RANTING/VENTING MEGATHREAD 3.0

Seriously, why is it like this??? It can't be a coincidence, most speech contests, talent shows or any big events requiring planning I've experienced over the years are littered with these kinds of screw ups.

These are adults who survived Korean highschool, went through the 수능 exams, got into university and passed the teacher's exams... Pressure and stress should be their bitch be now.

Watching my middle school kids and the way they work, they don't really teach organizational or time management skills here. They're expected to figure this out for themselves as they go through life, and project-based group work (which is where a lot of project planning and skills are learned) isn't something they regularly engage in, either. Most of the group work my kids experience are in my own classes, and many of my students are so resistant to group work that I have to seriously micromanage to make sure everyone is pulling his/her own weight. I can walk them through a lot of the "bigger" projects, but I almost literally have to hold their hands every step of the way.

If they receive an assignment where they can work alone, and the project is relatively small, they're very good about focusing on the task and getting the work done. When they're given parts they've got to complete as part of a larger project, though, many of them dig in their heels because it's not what they're familiar with, and they don't understand the point behind it. And when working as part of group, part of the problem is they all want to shine individually, not as a group, and no one wants the extra responsibility of keeping their own members in line and on task (and making sure everyone is on schedule).

My point is, they don't learn the skills or see the point of group or large, project-based work during their primary and secondary school years. It's not a focus here, and it carries on into their adulthood, which is where they're expected to figure it out on their own from scratch (in theory, with someone's guidance, but we know how often that happens). Some of them manage to figure things out, but many of them struggle and continue to struggle with it, not just because they never developed the skills and concepts behind them while younger, but also because most no one else has, either. So they're working raw at all angles with people who may or may not be too helpful or cooperative (especially when those people feel like they won't get any credit for their parts in it, which, sad to say, is common here), and it's often discouraged to ask for help.

Waygook.org user Chinguetti, nuanced and thoughtful discussion of topics doesn't belong on these forums.

All jokes aside, this is true. And also, another (less nuanced) observation for why things get completely bungled, is because some people literally just don't care enough to do a good job. Obviously this doesn't apply to everyone who makes a mess of something they were supposed to plan. But in some cases, it really is just that the person couldn't be bothered to put the effort in bring the quality up. It's the attitude of 'Well, nobody's going to notice or care, so, why bother?' and to some extent, that really is true. Especially when it comes to English classes or events.

I agree with both points:

Chinguetti, I've seen this back home too, but only with a minority of students. Nowhere is this more prevalent than during camp. From what I've witnessed two factors are clearly visible, a lack of confidence and extremely poor leadership skills. Open giving a group project, it usually starts with the students waiting to be told what to do by someone, it's extremely rare to witness one student take charge, delegate the tasks to various students etc. For the most part, these kids are not nurtured or encouraged to develop leadership skills or express opinions, which I believe leads to confidence.

Where I'm not sure comes to adulthood. While studying for my teacher's license, one of the chapters studied were the logistics of managing and overseeing school events like plays, sports events, contests etc.
Now I'm not sure if Korean universities teach these things during teacher training, but when you're given a very generous schedule and you have past experience, you should be able to hold your own.

Cowboy, speaking to her after the contest, she too just wanted to get it over with and didn't really care... Now, here's where I have a big problem. I too don't care about the silly textbook, key expressions. Honestly, I know that what I'm teaching isn't going to help, but the difference is, when you make a living off doing something, you're a professional.
Your work has your name stamped on it and if you can point at your work and say, "Oh well, it's bad, but I don't care" you don't deserve to be called a professional, as far as I'm concerned.
If I go a bit deeper, I'm guessing this could be a cultural difference. Looking at Korea's rigid corporate structure, it's not  the work that's going to get you promoted, it's your seniority and relationship with those above you. Work does matter, but it's more the volume, not the quality you've done that seems to matter.

