RANTING/VENTING MEGATHREAD 3.0

Except in my public middle school there are legit students who don't know any numbers above 10. Yesterday, I was completely dumbfounded when one 3rd grade girl didn't know the difference between summer and winter.

Am I doing something wrong? Lol

lol no...but sometimes they very clearly know and she doesn't give them a chance to figure it out. She starts translating before I've even finished haha

Am I doing something wrong? Lol

Yeah, some kids in Grade 6 have been my students for the entirety of their schooling.......... ................... ..... And sometimes I wonder............. .......

BUT, think of it this way. Think of all the completely dolt-headed, complete idiot adults you've met/know.

They all went to public school. You've got hundreds of kids, there's bound to be some in there. It's depressing but it's  true.

Just do your best and attempt to help them pick up the slack.

Been doing this stupid teaching job for several years, I hate that I'm back and have to be told exactly how to run my classes. my co-teachers stop me in the middle of the class and tell me, you should do this, you should do that. while another teacher showed me how she runs her class, and then asks me if i can do it. I said I'd try, but I have my own style too which doesn't involve 20 minutes of drills. that is literally all they do in regular classes, is memorize a script and then read it about 20 times (not exaggerating) in every class, until they reach 100 times and then they get a sticker. I ask them simple questions which they can't answer or understand because it'snot on their script. When I try to deviate from how the teacher does things, she stops me and says that's too difficult and do it her way instead....

I'm lucky enough to have CTs who're mature and we work well together, usually.

Co-teaching is something many Korean teachers aren't used to and instead of working with you, it's easier to tell you what to do.
It sounds like you've adopted a submissive role and your CTs are asserting their style, mainly because it's easier but perhaps, they feel the need to assert themselves as the dominate teacher, particularly to the students. Despite being English teachers, many CTs are incredibly insecure about their English ability and will go to great lengths not to jeopardize their reputation, this includes falling back into rote-learning, it's predictable to teach and there's little margin for error and making sure they're never put in a position to expose their English ability. Ever wondered why she doesn't want to you or the students to deviate from the script? She can't answer those questions and it terrifies her.

The easiest solution would be to split the period into your CTs time and your time.

The other way, of course, as to assert yourself as an authority of what you teach and as a teacher, this includes everything from how you present yourself, your tone of voice and projecting confidence. Conflict is likely to arise, but IMO, it's for the best.

- If your CT interrupts you mid-lesson,  cut him/her off before they can finish, tell them you'll speak about it later, and carry on.
- Stay polite, but be abrupt. Stop saying "ummm, well, I dunno etc." when asked to do something you don't want to, just say no.
- Stick to your guns and be stubborn but leave the door open for compromise.

You are the NET, you are the sole authority on correct English in your classroom. Act like it and your CT and students will treat you this way.  Good luck

I've just been talked to by another teacher, my head English teacher. She explained that this very teacher is not a regular teacher but is considered as one of those higher class teachers that is on a special list of some sort and that she not only teaches students she also teaches Teachers. I explained my point of view in that a script is useless outside of the classroom even though it may look good to other people when they are there watching (I was impressed in the first class, but then learnt they know nothing outside of it) but it's something they will never actually use. And her (head teacher)  response was that I should just follow her (co-T) and try to do it her way.  We've already split up the lessons and chapters, she does the odd numbers and I do the even numbered chapters, yet, in my classes, she takes up 15 to 20 minutes of drilling and repeating scripts and then I'm left with the rest of the time to rush through. So yeah.... it's only been 1 month.

Someone I know is working with someone like that, during extra classes for middle schoolers. The NET and the Korea teacher are  teaching lessons focusing on writing. This Korean teacher is highly regarded because he's been teaching these extra classes for years and apparently, his classes are quite challenging.
After the first day, I was quickly enlightened as to what "challenging" meant in this context.

The guy jumps around between topics, like he's on crack, making his lessons confusing and all over the place.  Instead of teaching the basics of writing, he likes to show off by instructing them to write essays, right off the bat, and demonstrating how to write well, by showing his own writing, the opening sentence being:

"I grew up in a small town. First of all, as time goes by I grew up..."

I was told the guy goes just short of sniffing his own farts in class when he constantly quotes Einstein in a comical attempt to come off as sophisticated. His mission is to let everyone know how smart he is... he's actually terribly incompontent, insecure and rather dumb. When the NET points out the writing, riddled with spelling and grammatical errors, he brushes it off and says "mistakes are beautiful". He insists the awkward English material he uses is legit as it's from "Pearson" and "OXford". I did a little research and found it's one of the native Japanese and Korean publishers who slap an English person's name on as co-atuhor and somehow publish the books under the name Oxford and Pearson.

