Student Ridiculousness: a Small Rant

Yesterday, I taught an advanced level class where the students are preparing for internships in various locations around the world.  I'm covering the "general English" portion by doing discussion/listening/reading about various topics (that are interesting to me!) like Korea's aging society or workplace discrimination.

There were only 4 students in class yesterday and three of them were excellent, participating in class and trying to figure out new vocab and phrases and actually thinking about the issue and coming up with some constructive responses.

But, one of the students kept looking at her desk and not really participating, at all.  Her answers consisted almost exclusively of "yes," "no" and "I don't know."  When pressed for more details, she would just giggle.  I casually walked over to check out what she was reading and it was some kind of English grammar book, that was almost all in Korean.  And I thought to myself, how bizarre because it seems to me that her time, in a class of only 4 students, with a native English speaker would be far, far better spent actually interacting with that native speaker and the other students.  Like she's going to America in about 3 months, where she will have to actually interact with real, live English speakers on a daily basis.  I just don't get it.  Like really don't get it.

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On Organization, Part 2

 Yesterday, I talked about my experience in working for admins who are not really teachers and how that can lead to less than ideal results.  Today, I'll talk about the qualities of admins that I like to work for:

1. They are teachers, or ex-teachers.  They actually have spent a good amount of time in the classroom.

2. They give enough information to teachers about the class, but then are also hands-off in terms of actual teaching.

3. They filter the ridiculous.  One student complaining about something?  They never let it get to the teacher.  5 students saying the same thing?  They'll let the teacher know.  Discretion is required!

4. They want to improve their programs, which involves getting feedback from teachers at the end of the course.

5. They have clear, achievable goals for the students.

6. They do placement tests and divide the students into appropriate levels. 

7. They are easy to talk to.  This involves speaking English at least at an intermediate level and having some understanding of "Western" culture. 

On organization

I'm a big fan of working for admin who are actually teachers, or who have some sort of training in ESL methodology.  If they don't, it can often be extremely hit or miss in terms of what's actually happening in the program.  These kinds of admin will often do the following things:

1. Pick the flashy book, which can perhaps lack actual teachable content.

2. Not have any clearly defined goals for the students, such as "be able to write a 5-paragraph academic essay," or, "be able to successfully pass an English interview." I can work with those things. 

Things like, "Whatever," or, "Just make sure they're not bored," I can also work with but...yeah...what a total waste of time.

3. Change things half-way through the course when they realize their poor planning is getting bad results.  This usually results in mass confusion.

4. Be poor at communicating important information to the teachers.  Anyone can be guilty of this, but these admins often just have no idea what information teachers actually need to know, such as class size, level of students, or if there is a book or not.

5. Are not interested in post-course evaluation.  As long as everyone isn't complaining, it's considered successful.  There is no thought beyond that to next year and how things could be better.

It's that time of year

Vacation time!  It seems like most uni teachers here in Korea head outside the country for a couple weeks at least, if not the whole summer.  It's definitely one of the best things about our jobs.  Here are some of my useful travel tips (as opposed to the crap on the major news sites!) over at my other blog, Freedom Through Passive Income.

Sleeping students

This summer, I'm teaching an internship preparation class for students who are going to the USA for a year starting in October.  They started classes at the end of June and will continue on until October with only a one week break in August.  The thing that is difficult (and perhaps not well thought-out by the admin) is that the classes are from 9-6, Monday-Friday.

I honestly try my best to make classes interesting and very rarely have problems with sleeping students.  I do lots of different activities and include lots of partner work and opportunities to stand up and move around and do different stuff to prevent the tiredness.  BUT, this class I just had today is terrible for sleeping and the good students tell me it's not just me because many people sleep in all the other classes.  What to do?  It's pretty demoralizing to have so many students sleeping, but I can also understand because they're in class for a ridiculous amount of time each week.

Readers: help please!

Reader Question: PhD in another subject but teaching ESL

A question from M.S.

"I have a PhD (not in tefl, in env sci) and am in my late 30s with one year's tefl experience.  Could you please advise me what are my chances for finding employment in a Korean uni teaching English?  Should I find employment elsewhere first to brush up on my tefl (and maybe even look into obtaining a CELTA?)?  I was also wondering about what might the age limits be for English instructors in Korean universities? Thanks for any help you can give, it helps me to plan for my future."

