reality most likely is no one gave a crap about 46 acres of bird shit stained rock in the middle of nowhere until it became a symbol and subsequent center of some decent fishing and a potential source of natural gas.

I'm tired of sticking out like a sore thumb here. My town is small, so they're not as used to seeing foreigners. But omg, stop just sticking your hand is my hair, stop staring like I have a growth on my neck, and stop trying to talk to me when I'm running on the track.