RANTING/VENTING MEGATHREAD 3.0

Speaking tests have begun again.

And the pressure to give students undeserved grades is a lot higher this semester than in previous semesters. Their reasoning? That more students are wanting to attend non-technical high schools than in previous recent years, so they want to encourage that.

And it's like... students who put in zero effort for their speaking exam won't do very well in "regular" high school anyway. The only reason why those students even have a chance of getting into a non-technical high school is because KTs have fudged with their scores and grades. And they keep pushing me to do the same, when, honestly, those kids SHOULD go to a technical high school. They're clearly not invested in their academics, so they need to learn a trade instead.

I will not be persuaded. The teachers are just gonna have to start learning to push the students to take the speaking exams more seriously and to stop sheltering them from life. More students would take reality more seriously if teachers weren't so easily manipulated or coerced into rewarding students for putting in little to no effort.

There's just no ****** way I will be pressured into giving a student who can't even answer "How are you?" an 'A'. ********* no.

This is probably why certain KTs kept coming at me with "English is hard" within the last few weeks. They knew that the speaking exams were close and were trying to manipulate me into being "easier" on the students (i.e. giving them high grades regardless of their actual performances). To complete the picture for everyone, they were insisting that I only really needed to do it for certain students, not all (basically, their pets).

I ****** said 'no'. I will never change my mind. I'm actually seriously tempted to be harsher in my grading this year because of the constant pressure. You're just hurting yourself at this point, start ****** realizing that, I will ****** leave Korea before I dole out A's or B's to arrogant brats who refused to put in any effort because they felt entitled and above it all.

In Korea, your integrity is the last bastion defending your mental well-being.

Speaking tests have begun again.

And the pressure to give students undeserved grades is a lot higher this semester than in previous semesters. Their reasoning? That more students are wanting to attend non-technical high schools than in previous recent years, so they want to encourage that.

And it's like... students who put in zero effort for their speaking exam won't do very well in "regular" high school anyway. The only reason why those students even have a chance of getting into a non-technical high school is because KTs have fudged with their scores and grades. And they keep pushing me to do the same, when, honestly, those kids SHOULD go to a technical high school. They're clearly not invested in their academics, so they need to learn a trade instead.

I will not be persuaded. The teachers are just gonna have to start learning to push the students to take the speaking exams more seriously and to stop sheltering them from life. More students would take reality more seriously if teachers weren't so easily manipulated or coerced into rewarding students for putting in little to no effort.

There's just no ****** way I will be pressured into giving a student who can't even answer "How are you?" an 'A'. ********* no.

This is probably why certain KTs kept coming at me with "English is hard" within the last few weeks. They knew that the speaking exams were close and were trying to manipulate me into being "easier" on the students (i.e. giving them high grades regardless of their actual performances). To complete the picture for everyone, they were insisting that I only really needed to do it for certain students, not all (basically, their pets).

I ****** said 'no'. I will never change my mind. I'm actually seriously tempted to be harsher in my grading this year because of the constant pressure. You're just hurting yourself at this point, start ****** realizing that, I will ****** leave Korea before I dole out A's or B's to arrogant brats who refused to put in any effort because they felt entitled and above it all.

Accurate. I will, very, very occasionally, reward effort or improvement over actual performance. Like, if a student just naturally isn't very good at English (or academics, in general), but they always make an effort to complete all the assignments, participate actively, and really make a genuine effort to learn, I may mark them more generously than I would someone who refuses to pick up a pencil for the entire year. But yeah. I refuse to give free grades to students who literally just sit there and say nothing. Like, yeah, I get it - English is hard, but like, that doesn't mean you can't try.

Also, ugh - the whole attitude towards technical schools being for the failed students really grinds my gears. Measuring intelligence or potential by such narrow criteria as academic performance in a small selection of subjects is so wrong. Some people might be awful at math, language, and science, but could be a gifted musician, woodworker, electrician, plumber, or something. And all of those are skilled labour. There's literally no shame in that.

But regrettably, in Korea, tradespeople are not necessarily expected to be educated in their field, or particularly skilled, or anything. And they're paid accordingly. And this is why you get shoddy, poor quality buildings, and people generally not taking pride in their work, because nobody would recognize a good job if they even saw it.

Tradespeople should be required to be educated and / or licensed in what they do, for a lot of jobs. They should also be paid accordingly. There's a reason why, in most western countries, plumbers, electricians etc make respectable money - it's because they need to be good at what they do, and what they do is difficult.

Maybe youth unemployment here wouldn't be so miserably high if society didn't actively discourage students from going into fields where workers are most desperately needed.

(Disclaimer: yes, obviously there are skilled, professional tradespeople here - but there are also a lot who are not)

In Korea, your integrity is the last bastion defending your mental well-being.