The consequences of tenure. Unions are usually a great thing, but stuff like this is why there needs to be some balance.

in england there's an outside agency called OFSTED that periodically grades schools and teachers' performances. stressful and all teachers in england hate it, but it seems to work to some extent - to keep the teachers on their toes if not anything else

all performance grading in korea seems to be done half-arsed and in-house (i think?), so it seems there's no real incentive to do a good job

The consequences of tenure. Unions are usually a great thing, but stuff like this is why there needs to be some balance.

in england there's an outside agency called OFSTED that periodically grades schools and teachers' performances. stressful and all teachers in england hate it, but it seems to work to some extent - to keep the teachers on their toes if not anything else

all performance grading in korea seems to be done half-arsed and in-house (i think?), so it seems there's no real incentive to do a good job

I've never seen so many rubber stamps and farces than over here.
I'll never forget my CT's, from 2yrs ago, open class. She'd just come back from teacher training in NZ and present in class to see what she'd learned were: the principal, vp, head teacher, about 14 teachers from different schools around the city, officials from the MOE and officials from the POE.
The lesson couldn't have bombed more epically than if she made a conscious effort to do so, students were throwing stationary around the class, it took 20min to explain the game which every student ignored the rules for (she would've taken longer, but the bell actually cut her off mid explanation), when reviewing (after the bell rang), not one student could remember a single key expression.
End of the lesson, she got loud applause!

The entire Epik programme, massive farce. Our renewal interviews, complete farce.

Everything seems to boil down to interpersonal relationships, specifically, do your superiors like you.

Your grounds for promotion, renewal or approval (or their opposites) oftentimes cannot be legally put onto paper. Usually, your boss likes you because you don't cause problems and do your job, then again, maybe your boss doesn't like you because you didn't kiss enough ass, perhaps he likes you because you downed half your weight in alcohol at the hweshik.

The farce of an interview or review will reflect your underlying relationship.
This entire system needs to be scrapped. Performance needs to be the sole metric.

The consequences of tenure. Unions are usually a great thing, but stuff like this is why there needs to be some balance.

in england there's an outside agency called OFSTED that periodically grades schools and teachers' performances. stressful and all teachers in england hate it, but it seems to work to some extent - to keep the teachers on their toes if not anything else

all performance grading in korea seems to be done half-arsed and in-house (i think?), so it seems there's no real incentive to do a good job

This just went down in Canada:
Universities are checking up on highschools.

Basically, many universities are noticing that there is a huge discrepancy between the grades of students originating from certain schools and their performance in uni. There's a big brewhaha about some of the unis considering curving student grades depending on where they originate from.

   Basically, lazy teachers are half assing their classes, and just marking up grades to make the school look good... which is exactly what I've heard many NETs complain about here in Korea. Hopefully one day unis will hold schools accountable for the education they give their students by adjusting highschool rankings according to amount of grade inflation... it'll never happen, but hey.

The consequences of tenure. Unions are usually a great thing, but stuff like this is why there needs to be some balance.

in england there's an outside agency called OFSTED that periodically grades schools and teachers' performances. stressful and all teachers in england hate it, but it seems to work to some extent - to keep the teachers on their toes if not anything else

all performance grading in korea seems to be done half-arsed and in-house (i think?), so it seems there's no real incentive to do a good job

I've never seen so many rubber stamps and farces than over here.
I'll never forget my CT's, from 2yrs ago, open class. She'd just come back from teacher training in NZ and present in class to see what she'd learned were: the principal, vp, head teacher, about 14 teachers from different schools around the city, officials from the MOE and officials from the POE.
The lesson couldn't have bombed more epically than if she made a conscious effort to do so, students were throwing stationary around the class, it took 20min to explain the game which every student ignored the rules for (she would've taken longer, but the bell actually cut her off mid explanation), when reviewing (after the bell rang), not one student could remember a single key expression.
End of the lesson, she got loud applause!

The entire Epik programme, massive farce. Our renewal interviews, complete farce.

Everything seems to boil down to interpersonal relationships, specifically, do your superiors like you.

Your grounds for promotion, renewal or approval (or their opposites) oftentimes cannot be legally put onto paper. Usually, your boss likes you because you don't cause problems and do your job, then again, maybe your boss doesn't like you because you didn't kiss enough ass, perhaps he likes you because you downed half your weight in alcohol at the hweshik.

