RANTING/VENTING MEGATHREAD 3.0

I understand where you are coming from, but that isn't actually the best practice for learning via games.

Inserting a random element into the activity will better serve to keep everyone involved and engaged.

For example, some play match game where each match gets a point.  Best practices dictates that we should insert a random slide and trigger, then have the teams pick a character that reveals points from 1-4, a bomb, or other.  This way, whether teams are high-level or not everyone has a random chance to win the game.

Do you follow?

I agree that there ought to be a certain amount of randomness for exactly the reasons you mention, but on the other hand, participation and understanding of grammar/vocabulary should also be rewarded else there's no motivation to learn the materials.

Ideally, both should be factored into the scoring.

Not that hard to do, actually. Bomb games are a good example: teams who have a better understanding of the material tend to have more opportunities to uncover points, but are also more likely to uncover bombs, which keeps scoring semi-random.

Gave a short reading comprehension test to my class today, only 12 points total. One of the students rushed through the whole thing, got 0 points. I told him he had to try again because that was unacceptable. He said ok, re-did the test, brought it back and... got 1/2 a point this time. So... progress? Everyone else passed and did well, but he just made stuff up.

Gave a short reading comprehension test to my class today, only 12 points total. One of the students rushed through the whole thing, got 0 points. I told him he had to try again because that was unacceptable. He said ok, re-did the test, brought it back and... got 1/2 a point this time. So... progress? Everyone else passed and did well, but he just made stuff up.

Just 23 more times before he gets that perfect score! Fighting! 

Gave a short reading comprehension test to my class today, only 12 points total. One of the students rushed through the whole thing, got 0 points. I told him he had to try again because that was unacceptable. He said ok, re-did the test, brought it back and... got 1/2 a point this time. So... progress? Everyone else passed and did well, but he just made stuff up.

Just 23 more times before he gets that perfect score! Fighting! 

Which is probably what the parents will insist I do, haha.

That moment when your preworkout order from Iherb gets held up at customs :'( ....there goes 40,000W feelsbadman...

My CT rigs the games so the team she likes can win.

That's not good.

Hang tough and rant on.

My CT rigs the games so the team she likes can win.

Last class, it backfired and it made that team lose even more. And then they complained and she was like "I understand" and changed the rules again so they could catch up. They still lost.

Then she had the nerve to be in a bad mood about it, telling me she wanted the other team to win and that she understands why they complained. What is this? It's a game! The teams who get the answer right get the points. They answered wrong and lost (even though she was trying to make sure they won.)

I said, "well that's the game!" and she said "yes but I understand them..."

Well, I don't understand you, CT. You rig the game and make it unfair for other students and then you give in to the students you like because they say it's "not fair." You're a grown ass woman!

What's fair is playing the game by the rules and not playing favorites.

I understand where you are coming from, but that isn't actually the best practice for learning via games.

Inserting a random element into the activity will better serve to keep everyone involved and engaged.

For example, some play match game where each match gets a point.  Best practices dictates that we should insert a random slide and trigger, then have the teams pick a character that reveals points from 1-4, a bomb, or other.  This way, whether teams are high-level or not everyone has a random chance to win the game.

Do you follow?

Still doesn't change the fact that the CT favours one group over the other students and is rigging the game. Which is the real issue that the OP is talking about.

And besides, isn't a match game already random?  No one knows what's behind the squares until someone chooses them.  The only "non-random" thing about match games is the team that goes earlier in the sequence is at a disadvantage.  In my classes, we randomize it by using a dice roll to see who goes first.

And besides, isn't a match game already random?  No one knows what's behind the squares until someone chooses them.  The only "non-random" thing about match games is the team that goes earlier in the sequence is at a disadvantage.  In my classes, we randomize it by using a dice roll to see who goes first.

Right.

I didn't explain myself well.

Playing straight up, without chance in the scoring, the team that makes three matches would get three points.  The team with one match would get one, and so on.