No exageration, in my 6yrs of teaching at 9 different schools, even among my CTs who I work well with and have great respect for, I have met only 1 Korean teacher who I'd say is competent at teaching English properly.

He insists the awkward English material he uses is legit as it's from "Pearson" and "OXford".

Are you sure they didn't say "Pear's Son" and "Oxfam?"

He insists the awkward English material he uses is legit as it's from "Pearson" and "OXford".

Are you sure they didn't say "Pear's Son" and "Oxfam?"

My father-in-law  taught on a reserve called “Oxford House” as a semi-retirement job. I suggested he refer to that timeframe as, “while I was teaching at Oxford...”

AliExpress sellers who take out a shipping number to stop to fulfillment clock, but then don’t ship for days!

There has to be a way they can police this better.

People who don't crush their empty water bottles before putting them into the recycling bin.  So instead of fitting in 50 bottles, we can fit about 8.

People who don't clean the leftover food waste out of the plastic containers before dumping them into the recycling bin.

Brand new teachers who have just arrived here with neither any experience nor training, happily charging parents 50,000 per hour plus meals to "teach" their children.  You've got to have some balls to do that haven't you?  I'm a little bit mad at the parents as well lol.

Brand new teachers who have just arrived here with neither any experience nor training, happily charging parents 50,000 per hour plus meals to "teach" their children.  You've got to have some balls to do that haven't you?  I'm a little bit mad at the parents as well lol.

People are always having a go on here about newbies accepting too little money so that sounds like a positive thing. If 50,000 becomes the norm for people with no experience or training why not 60,00 for those who have?

By the way, If those teachers are doing it legally and breaking their contracts, they have no right to complain about Korean employers not honoring their side of the deal.

Brand new teachers who have just arrived here with neither any experience nor training, happily charging parents 50,000 per hour plus meals to "teach" their children.  You've got to have some balls to do that haven't you?  I'm a little bit mad at the parents as well lol.

People are always having a go on here about newbies accepting too little money so that sounds like a positive thing. If 50,000 becomes the norm for people with no experience or training why not 60,00 for those who have?

By the way, If those teachers are doing it legally and breaking their contracts, they have no right to complain about Korean employers not honoring their side of the deal.

Yeah that's a fair point which I didn't consider.

The thing that had me scratching my head and got me thinking was a Facebook post from someone who had just arrived and was talking about meetup groups for making friends.  She said something like "If you just want to talk to me to practice your English then first you'd better figure out how much you're going to pay me".  It seemed very arrogant to me, particularly from someone who has no credentials at all.

Brand new teachers who have just arrived here with neither any experience nor training, happily charging parents 50,000 per hour plus meals to "teach" their children.  You've got to have some balls to do that haven't you?  I'm a little bit mad at the parents as well lol.

People are always having a go on here about newbies accepting too little money so that sounds like a positive thing. If 50,000 becomes the norm for people with no experience or training why not 60,00 for those who have?

By the way, If those teachers are doing it legally and breaking their contracts, they have no right to complain about Korean employers not honoring their side of the deal.

Yeah that's a fair point which I didn't consider.

The thing that had me scratching my head and got me thinking was a Facebook post from someone who had just arrived and was talking about meetup groups for making friends.  She said something like "If you just want to talk to me to practice your English then first you'd better figure out how much you're going to pay me".  It seemed very arrogant to me, particularly from someone who has no credentials at all.

A lot of those newbies probably get their attitude from reading threads on here.

My 6th Period class on Mondays... I swear, it's the exact opposite of the problems I had with some classes at my last school in that NONE of the students have any energy whatsoever. Maybe two students will half-heartedly answer a question I ask. It's as if they all had a death in the family over the past weekend. And this is the "high" level class mind you. I even showed them the "What Does the Fox Say?" video and the most I got was a smile from one of them.

It's not awful, but it's draining when you're presenting and getting literally nothing back. (insert tired face)

Korean English teacher has been chewing a grade 1 (middle school) class out for the last 20+ minutes, shouting and screeching and a hollerin' and all sorts. It was funny (and impressive) at first but now I'm just wishing she'd give it a rest, jeez.

Wish my co-teachers had this tendency. Students rule the roost here, and they know it.