The farce of an interview or review will reflect your underlying relationship.
This entire system needs to be scrapped. Performance needs to be the sole metric.

but who would measure your performances? it seems like no korean teachers have had any proper ESL/EFL training (come to that, do many native teachers?). in the past, when i had open classes, the principal was critical of my classes, even though he had no understanding of what was happening - he didn't speak a word of english. other times, korean teachers told me i did an amazing job, when they only turned up for 2 minutes and left

i've heard many stories of native teachers losing their jobs because somebody had a grudge against them at school, and they weren't renewed and had to leave korea; even the MOE refused to help. there's a ton of these stories on the LOFT facebook group. pretty lame

but who would measure your performances? it seems like no korean teachers have had any proper ESL/EFL training (come to that, do many native teachers?). in the past, when i had open classes, the principal was critical of my classes, even though he had no understanding of what was happening - he didn't speak a word of english. other times, korean teachers told me i did an amazing job, when they only turned up for 2 minutes and left

There's no real point in Korean public schools having a system of training and assessment until they decide on their preferred pedagogy. Korean teachers trained in the communicative approach and teaching through L2 will inevitably revert to L1 and rote learning, which may even be the most effective method when teaching for the Korean university exam. As I've mentioned on here before when I'm training, Korean teachers ask me why they should teach in L2 when their native speaker teachers don't, and it's difficult to answer. When they do overseas training and observe teachers in the UK teaching French, for example , they see UK teachers also doing it primarily  in L1.  Having said that, the UK is hardly a role model for language teaching. I'd look to the likes of Hong Kong and Singapore.

They should either say we're going to teach everything in L2 in the communicative way right up to high school level (like they do in HK) and scrap the university exam, or keep the exam, admit the communicative way is a waste of time from middle school onwards, scrap all foreign training jollies and assess teachers in their ability to teach for the test in Korean. Maybe they could still assess elementary school teachers on their ability to teach the communicative approach in L2 on the basis that it's more engaging for the little uns. 

I've taught on plenty of training courses where high quality Korean teachers have been trained up to be able to assess and mentor their colleagues but until they decide on exactly how they want to teach the kids, it's not going to work. If you take the BC as an example where they have a clear pedagogy laid out in their mission statement, observing any teacher is a breeze and everyone (who's switched on) knows what the managers expect and how they can deliver it.

nice post.

it feels at korean elementary schools, teaching english is the lowest rung of the ladder, and pretty much nobody wants to do it. it's usually the new teachers (younger teachers these days, at least, can usually speak english fairly well) who have no experience teaching - let alone teaching english, or contract teachers, who know they'll only be there for a short time (some who can barely string a sentence together).

either way, nobody wants to do it, and they have no real passion for it, either. there's no system about how to teach (apart from following the textbook to a T) because nobody in the school has any idea either - and the native teachers are usually largely ignored (not that i'm saying they are necessarily more knowledgeable, but  i know a couple of instructors who have been at their schools for 10 or so years and are never asked for their input on textbooks, teaching tips, assessments, etc)

the only constant i can find used to assess if a class if successful is, "well, the kids seem to like it"

nice post.

it feels at korean elementary schools, teaching english is the lowest rung of the ladder, and pretty much nobody wants to do it. it's usually the new teachers (younger teachers these days, at least, can usually speak english fairly well) who have no experience teaching - let alone teaching english, or contract teachers, who know they'll only be there for a short time (some who can barely string a sentence together).

either way, nobody wants to do it, and they have no real passion for it, either. there's no system about how to teach (apart from following the textbook to a T) because nobody in the school has any idea either - and the native teachers are usually largely ignored (not that i'm saying they are necessarily more knowledgeable, but  i know a couple of instructors who have been at their schools for 10 or so years and are never asked for their input on textbooks, teaching tips, assessments, etc)

the only constant i can find used to assess if a class if successful is, "well, the kids seem to like it"

In order to assess people's teaching properly you need to set in place the following.

1) Have clear criteria for assessment, which the people being assessed understand.
2) Have assessors trained in identifying and assessing this criteria
3) Have all the assessors standardized in their assessment techniques and grading.
4) Have external assessors, with the same training occasionally monitor and standardize the assessors.

This is what happens with the CELTA, DELTA and formal observations at the BC. and until all this is in place  no one will really take it seriously e.g Aristocrat

Sure you can observe anyone at any time for other reasons but it shouldn't have any effect on their job unless most, if not all, of the above conditions are met.
 

