Having now been an EPIK teacher in Korea for a little over 3 months, I feel like I’ve gained enough insight into the life of a GET (Guest English Teacher) to throw my two cents in on the whole shebang. Before any lifers get on my back about 3 months being nothing at all, I am well aware of that but if I reserve judgement until I’ve been here for a year I’ll probably have forgotten what this profound feeling of realisation is like.
To begin, some disclaimers. Firstly I am a Middle School teacher, and therefore can’t comment on Elementary or High School with any clarity…however, this won’t stop me from reading into the Facebook-documented experiences of fellow EPIKers and commenting on them accordingly. Secondly, there is no guarantee that your Middle School is anything like my Middle School, but again this won’t stop me from making sweeping (often damning) generalisations. Thirdly and finally I am not claiming to be a great, or even particularly good teacher. This is my first year of ESL teaching, after all.
During the week-long EPIK orientation I attended in February, practically every lecture given was focused on Elementary teaching. Seeing as you don’t find out what level you’re teaching at until the last day of the orientation, at the time you don’t realise how pointless this is until, like me, you open your manilla envelope and discover that you aren’t going to be one of those teachers. I forget the exact percentage, but the vast majority of new EPIK teachers will be placed in Elementary schools and (as I have mentioned many times before) I have days and sometimes weeks in which I wish I were one of them. This is not helped by my being a member of a number of EPIK Facebook groups populated largely with deskwarming* Elementary teachers filling their apparently empty days by posting comments along the lines of “….. ….. has another day of cancelled classes! Watching Mad Men at my desk all day long, LOL!” and the ever-hateful “Out drinking til 4am, roll into school at 9. Can’t believe we’re being paid for this!”.
*for the uninitiated, this is the time you have between classes when lesson planning is complete and you have nothing to do other than twiddle your thumbs and hang out on Facebook with people in the same position.
I imagine at this point you are rolling your eyes and tutting the word ‘jealous?’ to yourself. Well, admittedly, often I am jealous of the Elementary lifestyle but not in the way you’re assuming. For a start, I do try to take my job seriously as far as I can (more on that later) and secondly, after working in bars for a number of years I’m fully, painfully aware that whilst some jobs can be done on a critical-level hangover, some cannot. Call me old fashioned, but I don’t believe that standing in front of huge classes of students and attempting to impart knowledge is one of them…at least until you’re an experienced enough teacher to do it on autopilot, and even then it’s shaky ground and a slippery slope. Of course a lot of Elementary School teachers are fantastic and I count myself lucky to be friends with a good few of them. We all agree, however, that there is a portion of the ESL-teaching society here who make the rest of us look shitty, but that isn’t a topic for today…or possibly ever.
The main point of this post is that it isn’t really about whether you’re a good or bad teacher here, it’s about whether or not you can consider yourself a teacher at all. When I first began my job I was slightly surprised by the amount of work and responsibility I was given, especially compared to the examples given during orientation. Each week I teach all three Middle School grades and am responsible for the complete planning and presentation of each lesson. I have a textbook with certain pages I’m required to cover but anything over that is my own choice, plus I write the exam questions, give after school classes, design and run summer camps and am solely responsible for grading the new speaking test implemented by the Office of Education. My timetable (as mentioned in a previous post) has nightmare Mondays and Tuesdays consisting of six or seven consecutive classes, all of the same grade, resulting in what I like to call a Groundhog Day. Never, ever try to get a sensible conversation out of me after a Groundhog Day, I am beyond stressed and make less sense than the casting of Andie MacDowell**.
** Note: not just in Groundhog Day, but in literally everything she’s ever been in.
After 3 months I’ve come to realise that whilst I do have a lot of work, I do not have the responsibility I first thought. I began to notice this as my classes started to be cancelled at a minute’s notice for things along the lines of ‘Inter-Class Soccer Practice’, ‘Emergency Lecture’ and (most bafflingly) ‘Health Time’. I won’t deny that these last second changes are often welcome at the end of a long day, but it doesn’t half mess up my planning when I turn up at the class a week later (sometimes a month later as I only teach 3rd grade once every two weeks) only to remember too late that they are a lesson behind everyone else. A couple of weeks ago I found myself turning up to classes to find that the co-teacher had planned a lesson on vocabulary (not my area) and so I would be a classroom helper whilst she took the lesson. Again, not a problem but it would be nice to be kept in the loop.