Nah. Even if they totally destroy my integrity, they will then need to deal with plan b, which is utter apathy. That said, I feel that while I've learned to be flexible, my integrity is still okay. Hopefully it'll stay that way, fingers crossed.


Also, be careful about taking a very strong stance wrt speaking tests.

If I were a Korean teacher, and was unhappy with the grades my lazy-ass NET was giving to my little angels, I would just fudge them when I enter the scores into their grade spread sheets. It's super easy, completely avoids conflict, and leaves everybody happy (because ignorance is bliss).

I suspect it's been done a few times behind my back which is frustrating but, I mean, it's not like I can demand to see the final grade breakdown of each and every student...

In Korea, your integrity is the last bastion defending your mental well-being.

Nah. Even if they totally destroy my integrity, they will then need to deal with plan b, which is utter apathy. That said, I feel that while I've learned to be flexible, my integrity is still okay. Hopefully it'll stay that way, fingers crossed.


Also, be careful about taking a very strong stance wrt speaking tests.

If I were a Korean teacher, and was unhappy with the grades my lazy-ass NET was giving to my little angels, I would just fudge them when I enter the scores into their grade spread sheets. It's super easy, completely avoids conflict, and leaves everybody happy (because ignorance is bliss).

I suspect it's been done a few times behind my back which is frustrating but, I mean, it's not like I can demand to see the final grade breakdown of each and every student...

Waygook.org moderator LVL 1 kyndo knows what's up.

Apathy is the answer.

I ****** said 'no'. I will never change my mind. I'm actually seriously tempted to be harsher in my grading this year because of the constant pressure. You're just hurting yourself at this point, start ****** realizing that, I will ****** leave Korea before I dole out A's or B's to arrogant brats who refused to put in any effort because they felt entitled and above it all.

I wish so badly that I could give some of these kids a 0. I don't see the point of lower numbers existing if they can't be used. If all the students get A's or B's by default, the bad students who don't try don't deserve it, and it's unfair to the students that DO make an effort. Not to mention the arrogance it fills in some of their heads knowing there's no consequence to not trying.

I'd be pissed if I studied for hours and hours on end just to end up with the same result as my slacker of a classmate who didn't even make an attempt on the test.

Haha, sorry to hear that.  Will that effect you if you're trying to renew your contract?

I guess we'll find out soon enough.

EDIT: Well, that's a first. Never had a post I'm responding to disappear while i'm typing my response to it before. 

Haha, sorry to hear that.  Will that effect you if you're trying to renew your contract?

I guess we'll find out soon enough.

EDIT: Well, that's a first. Never had a post I'm responding to disappear while i'm typing my response to it before. 

Lol sorry I wanted to edit my post to make it look neater (reduce the quoted part).  You replied too quick haha. Good luck.

Haha, sorry to hear that.  Will that effect you if you're trying to renew your contract?

I guess we'll find out soon enough.

EDIT: Well, that's a first. Never had a post I'm responding to disappear while i'm typing my response to it before. 

You should be fine. If they don't make you schedule a return visit when you get the results, you're good. If they do decide it's too high, they'll just tell you to come back and test it again in a week or so. Giving you time to make it okay.

If I were a Korean teacher, and was unhappy with the grades my lazy-ass NET was giving to my little angels, I would just fudge them when I enter the scores into their grade spread sheets. It's super easy, completely avoids conflict, and leaves everybody happy (because ignorance is bliss).

I suspect it's been done a few times behind my back which is frustrating but, I mean, it's not like I can demand to see the final grade breakdown of each and every student...

I know for a fact that they give students the opportunity to complete extra credit assignments to help raise their final scores.

I think that's the main reason why they keep trying to push me to grade more leniently -- so that they can avoid more work on their own parts because I think my school has safeguards in place to prevent manipulation of other teachers' submitted grades.

But I mean, that's their prerogative. I don't care if they want to change the grades or whatever (this is where my apathy kicks in), but I'm not going to make it easier for them. I do my part, and whatever they decide to do about that after the fact is on their heads. If they want to shelter the students, if they want to coddle them and enable terrible study habits, then they can do that without my help. I'm not about to enable their bad habits, too.

Also, ugh - the whole attitude towards technical schools being for the failed students really grinds my gears. Measuring intelligence or potential by such narrow criteria as academic performance in a small selection of subjects is so wrong. Some people might be awful at math, language, and science, but could be a gifted musician, woodworker, electrician, plumber, or something. And all of those are skilled labour. There's literally no shame in that.

I agree, skilled tradesman usually make more money than people with fancy degrees, lol, as long as they're coming from places that require an apprenticeship and certification process. They earn a ton of money while they're learning the trade, and it doubles, even triples, once they become certified.