At one of my travel schools they do too.
My co-T chewed out a bunch of boys for being late to class, and punished them for about 5 - 10 mins (once class had started), and they came into the classroom laughing afterwards. In the same class, only 3 / 20 students pay attention and try to do anything. I have no issues with my other classes too. :\

Soccer students though, they listen to no one. :\

I hear ya! I teach at a soccer middle school and it's taken me a LONG time to get them on board.

I WISH my coTs cared about lateness....student s walk into my class 5-10 minutes late regularly and when I call them out the teacher just says "Ohhh they had P.E they had to get changed" or some other lameo excuse...then they have "forgotten" their book or need to t\go the bathroom so she lets them waltz right back out again. Not a chance.

The soccer students at my school have gone on stealing sprees, broken a window during a class because they didn't want to study, and even lit a small fire during my class (The fire was the only time they have been in trouble enough that they got visibly scared!).

Other than that, the teachers just say, they don't want to study, and they don't know what to do.
I'm happy that all the bad soccer students are leaving early into semester 2 haha. A couple I will miss, because they will actually study in class.

But usually, the teachers have given up on trying to discipline or anything with the soccer boys.
In NZ, teachers can actually get students benched for a game as a punishment, maybe I should suggest this to my co-teacher again. :p

The soccer students at my school have gone on stealing sprees, broken a window during a class because they didn't want to study, and even lit a small fire during my class (The fire was the only time they have been in trouble enough that they got visibly scared!).

Other than that, the teachers just say, they don't want to study, and they don't know what to do.
I'm happy that all the bad soccer students are leaving early into semester 2 haha. A couple I will miss, because they will actually study in class.

But usually, the teachers have given up on trying to discipline or anything with the soccer boys.
In NZ, teachers can actually get students benched for a game as a punishment, maybe I should suggest this to my co-teacher again. :p

the really dumb thing about this is that hardly any of them will make it, and then they'll have nothing to fall back on.  that's a hard fact.  i taught a provincial soccer player years ago in my middle school, who was sent by his parents to the countryside to live with his grandfather who used to beat him.  incredibly sad, but I caught him smoking in the toilets numerous times and nothing was done to discipline him.  every football tournament he played in, he was school captain and in every tournament he got sent off for mouthing off and swearing at the ref.  without blowing my own trumpet, I played at a very good level in England and was offered contracts and I can tell the students who'll probably make it, at least personality-wise and talent wise.  so I think that the ones you'll miss, will be the ones who are self--aware enough to make it or have the personality to get there.  in my school now, we have archery students.  one is really nice and tries her hardest in my class, whereas the other two just sit on their phones.  i can't blame them really as in the afternoon they spend 9 or 10 hours just doing archery. 

My 6th Period class on Mondays... I swear, it's the exact opposite of the problems I had with some classes at my last school in that NONE of the students have any energy whatsoever. Maybe two students will half-heartedly answer a question I ask. It's as if they all had a death in the family over the past weekend. And this is the "high" level class mind you. I even showed them the "What Does the Fox Say?" video and the most I got was a smile from one of them.

It's not awful, but it's draining when you're presenting and getting literally nothing back. (insert tired face)

2/3 classes at one of my travel schools are like that. I will say hello to them, and they will just sit there in silence.
Ask them an easy question from something that happened in the book, silence.
When we play a game, they are more open to talking in English, but are still super quiet and hard to hear, even when close to them. Only 3 students in both classes too.

The soccer students at my school have gone on stealing sprees, broken a window during a class because they didn't want to study, and even lit a small fire during my class (The fire was the only time they have been in trouble enough that they got visibly scared!).

Other than that, the teachers just say, they don't want to study, and they don't know what to do.
I'm happy that all the bad soccer students are leaving early into semester 2 haha. A couple I will miss, because they will actually study in class.

But usually, the teachers have given up on trying to discipline or anything with the soccer boys.
In NZ, teachers can actually get students benched for a game as a punishment, maybe I should suggest this to my co-teacher again. :p

the really dumb thing about this is that hardly any of them will make it, and then they'll have nothing to fall back on.  that's a hard fact.  i taught a provincial soccer player years ago in my middle school, who was sent by his parents to the countryside to live with his grandfather who used to beat him.  incredibly sad, but I caught him smoking in the toilets numerous times and nothing was done to discipline him.  every football tournament he played in, he was school captain and in every tournament he got sent off for mouthing off and swearing at the ref.  without blowing my own trumpet, I played at a very good level in England and was offered contracts and I can tell the students who'll probably make it, at least personality-wise and talent wise.  so I think that the ones you'll miss, will be the ones who are self--aware enough to make it or have the personality to get there.  in my school now, we have archery students.  one is really nice and tries her hardest in my class, whereas the other two just sit on their phones.  i can't blame them really as in the afternoon they spend 9 or 10 hours just doing archery. 