Remember the newly-implemented speaking test I was recently been told I’m conducting and evaluating? This morning I was told that whilst I am solely responsible for the students’ individual grades, the grades as a whole must conform to each class’s average test scores, I’m not allowed to grade students under a certain amount of points and also that everyone must score around their personal average from previous tests. Brighter folks amongst you may have realised that with all these stipulations considered, the entire thing isn’t so much testing and evaluation as a rudimentary matching exercise made all the more tiresome by the fact that the students names will be written in Korean and I won’t actually be supplied with their average grades…presumably I have to guess what they should score and if I get it wrong it will be changed without my knowledge alongside much grumbling about how bad foreigner is at marking.
To cut a potentially much longer story short, being a foreign teacher in Korea is not really a teaching job in the traditional (actual) sense as we are responsible for nothing more than delivering a tiny portion of a book where the grades don’t matter in the slightest. Some schools don’t require the foreign teacher to use the textbook and do not ask them to teach students anything they will be tested on whatsoever, instead preferring the GET to conduct hilariously titled ‘Fun Fun English’ classes in which the students theoretically learn to enjoy the language, but actually chill the fuck out and go to sleep as it’s the only break they’ll get that week.
Whichever way your school swings we’re not here to be serious teachers, which is a conclusion I imagine the properly trained, PGCE/equivalent-wielding EPIKers reached long before I did. I often wonder how they feel about the situation when they have been accustomed to the responsibilities of a regular, run of the mill teaching job…after the initial elation of not having to mark essays all weekend wears off, obviously.
All of this begs the question: If we’re not here to be teachers, what are we here to be? It’s an easy question for Elementary teachers, and one which was cringe-inducingly described during orientation as ‘edutainment’…foreign babysitters, essentially, with smiles on their faces and alphabet songs in their hearts. Although this is without question a monumental waste of money for the government, I genuinely believe that a foreign presence is beneficial to the little guys, considering that this is a country in which we are often stared at purely for the shock value we possess by being non-Korean in public.
But surely ‘edutainment’ isn’t what we’re here for when teaching unbelievably self-aware teenagers? I cast my mind back to my early years of high school (when I was the same age I’m trying to teach now) and I can imagine nothing I would have liked less than being forced to chant and sing songs at the demand of some overly enthusiastic teacher-clown, however my understanding of our role changed the first time I played a game with the students in my class. I had been warned about the dangers of Korean student competitiveness before (especially within large groups of boys) but you can never truly understand until you’ve inadvertently caused the full-scale, 40 students screaming, jumping on tables kind of riot purely because someone chose the wrong Mario mushroom. I quickly came to realise that whilst my students would look at me like I’d gone mental if I tried to make them sing en masse, their competitive streak makes any kind of game totally worth playing. At the beginning of practically every lesson I am approached by at least three different students all looking at me hopefully through their sleep-deprived eyelids and uttering “teacher…game?” like I’m some kind of Fun Keeper and will unleash my powers only when they’ve reached critical levels of adorable-ness.
The conclusion I’ve come up with, foolish as many of you will think it, is to play the games and make the poor little guys happy for 45 minutes a week. I haven’t written about it at any length yet but the school system is not easy here for students and (regardless of what false pretensions any uppity EPIKer has) we aren’t here to offer much in the way of actual teaching so why not try to offer something else altogether rather than just coasting by and getting paid for the bare minimum? I’m in no position to give advice but with every passing day I’m taking my teaching duties less and less seriously and being more concerned with letting the kids have a bit of fun, making myself more available to chat before and after classes and generally trying to make them feel a bit more comfortable about hanging out with a foreigner. They’re not going to be great at speaking English until the government’s approach to teaching it changes, and whilst I’ve got no part in that I can have a part in being a positive-ish influence on a large number of kids just by being the nice English lady who plays fun games, smiles and says hello to them in the corridor regardless of her mood and doesn’t hit them in class…
but that’s a topic for another day.