The consequences of tenure. Unions are usually a great thing, but stuff like this is why there needs to be some balance.

in england there's an outside agency called OFSTED that periodically grades schools and teachers' performances. stressful and all teachers in england hate it, but it seems to work to some extent - to keep the teachers on their toes if not anything else

all performance grading in korea seems to be done half-arsed and in-house (i think?), so it seems there's no real incentive to do a good job

This just went down in Canada:
Universities are checking up on highschools.

Basically, many universities are noticing that there is a huge discrepancy between the grades of students originating from certain schools and their performance in uni. There's a big brewhaha about some of the unis considering curving student grades depending on where they originate from.

   Basically, lazy teachers are half assing their classes, and just marking up grades to make the school look good... which is exactly what I've heard many NETs complain about here in Korea. Hopefully one day unis will hold schools accountable for the education they give their students by adjusting highschool rankings according to amount of grade inflation... it'll never happen, but hey.

This may be the case, but I think the biggest reason is parents and not teachers. A school with lower scores might get more funding, but not one with higher scores. The school may get students who are more motivated (self or parent motivation). Other benefits of have wealthier students might also pop up.

The reason I think this is happening is because teachers get harassed by parents and from a teacher's perspective it's not worth it to go to battle against White Wine or Tiger Moms who have nothing better to do.

The reason I think this is happening is because teachers get harassed by parents and from a teacher's perspective it's not worth it to go to battle against White Wine or Tiger Moms who have nothing better to do.

Haven't come across this expression before, and Urban Dictionary is only giving me smut. I have a general sense of what it might mean, but... my general guesses usually end up embarrassing me, so...

nice post.

it feels at korean elementary schools, teaching english is the lowest rung of the ladder, and pretty much nobody wants to do it. it's usually the new teachers (younger teachers these days, at least, can usually speak english fairly well) who have no experience teaching - let alone teaching english, or contract teachers, who know they'll only be there for a short time (some who can barely string a sentence together).

either way, nobody wants to do it, and they have no real passion for it, either. there's no system about how to teach (apart from following the textbook to a T) because nobody in the school has any idea either - and the native teachers are usually largely ignored (not that i'm saying they are necessarily more knowledgeable, but  i know a couple of instructors who have been at their schools for 10 or so years and are never asked for their input on textbooks, teaching tips, assessments, etc)

the only constant i can find used to assess if a class if successful is, "well, the kids seem to like it"

I think some of it depends on whether your school is old school or not. I'm starting year 2 at my elementary schools and they been really great and do ask my opinions about stuff, such as textbooks. I'd say the biggest chunk of it is just feeling shy and embarrassed speaking in another language, especially if you aren't young and grew up with more exposure to English and Western TV shows/movies/music, etc. If you aren't very confident and have to stand beside a native speaker and use English all day.. that can feel really intimidating for adults. Kids aren't so self-conscious.  It would be the same if the situation was reversed

nice post.

it feels at korean elementary schools, teaching english is the lowest rung of the ladder, and pretty much nobody wants to do it. it's usually the new teachers (younger teachers these days, at least, can usually speak english fairly well) who have no experience teaching - let alone teaching english, or contract teachers, who know they'll only be there for a short time (some who can barely string a sentence together).

either way, nobody wants to do it, and they have no real passion for it, either. there's no system about how to teach (apart from following the textbook to a T) because nobody in the school has any idea either - and the native teachers are usually largely ignored (not that i'm saying they are necessarily more knowledgeable, but  i know a couple of instructors who have been at their schools for 10 or so years and are never asked for their input on textbooks, teaching tips, assessments, etc)

the only constant i can find used to assess if a class if successful is, "well, the kids seem to like it"

I think some of it depends on whether your school is old school or not. I'm starting year 2 at my elementary schools and they been really great and do ask my opinions about stuff, such as textbooks. I'd say the biggest chunk of it is just feeling shy and embarrassed speaking in another language, especially if you aren't young and grew up with more exposure to English and Western TV shows/movies/music, etc. If you aren't very confident and have to stand beside a native speaker and use English all day.. that can feel really intimidating for adults. Kids aren't so self-conscious.  It would be the same if the situation was reversed

Shy and embarrassed is perfectly acceptable if you're a cashier at Lotte Mart. When you're a Korean school teacher, you studied at university/college and part of that training DOES include teaching English, particularly for elementary school teachers, you're trained to teach in every subject. Taking out the 9yrs of English education at public school, as well as your university education, it IS indeed your job to be able to teach English, this includes being able to communicate in the language, to a reasonable degree. Dismissing all of this even, nothing is stopping a Korean teacher from improving their English after becoming a teacher, particularly if they find their skill is lacking. No, the standard MO is to run away and avoid any situation where they'd have to speak/use English (their job) for the next 20-30yrs.