There's no shame in it whatsover, but people the world over will often look down their noses at electricians or plumbers, never once realizing that those guys can easily make six figures (in dollars) once certified. It's the best thing for people who can't take their academics seriously (or who just aren't good at book learning in general) because the training (and learning process) is mostly hands on and immediately applicable.

I can relate to giving bonus points to students that have made obvious effort and marked improvement, too. I have a specific category in my grading rubric for it. Many students take advantage of that to help boost their grade, and they deserve it. Then you have other students who think they can just cry to their KTs so that their KTs can champion their causes for them. And to those kids, nope, it ain't gonna work. Or when you get students who scored very well in the first semester, then slacked off in the second semester because they'd believed that they would get the same score ragardless of how they actually performed. Like for some reason they believe this will carry over.  Then they cry "unfair" when reality slaps them in the face, and make a lot of unsubstatiated claims that most KTs (in my experience) will auto-believe. These students are the ones that cause the most trouble, tbh. They're the reasons why I started keeping detailed notes and even record some of them.

Some of you guys on here gave me advice to challenge my middle school students as a way to keep them engaged in the class. Well I tried, and my CT told me that it was too hard for them (I'm literally teaching animal kingdom vocabulary like mammals, reptiles, etc.). Oh but I bet you it wouldn't be if these scoundrels actually payed attention.

She told me I should give them something on the elementary level instead.

This is all so counter-productive! And now I gotta come up with another lesson for this week.

Some of you guys on here gave me advice to challenge my middle school students as a way to keep them engaged in the class. Well I tried, and my CT told me that it was too hard for them (I'm literally teaching animal kingdom vocabulary like mammals, reptiles, etc.). Oh but I bet you it wouldn't be if these scoundrels actually payed attention.

She told me I should give them something on the elementary level instead.

This is all so counter-productive! And now I gotta come up with another lesson for this week.

Keep the animal theme, but dumb it way the heck down...

Think "barnyard animals and thier sounds".

Some of you guys on here gave me advice to challenge my students as a way to keep them engaged in the class. Well I tried, and my CT told me that it was too hard for them (I'm literally teaching animal kingdom vocabulary like mammals, reptiles, etc.).

Nonsense. I taught a whole series of lessons on that same topic, and it was just fine. Sure, there were some kids for whom it was too difficult, but they were the same kids who managed to make it to middle school 3rd grade without learning how to count past ten or answer "how's the weather."

Yeah, the ones that find it too difficult are normally the ones who don't try.

Like, for example, I'll put up a display slide of both questions and responses to those questions whenever I need the students to complete a writing intensive worksheet. You have the basic structure of the sentences with blanks that students can fill in with their own personalized word choices (usually their choice of verbs and corresponding nouns or noun clauses), and I always include the Korean translation of those sentences so that low level students have something to refer to while thinking about their answers.

And I still get a bunch of students who take the entire class period to finish writing, at most, five sentences, because they can't ****** remember what the sentences mean, despite me going through it with everyone at the beginning of class AND keeping a display slide up for reference... or at least, this is the excuse that they give. What happens is they don't ****** pay attention, so they don't notice the display until I show it to them again, and even then they don't actually look at the slide because they don't ever seem to realize that the Korean translation is there for them until I physically take them by the wrists and sit them down in front of it. It's like as soon as they see English writing, their brains just shut down, and they blank out. 

So no matter how simple the assignment is, I can't leave students to work through it on their own, even with a display. I have to go through each section one at a time, and have myself and the coT visit with each student to make sure (s)he written what we're currently going over, literally one sentence at a time. As time-consuming as this is, it takes less time than trusting the students to work on their own, and it's easier to keep up with the schedule this way.

And even though I instruct more advanced students to help classmates that aren't finished with their assignments, they normally don't unless I hover nearby. Sometimes this is because of reasons that are outside of their control, but sometimes it's because they don't want to put in more work than they have to, and helping classmates is too much work.

Beginning of next year I'm going to try assigning roles to students to help with project and worksheet management.

Some of you guys on here gave me advice to challenge my students as a way to keep them engaged in the class. Well I tried, and my CT told me that it was too hard for them (I'm literally teaching animal kingdom vocabulary like mammals, reptiles, etc.).

Nonsense. I taught a whole series of lessons on that same topic, and it was just fine. Sure, there were some kids for whom it was too difficult, but they were the same kids who managed to make it to middle school 3rd grade without learning how to count past ten or answer "how's the weather."

yeah, i'm not sure how this happens.

english classes several times a week, for years upon years, and they can't even answer, "what's your name?"

Some of you guys on here gave me advice to challenge my students as a way to keep them engaged in the class. Well I tried, and my CT told me that it was too hard for them (I'm literally teaching animal kingdom vocabulary like mammals, reptiles, etc.).