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Reblogged this on A Fresh Start.
I’ve heard a lot about it really being like this… I tend to be overly critical of myself and am always paranoid of being fired after every minor mistake, so I’ll probably be really stressed in the first few months while trying to do everything perfectly.
I can’t even comprehend people “rolling into school” after drinking all night, but at least it makes me worry slightly less about being fired a week after I get there; and also that my odds of getting there in the first place isn’t that bad if these other bums could do it.
Wow….just Wow. You, by your own admission, in the second paragraph of this essay admit that you are a Middle School Guest English teacher and can not rightfully claim what is like to be a Elementary School teacher and then subsuqentally write a torrid essay full of damning sweeping generalizations!
So let me get this straight, you have less than a year of experience teaching English as a second language and even have reservations about the quality of your own pedalogy? In other words you are no way whatsoever qualified to criticize your fellow teachers and yet you still tried.
The nerve of it all!
I fail to see how you can justify judging Foreign or Korean elementary school teachers based on flawed- cherry-picked andeoctal evidence from social networks. Everyone knows that netizens have a tendency to exagerate about their work responsiblties, or lack thereof in your opinion. These exagerations are not accurate represenations of truth and using them as evidence to assert your claim of other teachers misbeahvior is misguided.
In your fifth paragraph you admitted that ,”Of course a lot of Elementary School teachers are fantastic and I count myself lucky to be friends with a good few of them. We all agree, however, that there is a portion of the ESL-teaching society here who make the rest of us look shitty.
Then why did you began the paragraph with this if this is so important? Of course it is a unrefuatable point that a small percentage of EFL workers in Korea are here for the wrong reasons. There are shitty teachers everywhere in the world and not everyone in charge of classroom belongs there. The education of children is too important to entrust it to those who don’t care about their jobs. Korea isn’t special in this regard.
This isn’t a post about whether or not we should consider ourselves teachers and it isn’t a post about who is bad and who isn’t. It is a well-written rant about the disproportiate workload that she has been given compared to other teachers who have less strict principals. You have been given near-impossible tasks with little emotional support so it is understanable that you resentful of others who have less busy work than you. That doesn’t mean that your collegues are any less of a teacher than you.
Let me answer your question that you begged us to answer carolinequick. Let me tell you what we are expected to be in Korea public schools. We waygooks are expected to be education professionals . We are expected by Koreans, our coworkers, and hopefully our set of ethics to conduct ourselves in a morally upright manner. We are here to motiviate children, guide their social delvelopment, and improve their English ablitiles. That’s my mission and I come to school everyday and I feel like I truly make at least a minor difference in their lives.
Your lack of faith in “edutainment” also demonstrates a lack of knowledge about the latest in teaching techninques. Games have important congintive tools that when used correctly provide both extrinstic motivation for students to particpate in class. It also is an unintrustive way to measure retention of lesson material. There are only so many methods where teachers can assess students beyond tests.
Furthermore these ,”Clown-teachers” by and large are also actively trying to create enivroments suitable for learning by motviating apathic students to an intrinsticly like learning for it’s own sake. Think about it you are a tween who is raging with hormones and dislikes authority. Would you want to learn from a stinking boring-old monotone lecturer who insits on using outdated teaching techniques or someone who is professional, but “fun”?
My main point is, and the source of my anger, is that your blog has done an immense disservice to your fellow EPIK teachers now and into the future. Imagine if a Korean netizen who has a bone to pick about foreign English teachers discovers this site through a web search. They will know can quote your comments out of context, translate them into Korean, and blog on Daum, Nate, Naver etc. how THE VAST MAJORITY of GETs are “shitty individuals” for the reasons that are discussed above.
Some of us waygooks have made Korea our home. Some of us get married to Koreans and have familes here. The actions of other foreigners influence public opinion and how we are our familes are treated and our livelihoods. So please think about the consequence of your actions online and offline before you feel entilted to make any more “sweeping generalizations.”
Thank you.
Do let’s be adults Jake.
First of all, regardless of your feelings toward my writing, thank you for reading and taking the time to share your not inconsiderable thoughts on the matter and for describing it as well-written despite your disagreements with my sentiment.