When you're paid money to do a job, shy and embarrassed is no excuse for being incompetent. 
If the situation were reversed, you're teaching a foreign language in a western school and it's discovered you barely speak the language, you'd be fired ASAP.

Yeah have to agree with some of Aristocrat's points above.

The majority of my coteachers are scared of speaking English and happily admit it.  They don't like speaking English because they know (and again admit) that they aren't good at it.

But I totally understand their position.  Teaching English here doesn't require any speaking skills.  I can't remember ever walking past an English class and hearing English being spoken.  Ever. 

They're in a position where they can never be fired and have a job for life.  Why waste time and energy to improve speaking skills?  I probably wouldn't lol.  Although it must be embarrassing when students can speak English better than they can.  I've seen that happen A LOT.

Shy and embarrassed is perfectly acceptable if you're a cashier at Lotte Mart. When you're a Korean school teacher, you studied at university/college and part of that training DOES include teaching English, particularly for elementary school teachers, you're trained to teach in every subject. Taking out the 9yrs of English education at public school, as well as your university education, it IS indeed your job to be able to teach English, this includes being able to communicate in the language, to a reasonable degree. Dismissing all of this even, nothing is stopping a Korean teacher from improving their English after becoming a teacher, particularly if they find their skill is lacking. No, the standard MO is to run away and avoid any situation where they'd have to speak/use English (their job) for the next 20-30yrs.

When you're paid money to do a job, shy and embarrassed is no excuse for being incompetent. 
If the situation were reversed, you're teaching a foreign language in a western school and it's discovered you barely speak the language, you'd be fired ASAP.

Well said. Many of these teachers also get trips abroad paid for by the tax payer, to study English and come back worse than when they left.

So.....why were a group of us banned for a few days?

One thing j learnt during my exile, was the "other site" works better on mobile devices!

So.....why were a group of us banned for a few days?

One thing j learnt during my exile, was the "other site" works better on mobile devices!

It appears that everyone was banned for a few days. There were no posts whatsoever for 4 days.

So.....why were a group of us banned for a few days?

One thing j learnt during my exile, was the "other site" works better on mobile devices!

I saw a post on a reddit thread. Apparently one of the mods was going to ban someone, but made a huge mistake. This is the post:

Hey folks, came here to say this is my fault. It's an honest mistake, but a mistake nonetheless. The way the ban triggers work aren't the most user friendly thing in the world. Previously when I wanted to ban a user, a ton of IPs would show up or it would list 100s of users (if not more) under "possible users with this ip"-ish header. So of course I would ignore the IP option and simply ban their account and email from being used.

I had only ever previously banned 1 or maybe two spammers. Well just a few days ago, another spammer posted and as I was going to ban them, I noticed there was no super long list of IPs or users associated with the IP, so I figured it was probably safe to ban the IP (this spammer consistently changes usernames and emails in order to post their NSFW spam). Banning their IP would hopefully curb their spam for a while I hoped. Unfortunately banning that IP has caused this current predicament. I emailed Arsalan a couple days ago, and I assume other mods have as well if they are also unable to log in... Yes, I am also "banned." Feelsbadman.

Really sorry for all this shit. It's likely as much inconvenience to me as it is to you. I can only hope the fix isn't difficult, but I have no knowledge of that at this time. I had mentioned in the mod section of the forums about how there is little information about how to use the more advanced moderator features, but those with the most knowledge on that topic are quite busy these days.

I do find it genuinely funny that a couple people thought it might be my account that had been hacked considering I'm not well liked. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The reason I think this is happening is because teachers get harassed by parents and from a teacher's perspective it's not worth it to go to battle against White Wine or Tiger Moms who have nothing better to do.

Haven't come across this expression before, and Urban Dictionary is only giving me smut. I have a general sense of what it might mean, but... my general guesses usually end up embarrassing me, so...