Without dynamic scoring, once one or more of the groups know "the win" is beyond their reach due to simple scoring, they tune out.

I've found that it works much better when every group has a chance right up until the last turn to win (I don't like doing competitive activities in Korea, in general, as the students are too competitive to begin with, but they work at times). 

Not a single post here in three days? Wow.

To get the ball rolling again.

Is it fall or early Winter? Did we just skip fall?

Not a single post here in three days? Wow.

To get the ball rolling again.

Is it fall or early Winter? Did we just skip fall?

Just a glitch.

We'll have fall back tomorrow.

F*ck this coT.  You've generally just been a mild annoyance but this takes the cake.  So, I was supposed to have my last day with a travel school last week.  The day before, she called and asked to literally move all of the classes to another day because she "needs to do something on the mainland."  She wanted to move it to the day I pop into samulnori class and this would be the last one so naturally I didn't want to.  I just told her I needed to discuss it with my main coT. 

Travel coT ends up moving all my classes to today.  My main coT wanted me to be at my main school today and tomorrow for my last days and specifically told this travel coT that.  F*ck you again then.  This is the only coT that makes me make up classes if the schedule gets changed around.  Cause God forbid she have to teach any extra classes on her own when I could just do everything by myself while she's glued to her phone or the computer.  Yeah she's "so busy" with her two schools but I have double the schools she does so I have no sympathy for her whinging. 

The winds were extremely strong yesterday so all ferries but one in the very early morning got canceled.  Only one teacher from my school made it to the island in time.  Today, literally waiting at port with everyone else from my school, hoping for winds to die down enough for the ferries to run again.  Had to wait to the point where I missed all my last classes with this travel school (classes are all in the morning). 

I informed this coT early on about the ferry situation (which she was well aware of anyway, since there are message alerts).  Paraphrasing, she says sorry, thanks for your 2 years of service, bye.  K, fine.  I later let her know that I'm catching the first ferry back and I'd like to stop in to at least say good bye to the students.  Now this is the bit where I got seriously pissed.   She tells me sorry, that they're "busy with programs."  F*ing kidding me??  Literally I just wanted to pop in a minute to say goodbye and throw them some Halloween candy.  I've taught them for two years and I actually do care about them.  My own classes have been interrupted on numerous occasions (by apologetic homeroom teachers) so I really don't think they'd mind if I stopped in for a brief minute to say goodbye. 

Anyway, I did figure up a solution.  Tomorrow is the day she's at a different school so I'll just hop in before classes start and say hey and bye to the kids while completely avoiding that coT.  HAH

It's too bad that you're having to deal with idiotic CT behavior during the homestretch of your contract yirj17.

Just know that you'll soon be free to give a piece of your mind to everyone who deserves it 

Not a single post here in three days? Wow.

To get the ball rolling again.

Is it fall or early Winter? Did we just skip fall?

Just a glitch.

We'll have fall back tomorrow.

I sure hope so. I'm not ready to be constantly be cold at school.

My coteacher always asks me to find materials for the lesson, and of course I don't mind doing that because that's part of lesson planning, but the whole time I'm working on lessons she's chatting with coworkers. When I show her what I've found/made she clearly does not like any of it. This has been going on all year and I still don't know what she wants. And it wouldn't kill her to stop talking for 10 minutes and help find/make something.

I used to work with several teachers like that, and it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you give them a chance to say they don't like what you found, they're going to say that. Just get in the rhythm of you come to class with the lesson ready, teach it, do a good job, and then they don't have to worry about your materials, and you don't have to run it past them. Just operate under the assumption that they should never need to ask you to find materials - you'll just bring them.

It's kind of hard to get into that routine if they've been approving or denying your stuff in the past, but if you start teaching with a new teacher, it's good to be just like, "Here's what we're doing, here's the files. See you tomorrow."

I like the idea and I wish I could do that, but my co is a complete control freak. She sits right next to me in the office and asks what I've found/made/working on every day. There's absolutely no way she'd ever allow any activity into the classroom that she didn't completely understand and pre-approve, and change parts of. Thanks for your suggestion, though.