Secondly, please remember that this is my personal blog about my personal experiences. I do not consider myself to be an expert on TEFL, Korea, pedagogy in general or anything else and (as I mentioned in my opening paragraph) I would never succeed in writing anything at all if I waited until I could consider myself an authority. I made disclaimers about my personal experiences not reflecting that of others in what I hoped was a tongue-in-cheek manner, as it goes without saying that nobody can ever comment on the experiences of others with any definite clarity. If we all stopped commenting on the lives of others the world would be a quiet place indeed. Of course I don’t know what your school’s like Jake, I made that perfectly clear in the paragraph you read but paid little attention to. You criticise my “torrid essay” for including “damning, sweeping generalisations”, but you can’t say you weren’t warned about them. Also an interesting choice, attacking me with my own quotation.
I shall address your paragraphs/complaints in order from now on.
Yes I am a first-year teacher, have little experience and have reservations about the quality of my teaching…but I would be more worried about this if I were a first-year teacher and didn’t have worries about the quality of my teaching. Nobody, regardless of experience or confidence, is qualified to criticise someone else’s teaching without witnessing it first hand. I do not consider myself qualified, and actually nor did I criticise anyone’s teaching. What I did was to criticise some attitudes to teaching, which is very different. Also I don’t mean to split hairs but I didn’t “try to criticise”, I made a personal conclusion based on personal experience which I stick to and therefore I succeeded in criticising.
I admit, I do have a nerve. I also have a personal blog and have absolutely no requirement to present my personal beliefs as anything other than I find them. No apologies here.
Moving on, I’m afraid I must absolutely disagree with you straight away. At no point in my blog (at any point) have I criticised a Korean teacher for their work. I cannot stress this enough as it is very important and I would be genuinely interested in knowing where you read such nonsense. If you’re referring to the final sentence where I allude to the use of corporal punishment in the classroom, then yes I occasionally disagree with some school practices but I would be hard pushed to find a foreign teacher who doesn’t. With regard to my “misguided” claims regarding fellow teacher’s social networking activity, I would direct you back to my early ‘disclaimers’ paragraph. If you choose to ignore it again, I’ll provide a concise, zero sarcasm version: I am well aware that people are not always honest about their situations. That’s fine, I’m taking their situations as they choose to present them. I am also well aware that the small selection of teachers I have “cherry-picked” do not represent the teaching community in Korea as a whole. That’s fine too as I’m not talking about the teaching community as a whole, I’m talking about the select group I am aware of. Not to split hairs again, but I’m not asserting any great claims here: some people have a shitty work ethic and have come to Korea to drink a vat of Soju and shirk responsibility until the economic climate picks up back home. That, I’m sorry to say, is a big fat fucking fact. Only an utter moron would take my clearly specific comments about certain individuals and apply them to every foreign teacher here. Are you an utter moron, Jake? Let’s move on.
Erm, I really don’t understand this paragraph Jake. I started the paragraph like that because in my personal experience it is the wonderful teachers who are in the minority here. Your experience may well be different, but I’m afraid you can’t argue with mine. At no point did I suggest that Korea was “special” by way of having a fair few terrible teachers…although considering the distinct lack of a stringent hiring policy, the more than decent wage, the flight bonus, the lack of need for teaching qualifications and the free apartment, perhaps it is.
Next…no Jake, that simply isn’t the point of my writing. This is a post about using your work ethic to make the most of any job, regardless of what situation you find yourself in. You are very quick to attack my teaching skills but make no mention of the fact that I am trying my best to get on in my “near impossible” tasks with a smile on my face, or the fact that I conclude my apparently vicious piece of work with the assertion that I will try to make a positive difference in my students’ lives regardless of what little help I’ve been provided with. That, as opposed to rolling into work still drunk from the night before, makes me more of a teacher than some of my peers.
I’ve pretty much answered the next paragraph already, but I’ll labour my point a little bit more. We are not meant to be education professionals Jake, if we were it would be demanded of us to at least have a teaching qualification we didn’t buy from the internet. The tone of this particular paragraph suggests that you think yourself more of a teacher than I, which is interesting and self-defeating considering your previous assertion that nobody has the right to judge. Mighty fine horse you’ve got there Jake, how tall is he?