Nonsense. I taught a whole series of lessons on that same topic, and it was just fine. Sure, there were some kids for whom it was too difficult, but they were the same kids who managed to make it to middle school 3rd grade without learning how to count past ten or answer "how's the weather."

yeah, i'm not sure how this happens.

english classes several times a week, for years upon years, and they can't even answer, "what's your name?"

Keep in mind that every single person attends elementary school. We have this vision sometimes of teaching, this noble profession where we burrow into the minds of naive young boys and girls and impart our wisdom on them.

Bollocks.

Think about how many absolute morons you know, or meet on a daily or weekly basis. These people went to elementary school, too, and they knew EVEN LESS than they do now.

It's not easy to say, but some kids are absolute morons. Their fate is sealed.

Some of you guys on here gave me advice to challenge my students as a way to keep them engaged in the class. Well I tried, and my CT told me that it was too hard for them (I'm literally teaching animal kingdom vocabulary like mammals, reptiles, etc.).

Nonsense. I taught a whole series of lessons on that same topic, and it was just fine. Sure, there were some kids for whom it was too difficult, but they were the same kids who managed to make it to middle school 3rd grade without learning how to count past ten or answer "how's the weather."

yeah, i'm not sure how this happens.

english classes several times a week, for years upon years, and they can't even answer, "what's your name?"

When the emphasis is on the answer and not the process, the teacher, in order to speed things along, will tell the slower students the answers.  Certain students realise they can do nothing and be spoon fed.  The teacher sees a low student score as a black mark against her name, rather than a sign that the student has a weakness.  Teachers coaches the student in order to make her class look batter than it is.  Rinse and repeat for 10 years and then when they hit a uni class where the teacher will gladly fail them, they can't understand why they fail.

Keep in mind that every single person attends elementary school. We have this vision sometimes of teaching, this noble profession where we burrow into the minds of naive young boys and girls and impart our wisdom on them.

Bollocks.

Think about how many absolute morons you know, or meet on a daily or weekly basis. These people went to elementary school, too, and they knew EVEN LESS than they do now.

It's not easy to say, but some kids are absolute morons. Their fate is sealed.

I have students who are literally learning-disabled who can answer the basics. I don't buy that any student is just too dumb to do it. Different students will learn in different ways and at different paces, of course, but it's not impossible. The issue isn't ability, it's willingness and motivation.

Not gonna lie, I had plenty of classes when I was a kid where if I knew that not putting any effort into it wouldn't have had any consequences, I would've been the same as these kids. That's the problem we're facing here.

Some of you guys on here gave me advice to challenge my students as a way to keep them engaged in the class. Well I tried, and my CT told me that it was too hard for them (I'm literally teaching animal kingdom vocabulary like mammals, reptiles, etc.).

Nonsense. I taught a whole series of lessons on that same topic, and it was just fine. Sure, there were some kids for whom it was too difficult, but they were the same kids who managed to make it to middle school 3rd grade without learning how to count past ten or answer "how's the weather."

yeah, i'm not sure how this happens.

english classes several times a week, for years upon years, and they can't even answer, "what's your name?"

When the emphasis is on the answer and not the process, the teacher, in order to speed things along, will tell the slower students the answers.  Certain students realise they can do nothing and be spoon fed.  The teacher sees a low student score as a black mark against her name, rather than a sign that the student has a weakness.  Teachers coaches the student in order to make her class look batter than it is.  Rinse and repeat for 10 years and then when they hit a uni class where the teacher will gladly fail them, they can't understand why they fail.

yep. i wonder, does this happen in other subjects too?

I'm just really angry and frustrated by this whole situation:

- Having to redo lesson plans because these kids don't bother to pay attention
- My CT saying that teaching the word "Mammal" is too difficult. I get that vertebrate/invertebrate can be challenging, but not if they, ya know, actually listened. Not to mention her deciding it was too much because she didn't know the words
- It's a serious waste of time to lesson plan and be told "That's not gonna work."
- Her wanting me to give them Elementary level material just means they won't actually learn anything. At least I was actually trying to teach them something new. That's what teachers do, right?

I can't wait for the final speaking test. I wonder how many students are gonna fail on purpose this time.

yep. i wonder, does this happen in other subjects too?

According to my KTs, it does.

The lowest level students in my school are pretty much the lowest level in every subject. Most of them are sports kids or problem students.

There are a few exceptions, but most students who excel in other subjects normally put in enough effort in English to get high marks because, regardless of their personal feelings about the subject, they know that their English scores still affect which schools they'll get accepted into.

The ones that frustrate me the most are the ones who don't try, and the ones who score high on their written exams but don't score as well during their speaking exams because they don't take the performance portion of it as seriously and believe that they can coerce or sweet-talk me into giving them the grade they want.