It's always a privilege to witness my CT in action when it comes to discipline and the effectiveness of Korean teacher training. She teaches one class by herself and I sit in the next room. If you've ever visited Earth, you might've heard the noise her class makes. In an effort to combat this ear splitting raucous, she's turned to technology by plugging in the microphone and attempting to scream the lesson over the student's noise.

Not entirely dense, it took her 3 months to realize that this ultimately doubles the noise. So she's adopted the strategy of teaching the students to police each other by permitting them to shout the words "Be Quiet" at any noise violators. Now, we've got an English lesson of my CT shouting awkward Key Expressions through a speaker while 30 students are all attempting to scream "Be Quiet!" at their friends.

This kind of stuff is so funny!

I'm really laughing, so I don't know why I'm putting it in the ranting thread. I guess because it's just so ridiculous to find these chapters in a foreign language book. I wonder what they learn in their actual Korean lessons.

"Wow! Koreans are very smart."

Now I know why the Koreans I meet act like unpaid government tour and culture guides, even after I tell them I've been living here for several years. They are taught that this is how your conversations with foreigners are supposed to go. And why they act so disappointed when I don't gush over what they think I should gush over.  I didn't follow the script 

It's almost surreal.

I've taken classes in Arabic, French, German, Japanese, Mandarin, and Spanish, and not a single one of them included chapters about America. I had plenty of other classes in which to learn about my own country; my languages classes gave me the opportunity to learn about different cultures and new places.

I genuinely think the English books here are doing the students a disservice. Happily, I've often been given the opportunity to teach classes about whatever I feel like teaching them, so I try to give them the cultural exposure their textbooks don't.

This kind of stuff is so funny!

I'm really laughing, so I don't know why I'm putting it in the ranting thread. I guess because it's just so ridiculous to find these chapters in a foreign language book. I wonder what they learn in their actual Korean lessons.

"Wow! Koreans are very smart."

Now I know why the Koreans I meet act like unpaid government tour and culture guides, even after I tell them I've been living here for several years. They are taught that this is how your conversations with foreigners are supposed to go. And why they act so disappointed when I don't gush over what they think I should gush over.  I didn't follow the script 

Surprisingly, I've heard this has nothing to do with the inferiority complex.
Textbook publishers have a better shot of getting rich by getting MOE's to authorise the use of their textbooks when they fill it with nationalistic drivel.
The South Korean government, just like their comrades in the North, love Nationalism and filling their citizens with it. The more Nationalistic the people become, the easier they are to manipulate and the less likely they are to care when their overlords in government/Samsung get caught with their fingers in the cookie jar.

Had this discussion years ago with my first CT when I was still working with a CT. She was a brand new teacher. She told me they get virtually no classroom management training and student teaching is like a week but it's not really student teaching, because I have seen it first hand in my high school. They come in for two weeks (high school) and spend most of the time observing senior teachers and then they teach one truncated lesson (20 mins) with the senior teacher in the room to control the students.
I actually feel sorry for Kteachers, their prep is lacking in the classroom management and child psychology areas.

It's always a privilege to witness my CT in action when it comes to discipline and the effectiveness of Korean teacher training. She teaches one class by herself and I sit in the next room. If you've ever visited Earth, you might've heard the noise her class makes. In an effort to combat this ear splitting raucous, she's turned to technology by plugging in the microphone and attempting to scream the lesson over the student's noise.

Not entirely dense, it took her 3 months to realize that this ultimately doubles the noise. So she's adopted the strategy of teaching the students to police each other by permitting them to shout the words "Be Quiet" at any noise violators. Now, we've got an English lesson of my CT shouting awkward Key Expressions through a speaker while 30 students are all attempting to scream "Be Quiet!" at their friends.

It's officially "Close the door!" season.

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I'd like to make a polite request that you stop this now.  It's gone on long enough I think.