I’m tired of writing now, but I’ll soldier on through. Did you even read my blog Jake? The bit where I mention how much I enjoy playing games with the students in class because it actually makes them passionate about something other than receiving a perfect score on yet another pointless test? Try to work with me, if you attack my writing without properly reading it you make things so much more difficult for us both. I find the word ‘edutainment’ amusing because it closely resembles a portmanteau escaped from a 1980s corporate VHS, nothing more.
Sigh. I think you may have me confused with the demon headmaster here, Jake. Just read the blog again and get back to me when you’ve realised that I enjoy playing games and am a self-confessed “fun-machine” in class. Why did you put ‘fun’ in speech marks? It is not an alien concept.
Right, this next paragraph had better be you making a misguided stab at ‘larking about’. Are you genuinely suggesting that every single person who writes a personal blog (or writes anything) should consider the dangers of it being translated into another language and/or taken out of context? You are aware that you can take anything at all out of context and use it to prove a given point, aren’t you? If the Korean government come across my humble ramblings, Google translate them and use them as evidence in a mass cull of GETs then perhaps you’ll have a point. As it is, you’re being ridiculous. Whilst we’re at it, is it not worse to brag about how hungover you are at work on a public forum like Facebook? You can put ‘vast majority’ in capitals until the cows come home, it doesn’t change the fact that I actually wrote about the VAST MAJORITY of GETs that I know or have immediate contact with.
Finally I reach your conclusion, and I’d like to warn you that by this point you’ve made me really angry Jake.
How fucking dare you comment about the effects of my actions “on and offline”, and did you realise how hatefully pompous this phrase made you sound as you wrote it? I’d like to remind you that you have never, ever met me. You have no idea about my teaching practises, attitudes toward work and life and you absolutely, without doubt and by your own argument have no right to patronise or look down on me because you have taken my personal, often tongue-in-cheek article to heart. My writing influences your life in quite literally no way whatsoever and had you not taken the time out of your busy teaching day to write a very personal, purposefully hurtful and often nonsensical attack on my experiences then you could have gone away with both of us happy, never to darken my digital doorstep again.
Once again Jake, thank you for your input, criticism and whatever else you chose to throw at me. Please be aware that I will not be taking the time to reply again as I feel I have addressed your claims to the fullest extent a rational human can.
Goodbye.
Hi Jake – I read Caroline’s post and I read your reply, and I’m a little confused. You seem very upset about something that I don’t think this post has done. Caroline takes great pains to point out that it is only a “portion” of EPIK teachers who don’t behave professionally. She uses the term “sweeping generalisations” yes, but with an air of irony and an actual disclaimer. She uses that word too. The majority of this post is about her experiences of teaching in a Korean Middle School, and how her expectations of her role have adjusted since she arrived. I think it’s very fair, and accurate. I don’t agree wholly – my experience has been different – but hers is certainly no less valid because of that.
You make some good points about edutainment (I do hate that made-up word). I think the problem many EPIK teachers face is that the Korean school day is such hard work for the students (and since our classes essentially don’t count towards any grades), they are so exhausted when they come to us that they are difficult to control, or motivate, so often our constructive learning games fail and we’re left to play games which will motivate the kids but which lack much educational value. Without effective support from a co-teacher, this is an impossible situation for many inexperienced EPIKers, and can be extremely disheartening.
It’s a shame the interesting points you made that apply to Caroline’s post are outweighed by the paragraphs in which you rant about something she didn’t actually say. Perhaps the fact that she only attributed bad behaviour to elementary teachers? I’m sure there are terrible middle and high school teachers too. Do you feel better now? Also the idea that this blog post will be used against EPIK teachers who want to settle here is ridiculous – the GET detractors do not need to misquote a hard-working EPIK teacher’s blog. They can just take a few screen captures from certain GETs Facebook pages. Or make something up.