Oh wow, sorry to hear about your students situation. :'(
I don't know the personal life of mine but, I know they are all from Jeju, and a lot of them were flagged as problem children.
They had been travelling around Korea a lot trying to find a school that would take this team, they came to my main school but, the teacher's noticed quickly they'd be a huge problem, and none of them wanted to deal with that. My travel school principal, right before he retired, accepted them :\
About 3 Korean teachers left because of that (private school too), and 1 left again this year because of them too.

I also used to be good at soccer, not sure about whether or not I could have done so professionally, but a lot of soccer club teams, for teenagers, tried to recruit me a lot before I had even got to high school (which starts at 13 in NZ) because, some of the teenage teams had to play against the team I was on a few times during a year (and we were about 3 - 4 years younger than them) and I was one of 2 - 3 players that could hold my own against them.

I taught a class like that for 3yrs

My 6th Period class on Mondays... I swear, it's the exact opposite of the problems I had with some classes at my last school in that NONE of the students have any energy whatsoever. Maybe two students will half-heartedly answer a question I ask. It's as if they all had a death in the family over the past weekend. And this is the "high" level class mind you. I even showed them the "What Does the Fox Say?" video and the most I got was a smile from one of them.

It's not awful, but it's draining when you're presenting and getting literally nothing back. (insert tired face)
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My 6th Period class on Mondays... I swear, it's the exact opposite of the problems I had with some classes at my last school in that NONE of the students have any energy whatsoever. Maybe two students will half-heartedly answer a question I ask. It's as if they all had a death in the family over the past weekend. And this is the "high" level class mind you. I even showed them the "What Does the Fox Say?" video and the most I got was a smile from one of them.

It's not awful, but it's draining when you're presenting and getting literally nothing back. (insert tired face)

Feel you, the school I teach it usually keeps all the students in the same class when they get "promoted" to the next grade so, I taught a class like that for 3yrs. They were pretty much catatonic, and only really responded to listening and repeating back. A girl transfered from one of the other classes to the class in question, she was pretty lively, but very quickly adopted the attitude of the other students in her new class.

My CT and I tried everything over 3yrs and while we got a few sparks from some activities, they'd simply regress to staring at their shoes for following lesson.

Nevertheless, it offered some interesting insight into the psyche of these students as individuals and as a collective. I knew that
these kids weren't dumb, at least not all of them, there had to be a common factor between them and I hypothesized it as a cultural component. No kid wanted to stand out and actively participate, so when witnessing everyone else around them, they all just instinctually conformed to blend into the group. As time went on, for a single student to break the silence would've required even more guts than initially standing out and so, they all just conformed. I still find it remarkable that not one student in a class of 20 was nurtured to believe in themself and have confidence.

GF had a run-in with an ajumma. Who says that????

yep. an old co-worker had 2 babies, and returned to work (same school). some old guy she'd never talked to before said (on her first day back), "you've got fat. you should diet". who are these people..

yep. an old co-worker had 2 babies, and returned to work (same school). some old guy she'd never talked to before said (on her first day back), "you've got fat. you should diet". who are these people..

Yip! It seems the norm to comment on appearance. My ex principal would often comment on my ex co-teacher, she was young (always seems to happen to the younger ones it seems to me) and he would say stuff like, "Did you buy your top or did your mom knit it? " and then my co-T never wore it again. Over the winter he would say stuff like, "You've put on weight recently, you've been eating a lot this winter." And then she became obsessed with losing weight. I got severely sick one time and lost a bunch of weight to the point of looking anorexic, my eyes and cheeks were sunken, and my co-T would mention she wishes she could get sick too so she can lose weight like me, an I started receiving compliments from people that I looked good. When I returned home though, it was the opposite and people were freaked out over how I looked and genuinely became worried about my health.  This isn't just Korea though. A colleague of mine in Japan was told to button up her top button and told that she's too flat chested to be showing off her chest (by another younger colleague). When all she was showing off was just a couple of inches below her collar bone. It's like these people were born without a filter or regard for other peoples feelings.

It's like these people were born without a filter or regard for other peoples feelings.

That's different cultures for ya