Classroom society

There’s so much to tell about my classes. On the whole, I play more of a "tape recorder" role (just pronouncing everything for the teacher), and while that makes lesson planning practically non-existent, it gets mundane and boring VERY quickly. I never realized how much of a control freak I can actually be until now. I want to throw the teacher into a desk and just take the reins of the classroom. My only drawback would be that their English levels are so low that I cannot run the class by myself without knowing Korean.

It's a little frustrating how poor the teachers' pronunciation is. For example, they'll say “payjee” for “page” and “dis is your Engrishee teachah.” And this is understandable because they were taught by someone much like themselves growing up. I remember the days when I started taking Spanish classes in middle school and now I realize how poorly we were taught pronunciation by non-native speakers. Same thing here. So I can see where my services lie, but it won’t be very effective when I am only with these classes once a week and spend a total of about 3 minutes actually talking in front of the students. And sometimes I think the teachers are concentrating so hard on their English pronunciation during lessons that they cannot focus on teaching effectively.

In all honesty, I'm starting to lose interest because there's not much creativity in the lesson plans since schools are required to follow a boring CD-Rom curriculum. Of course, my teaching experiences differ according to which teacher I’m teaching with. I have one particular teacher that just drives me nuts in class. Although she is super nice and sweet and can be quite silly with the kids, we can barely communicate. She has to use a speaker microphone during her class because she can’t raise her voice. I used to think I could never raise my voice either until I started working with kids and realized everyone has it in them. But even with her microphone, students still don’t listen to her. Mostly because she doesn’t even discipline the students so they are constantly disruptive and never paying attention. I get frustrated at times and start scolding them, mostly just to express my anger and not really to calm them down. I just give up trying to discipline because why would they listen to me if the main teacher isn’t enforcing anything? It doesn’t help that these classes fall on a Monday. Every Monday I find myself extremely grouchy and mean to the kids and end up wanting to stab my eye with a pencil. Sounds like somebody's got a case of the MOOONDAYS.

I was told that corporal punishment is very common here. And being in a rural conservative area, I figured it’d be quite common. I have yet to see it. Maybe they just don’t do it in my presence? Sometimes (to be honest) I kind of want to partake in it because the kids can really be nuisances. Mostly the boys.

In between classes students are free to roam about the school grounds as they please with no supervision. Teachers go about their business without worrying about kids running home or really causing any trouble. There is the occasional playful hitting, but it rarely gets serious. This makes it easy for staff meetings in the middle of the day because there doesn’t need to be any adults around to supervise the children. It’s so wonderful that Korean children are so well-disciplined in this manner! I think the children don’t mind being in school because they get to be with all of their friends so none will run away and go home. Pretty good sense of responsibility in my book. And they’re (generally) pretty good about running back to class when break is over. I love it!

Teachers on the other hand spend a lot of time screwing around. I find them wandering the halls during class time, smoking outside, sleeping at their desks, taking 2 hour lunch breaks. Their students do all the cleaning. It’s interesting how much more teaching American teachers do. In the States, I rarely had a moment to chit chat with another teacher unless it was after school. It seems bizarre considering teachers here make just as much, if not more, than Korean teachers. And that doesn’t even factor in the cost of living, which is significantly lower in Korea.

But I've started teaching a class to elementary teachers, so at least I can start some real lesson planning! It’ll be interesting because these teachers don’t know a lick of English. And is it weird that 2 of my co-teachers (one is the school’s designated ENGLISH teacher) are taking my class? I think I should be running their classes. Blah, it’s just weird. I'm also excited to start an after school English club for the students, which should be more fun than the classes right now.

I'm still having a hard time defining my clear objective while I'm here. Initially it was to really make a difference in the way the students are learning English, but their minimal exposure to the language makes things very difficult. I want this job to contribute to my future career and not to be taken lightly and merely as a means of living abroad. So I'm going to spend some time thinking about how I want to go about this. I’m afraid that what I’ll get most out of this will just be the traveling and cultural experience. Maybe I’ll be okay with this. In the meantime, I'm just adjusting by eating a lot of kimchi, flashing my V for Victory scissor hands, bowing to every passerby, and playing soccer with the students after school.

Also, students carry around snap-blades in their pencil cases (instead of the usual plastic safety scissors)! I understand that they use them for cutting things sometimes, but that also entitles them to cut someone else’s throat. This would never ever be allowed in the hands of a child back home. Maybe that’s because American kids are kind of crazy.