Also you are quite pompous. “Please think about the consequence of your actions online and offline before you feel entitled to make any more “sweeping generalisations”"? Who decides what actions are damaging? Personally I think Caroline’s blog is honest, and thoughtful, and well written, and may help potential EPIK teachers make an informed decision about coming to Korea. This in turn could prevent someone from coming with a false idea of what the job will be and then break their contract, something which is very damaging to our reputation. Actually damaging in my opinion is the behaviour that Caroline so briefly decries here! I hope to see you soon on the streets of Korea informing drunken GETs that their behaviour is hurting you. You must certainly be a very diligent policeman of Western behaviour in Korea if you found time to turn your ire on poor Caroline.
Essentially, I think it’s quite ridiculous that you misread this blog post and replyed with a pretentious, insulting, and entitled rant, where you accuse Koreans of trying to stitch you up (and all EPIKers, in fact, in a “sweeping generalisation” as I believe they’re known). Read it again. Or don’t, if it offended you so much.
If you did not want criticism of your personal blog then you shouldn’t have posted it on a popular website frequented by foreigners and Koreans alike. The moment your blog was featured on this site it became more than personal blog.
This is a public website and many of it’s vistors will have diverse opinons, many of which will run contary to yours. In a free and open democracy that is the internet, you don’t have the right not be be offended. You posted your blog post here knowing full well that it is controversial. So If you can’t stand the heat, get out the kitchen. Quit whining
If this is truly was a piece of satire or tounge-in-cheek humor than it wasn’t very effective because I’m not the only person who got the joke.
Being featured on Korea Bridge is an honor and does make you an authority in a sense. Your post is featured under the most viewed column and it is growing in popularity as we speak. There also is no legal disclaimer by Koreabridge that comments made by bloggers do not represent the beliefs of Koreabridge staff or endorsed by them. So IMHO any reasonable person who was a vistor to this site outside the traditional foreign community might come to the conclusion that you are speaking for at least a segement or the TEFL community.
Whilst I am not sorry for my rebuttal it was not meant as a personal attack and apoglize for letting my anger get the best of me. With your numerous We pronouns you are misleading readers do think that you are authority on the manner and are speaking for others.
I guess I just one of those, ” Uppity EPIKers’ who has false pretentions… ” who assume that us Waygooks have much in the way of acutal teaching to share with our coworkers and our students. We are here to be serious teachers and we are expected to use the CLT method to motivate and teach children.
Are you aware of Communicative Language Training or CLT for short? Basically by” letting the kids have a bit of fun, making myself more available to chat before and after classes and generally trying to make them feel a bit more comfortable about hanging out with a foreigner. ” you are increasing their acutally increasing communicative competance by giving them contextual situations to use the grammar they previously mastered. That is what they pay you more than decent wages to do you.
I hope you are as good as a teacher that you think you are because our students deserve the best.
I can see that you, your cheerleaders (kitty) and I aren’t going to agree about this and discussing it further is a waste of time.
As I said before Jake, I do not intend to discuss this any further. You have the right to criticism and I have the right to reply, which I have done.
If you have any issues with my writing being advertised on Koreabridge then I politely suggest that you take it up with the management. If they choose to remove my posts then I will support their decision to the fullest, I consider speaking freely to be far more important than a few extra reads.
I was going to reply last time, but Caroline did such a good job defending herself that I didn’t see a need. I’m going to reply now because I’m just annoyed.
1. You should really proofread before you post. Your grammatical errors are quite embarrassing, especially in light of the fact that your anger stems from what you perceive as a challenge to your legitimacy as an English teacher.
2. Regardless of who is reading her blog, or where it is posted, Caroline has the right to say whatever she wants to say about her experiences. I suppose it’s true that this also gives you the right to say what you want in response, but keep in mind that this is only appropriate when you thoughtfully respond directly to what Caroline actually wrote. This means that the comments section of another person’s blog is not the place to spew the contents of your offended ego. Use your own blog for such rants; this would enable the rest of us to avoid you.
3. You are definitely an uppity EPIKer. We didn’t need you to point this out, but thanks. I’m going to put on my “real teacher” pants for a moment and tell you exactly why we’re not real teachers in Korea, and why that’s okay.
First, we are only expected to plan 3 to 5 lessons a week. Real teachers plan at least 10. Last year, I planned approximately 15 – 20 lessons per week.