A White Wine Mom in my mind has kid(s) and kind of regrets it. She thought it would be more like what she's seen on TV and movies. She's overwhelmed. Her husband works as a highly placed executive at a company which we all purchase products from. The family's finances are so safe that outside help can be paid for to do most of the parenting. Her friends hired Filipinas, so she does the same. Her kid accidentally called the nanny, mom. She was angry, but also felt a tinge of guilt. As they leave for the playground, she glances into her glass-door refrigerator, then at the kitchen clock. It's not too early, she tells herself.

The consequences of tenure. Unions are usually a great thing, but stuff like this is why there needs to be some balance.

in england there's an outside agency called OFSTED that periodically grades schools and teachers' performances. stressful and all teachers in england hate it, but it seems to work to some extent - to keep the teachers on their toes if not anything else

all performance grading in korea seems to be done half-arsed and in-house (i think?), so it seems there's no real incentive to do a good job

I've never seen so many rubber stamps and farces than over here.
I'll never forget my CT's, from 2yrs ago, open class. She'd just come back from teacher training in NZ and present in class to see what she'd learned were: the principal, vp, head teacher, about 14 teachers from different schools around the city, officials from the MOE and officials from the POE.
The lesson couldn't have bombed more epically than if she made a conscious effort to do so, students were throwing stationary around the class, it took 20min to explain the game which every student ignored the rules for (she would've taken longer, but the bell actually cut her off mid explanation), when reviewing (after the bell rang), not one student could remember a single key expression.
End of the lesson, she got loud applause!

The entire Epik programme, massive farce. Our renewal interviews, complete farce.

Everything seems to boil down to interpersonal relationships, specifically, do your superiors like you.

Your grounds for promotion, renewal or approval (or their opposites) oftentimes cannot be legally put onto paper. Usually, your boss likes you because you don't cause problems and do your job, then again, maybe your boss doesn't like you because you didn't kiss enough ass, perhaps he likes you because you downed half your weight in alcohol at the hweshik.

The farce of an interview or review will reflect your underlying relationship.
This entire system needs to be scrapped. Performance needs to be the sole metric.

but who would measure your performances? it seems like no korean teachers have had any proper ESL/EFL training (come to that, do many native teachers?). in the past, when i had open classes, the principal was critical of my classes, even though he had no understanding of what was happening - he didn't speak a word of english. other times, korean teachers told me i did an amazing job, when they only turned up for 2 minutes and left

i've heard many stories of native teachers losing their jobs because somebody had a grudge against them at school, and they weren't renewed and had to leave korea; even the MOE refused to help. there's a ton of these stories on the LOFT facebook group. pretty lame

That's what happened to one of my English friends recently. He was working super hard for his students here, even when we'd hang out on the weekends, he'd bring his laptop to work on his lessons. His students loved him, but his older co-teachers hated him (he had 6 co-T's at 1 school, and the 3 older ones were the ones who got to decide if he could renew), the younger ones liked him though.
The older one's didn't like that the students were enjoying his lessons, and felt like they were losing face, because their lessons weren't as good as his. So, at renewal time, they said no.

His old students have actually contacted him a few times, to say they don't like the new teacher, because the new teacher is very boring. He thinks, the older teachers are trying to force the new teacher to be boring, based on what happened with him.

The reason I think this is happening is because teachers get harassed by parents and from a teacher's perspective it's not worth it to go to battle against White Wine or Tiger Moms who have nothing better to do.

Haven't come across this expression before, and Urban Dictionary is only giving me smut. I have a general sense of what it might mean, but... my general guesses usually end up embarrassing me, so...

A White Wine Mom in my mind has kid(s) and kind of regrets it. She thought it would be more like what she's seen on TV and movies. She's overwhelmed. Her husband works as a highly placed executive at a company which we all purchase products from. The family's finances are so safe that outside help can be paid for to do most of the parenting. Her friends hired Filipinas, so she does the same. Her kid accidentally called the nanny, mom. She was angry, but also felt a tinge of guilt. As they leave for the playground, she glances into her glass-door refrigerator, then at the kitchen clock. It's not too early, she tells herself.

That was beautiful. Brought a tear to my eye, it did.