My answer: 

Your chances of finding employment at a Korean university is quite high, but as I've said before on this blog, it's pretty hard to find uni jobs in Korea when you're not actually in the country.  Difficult, but not impossible though.  You could look elsewhere in Korea for a job to get your foot in the door, but working at a hagwon or public school for a year could be a long, long year for someone like yourself.

A Celta is of no use in Korea so don't waste your time on it.

The accepted retirement age in Korea is 60, so you'll be fine.

I think it really is possible for you to get a uni job, but a tough question that you'll probably be asked over and over again is why you have a degree in science but want to teach English.  I can't say that I really understand it myself and Koreans probably won't either. 

That said, there are most definitely some uni jobs out there that are teaching English to science or engineering students, where you teach things like technical English.  And there are also editing jobs that require a science or engineering background, which you could probably also do, assuming your English skills are up to par. I'd definitely try to look for some of those jobs instead of just the general English ones and you'll probably do better.
 

Teaching training: a wee rant

I found out a couple of days ago that I'll be teaching a Masters level, credit course about how to teach English this upcoming semester.  I was initially kind of excited about it since I can put all the stuff I learned when doing the Celta and the Delta to good use.  Except, upon further conversation with the admin and the previous teacher who taught the course my initial excitement has waned.

"It's about how to teach English, except the students aren't good at English and you can help them improve their English."

So, what exactly is it?  Is it a basic 4-skills English class, disguised as a masters level teaching methodology course?

Is it actually a teaching methodology course, just dumbed down because the MASTERS level students don't actually speak English that well?  Is it somehow supposed to be a combination of the two?

Now, I'm no hater of teaching content courses and I actually really truly believe that content courses, delivered in English are fabulous because students get information/skills/knowledge about the topic plus they can improve their English.  But, this situation makes me feel annoyed. 

If it's a 4-skills course, I can deal with that.  If it's a teaching methodology course, I can deal with that.  If it's SUPPOSED to be a teaching methodology course but is actually a basic English course in disguise...well, that's not really a good situation for me to be in.  Students will have all these expectations of what it can and should be and because the objectives are so vague and varied, it will be almost impossible for me to deliver what they actually want.  It's like the admin is just setting me up for failure is what it feels like at this point.

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Agrictultural Subsidies in Korea Lesson Plan

This one is for a 2-hour discussion and speaking based class.  The students are high-intermediate, low-advanced and I like to challenge them with authentic materials about topics that they don't necessarily know all the vocab for.  The article is from the English website of the Korea Herald.

Agricultural Subsidies ESL lesson plan

Does the Celta open doors at Korean Unis?

I got this comment from a reader and I wanted to clear up any misinformation:

"I'm glad I stumbled upon your blog. I read that the CELTA enables you to teach at the University level. Since I saw that you took the CELTA course in Seoul (which I plan on doing), I was wondering if it opened doors for you."

My comment:

The Celta does NOT enable you to teach at a Korean university.  A masters with 2 years experience at a Korean uni, or a BA with 4 years experience teaching at a Korean uni does that.  You can slip in with lesser qualifications but it won't be easy.  Most Koreans actually have no idea what the Celta is and truly won't care if you have one or not. 

I simply did it to improve my job prospects for the day that I'll eventually leave Korea.  If you're doing it to teach in Korea with, I'd strongly recommend not wasting your time or money.

Tips for Newbies to the Korean University Scene

It's that time of year again, when lots of people are getting ready to start new jobs at Korean unis, perhaps for the first time ever if they're making the transition from a hagwon or public school.  Exciting times!  I remember how nervous I was about the whole thing.  This post, back from 2011 was one of my most popular ones ever and might be helpful in this situation: Ten Tips for Newbies to the Korean University Teaching Experience.

The only thing I wouldn't necessarily agree with anymore is #7 about class size.  Sure, smaller is better but it wouldn't be a big factor for me in taking a job, or not.  With a bit of experience, teaching a class of 40 or 50 is really not a big problem.