Second, we rarely, if ever, have to grade anything, at least in the EPIK program. Yes, there are times when we are asked to grade speaking tests or essays, but this is not something we have to do on a daily basis. Real teachers have to grade papers constantly. I am not exaggerating when I use the word CONSTANTLY.
Third, even when we do have to grade things, we never have to tediously input our grades into a grading program, examine class averages, or work with failing students and their parents to help them succeed.
Those are the three most significant things that come to mind, but there are countless others. Now, by saying that we’re not real teachers I don’t mean that our jobs are necessarily pointless. (I think this was the whole point of Caroline’s entry, by the bye.) We are teaching our students in the way mentors and camp counselors teach. Just by being around we’re helping them out and giving them opportunities to grow. That’s good and useful, but in no way is teaching with EPIK equivalent to being a real teacher. (I even think our Korean colleagues would agree with that statement.) In some ways this is nice; I enjoy not having to spend my entire weekend grading essays about Hamlet. In other ways this is disappointing; I miss having deep relationships with my students, knowing all of their names, and watching their progress throughout the year. You can tell me all you want that you are a real teacher, but having been one myself and teaching here now, I’m never, ever going to believe you.
For crying out loud Jake. Caroline isn’t pissed at you for disagreeing with her or having different opinions. She, and the rest of us, are pissed at you for completely misunderstanding what she was saying and then using that to launch a personal and hurtful attack on her.
Caroline is not responsible for what Koreabridge publishes, and if you have a problem with their editorial policy you should take it up with them. You say that she doesn’t have the right not to be offended, yet also that she shouldn’t write honestly about her experiences for fear that someone might be offended. Grow the fuck up Jake. A stranger on the internet having a different experience to you is not a good reason to get hurt or angry. It is a great opportunity to have a meaningful discussion about your differing experiences and how they have led to your differing opinions. But that clearly isn’t what you were looking for.
Your insistence that Caroline isn’t funny also just makes me think that you have no sense of humour whatsoever. You’re probably the kind of dick that doesn’t think Peep Show is funny either.
Wow, Jake, just wow. So you teach English. Wow, your poor students. Are you teaching them to be as self-righteous as you as well?
I do in fact see where you are coming from. I understand your offence, but I believe this is misguided slightly as I think you have misread Caroline’s argument, I won’t go into why I think that, as it has been more than adequately addressed above.
I am a middle school teacher, and I live with an elementary school teacher. Sometimes one does more work than the other, but the fact remains that we both work damn hard, and it’s not for the good of our health. We both have the best intentions for our students, and are doing the best we can with the situations, students and co-teachers we have been given to help and improve some English during our time here. In this I understand your point.
The fact remains that there are (unfortunately) teachers here who don’t see their primary role in school as an English teacher, but as getting a good wage for a free ride. Given the perks of the job, apartment, wage, flight bonus, etc, its hard not to be drawn in without a full understanding of what our role here is.
We are English teachers, but not in the sense of teaching the language to the students. That is why we are not responsible for the actual language learning, marking or other traditional teacher responsibilities. I agree with both you and Caroline it seems, as you seem to agree with her above on the benefits of being a native teacher, giving things a different perspective and giving real life experience. So what is it that you are so het up about? You agree with Caroline that “letting the kids have a bit of fun, making myself more available to chat before and after classes and generally trying to make them feel a bit more comfortable about hanging out with a foreigner” is beneficial to them, and that this is our main role here. So we are all agreed on this point.
Is this how you were taught languages in your school though? Because it isn’t how I learned languages, or anything, from my teachers. This sort of teaching was used in REVIEW sessions. This is what we are doing with our students. And therefore, after a bit of going round the houses, we aren’t teachers in the sense that I understand a teacher to be… Don’t misunderstand me. We are helping the students, they are learning from us, they are consolidating their knowledge with us. We are a novelty, my students love that they don’t have to talk to me in the Korean hierarchy and just greet me with a friendly, and often overly loud, “HI!!!” and they like asking me questions about my country, my life, Korea, and anything else they can ask in English. They are learning, we are aiding this. But a teacher this does not make.
Yet in most schools, given the choice, would they employ us, if not stipulated by the government? If we were making a substantial difference to English education, why is the EPIK program shutting down? Just a thought…
Dear Jake,
I’d like to start by saying that I am not a teacher and thus have no experience to qualify me to muse upon the subject itself beyond first hand accounts I’ve heard from people in the job. Moving on…
I must second the point that you really should check what you’ve written before posting it, especially as an English teacher that’s very clearly been rubbed up the wrong way. I hope that the English you’ve used here is in no way an “accurate represenation” of what you teach in your lessons.
Aside from your own writing perhaps it may be wise to actually read what Caroline wrote as it doesn’t appear as though your issues have very much in common with her work. Perhaps make a little table consisting of two columns. You could title one of them “Things Caroline said” and the other “Things Jake made up”. It might be easier to keep track of that way and you might not get yourself in such a tizzy when it comes to ham-fistedly using your keyboard.
Caroline, from the outset, makes it perfectly clear that she is relatively new to the role, that her words do not speak for all and that she is documenting her own experiences. Perhaps less obvious was that this was meant to be taken as a light-hearted slant on her day to day professional life. This appears to have sailed over your swollen head. Just because you didn’t get it, doesn’t mean it wasn’t funny. Again, might have helped if you read it properly.
Furthermore, you seem to insist that Caroline clearly meant to cause controversy with her post and sought to maximise the outrage by posting it on Koreabridge. Quite how you can be so sure that this was intended as inflammatory material is entirely beyond me and the notion that her place on Koreabridge is completely separate from those in charge there is ludicrous. Does it not seem more plausible that a) you completely got the wrong end of the stick and b) she was invited to be featured there owing to the fact that her well written articles about her experiences in the country offer a fascinating first hand account of what it’s like to be a new teacher here?
It’s clear that you took offence to the mention of the actions of some other Elementary teachers as though this somehow reflects on your own conduct. In every profession there are those there for the love of the job and those there for the money. I in no way doubt your dedication to the job nor your competence in performing it but in taking exception to the points made, however, you completely agreed with Caroline yet still felt the need to go off on one about her merely relaying what she has heard. An interesting approach to take when allegedly arguing against someones point. Perhaps you are good at these new fangled techniques.
You highlight the freedom of speech that people can enjoy on the internet, albeit by tainting it with “you don’t have the right not be be offended”. A little odd but you were onto something so I’ll forgive you. Your choice of the word democracy was a curious one. I mean, you’re right, but then denouncing someone’s opinions and offering in their place ‘The Gospel According to Jake’ you kind of undermine your alleged love of this liberty. Of course everyone has the right to their own opinions, that’s what makes the internet, for the most part, such a wonderful place so, to echo Beth, would this not be a golden opportunity to learn more about someone else’s life here rather than engaging in this palaver? Despite some outside recognition this is still a personal blog and so why on earth should Caroline change what she decides to write about? Correct me if I’m wrong but her writing is precisely what brought the external interest in the first place so she’s clearly doing something right. By your own admission it’s also gaining popularity so, again, do you think you might have missed the point a little bit? If she has to alter what she writes then I don’t see how it would continue to be her freely expressing herself any more which would be somewhat at odds with your own view about the democratic nature of the internet.
Contradiction seems to be a big thing for you. Whilst opening your first objection by highlighting Caroline’s uncertainty over her own “pedalogy” (it’s pedagogy by the way. Using clever words doesn’t really work when you get them wrong) and using it to suggest the foundations of her argument may be a little shaky. However, by the end of your second you seem convinced that her ego has swollen immeasurably and she now considers herself to be some form of teaching god. Quite clearly she never said this. In fact, you even noted this yourself. Remember when we talked about you making things up? Go get the table we drew out, I’ll wait….got it? Then I shall continue.
I did love some of your response, I must concede. The bit when you accused Caroline of not being open to the more entertaining approaches to teaching then proceeded to quote the passage of her work where she explicitly states that she has fully embraced them as some form of attack against her was, quite frankly, breathtaking. If you’re going to accuse someone of not doing something it might be wise not to include a written assertion by that person of them doing it.
You are totally right in one aspect though. The internet is a place of freedom where people can, within reason, say and do as they will. With this said, I’m pretty sure you’re more than free to not bother visiting her blog again.