Restrategizing.
Okay, obviously this trying to catch up thing isn't working... so I'm just going to write about my day and let you WONDER about the context that got me here.
On Tuesdays I teach the best and worst classes all week, both in terms of enjoyment and English level, in the morning and afternoon respectively. The best class is the advanced second year students and the worst is the lowest level first years. So, comparatively, not only does the second year class have an extra year of English under their belt, they're the ones that are exceling beyond their classmates. So Tuesday is like the cream filling of my week, except there's a mayonnaise filling-filling that I always forget about until it's too late.
At any rate, the students in the lowest class are hellions. Really, really misbehaved. Sleep in class, talk to their friends at normal volume, blatantly ignore instructions (even in Korean). Some of them are there because they really don't know any English, but others are obviously there because they're "problem children". This one student has the most laughable "tough-girl" attitude I've ever seen. I really think she's seen one too many campy Korean movies with the bad-girl meets dorky guy storyline. I call her up to the front of the class and she stands there with her arms crossed, head-cocked to one side, with a bored and impatient sneer on her face. I ask her a question and she squeals "I don't know!", stomps her foot and makes for her chair, but I don't let her sit down. Rinse and repeat until she says something halfway constructive.
The second year class is great, but it's mostly because they understand everything I'm saying. I can joke with them and they'll get it. The pointy side of the stick is that they manage to finish the material I prepare in half the time it takes any other class, so there's a lot of improvisation, lesson extension, general bullshitting on my part. But the class represents my best opportunity for what I'd hoped to accomplish well before arriving here: developing meaningful relationships with my students. I wrote it in my application, in my Cultural Adjustment Log at orientation, and in my orientation evaluation. But of course, once you're faced with the task, it's a lot harder than expected. These are high school girls after all, and they're at school until 10pm every night (Yeah, that's right... 8:30am to 10pm school day folks. More on that later.) Take into account an extremely high language barrier in most cases and it's hard to connect with them at all on a personal level.
I'll conclude with a short anecdote from today. Class with the first years today was the first official time I've had to pretend to get mad at the students. I really don't get mad in general, except when teachers are beating the crap out of students that didn't do anything to remotely deserve physical punishment, but I just didn't see another way of handling the situation.
It wasn't anything extraordinary, just two girls that were not paying attention, would not shut up, would not do any of the work. So when it came time for students to come to the board to write answers, I called on them first... asked them a simple question that I knew everyone else knew because I had just said the answer, and watched them squirm as they had no idea what to write. Then I turned up the theatrics and angrily asked them why they didn't know the answer, why weren't they paying attention, and so on. I had the class say the answer and I told them to write it and sit down. Two minutes later I called on them again, same result. Two minutes later, again. After a few repetitions of this, they got the idea that they were going to be the class guinea pigs that day and got to work quickly finishing the worksheet everyone else had done 20 minutes ago.
It felt good punishing students productively instead of violently. I feel like it's my moral obligation to show my co-teachers that there are better ways to discipline children than leaving them with bruises.
On Tuesdays I teach the best and worst classes all week, both in terms of enjoyment and English level, in the morning and afternoon respectively. The best class is the advanced second year students and the worst is the lowest level first years. So, comparatively, not only does the second year class have an extra year of English under their belt, they're the ones that are exceling beyond their classmates. So Tuesday is like the cream filling of my week, except there's a mayonnaise filling-filling that I always forget about until it's too late.
At any rate, the students in the lowest class are hellions. Really, really misbehaved. Sleep in class, talk to their friends at normal volume, blatantly ignore instructions (even in Korean). Some of them are there because they really don't know any English, but others are obviously there because they're "problem children". This one student has the most laughable "tough-girl" attitude I've ever seen. I really think she's seen one too many campy Korean movies with the bad-girl meets dorky guy storyline. I call her up to the front of the class and she stands there with her arms crossed, head-cocked to one side, with a bored and impatient sneer on her face. I ask her a question and she squeals "I don't know!", stomps her foot and makes for her chair, but I don't let her sit down. Rinse and repeat until she says something halfway constructive.
The second year class is great, but it's mostly because they understand everything I'm saying. I can joke with them and they'll get it. The pointy side of the stick is that they manage to finish the material I prepare in half the time it takes any other class, so there's a lot of improvisation, lesson extension, general bullshitting on my part. But the class represents my best opportunity for what I'd hoped to accomplish well before arriving here: developing meaningful relationships with my students. I wrote it in my application, in my Cultural Adjustment Log at orientation, and in my orientation evaluation. But of course, once you're faced with the task, it's a lot harder than expected. These are high school girls after all, and they're at school until 10pm every night (Yeah, that's right... 8:30am to 10pm school day folks. More on that later.) Take into account an extremely high language barrier in most cases and it's hard to connect with them at all on a personal level.
I'll conclude with a short anecdote from today. Class with the first years today was the first official time I've had to pretend to get mad at the students. I really don't get mad in general, except when teachers are beating the crap out of students that didn't do anything to remotely deserve physical punishment, but I just didn't see another way of handling the situation.
It wasn't anything extraordinary, just two girls that were not paying attention, would not shut up, would not do any of the work. So when it came time for students to come to the board to write answers, I called on them first... asked them a simple question that I knew everyone else knew because I had just said the answer, and watched them squirm as they had no idea what to write. Then I turned up the theatrics and angrily asked them why they didn't know the answer, why weren't they paying attention, and so on. I had the class say the answer and I told them to write it and sit down. Two minutes later I called on them again, same result. Two minutes later, again. After a few repetitions of this, they got the idea that they were going to be the class guinea pigs that day and got to work quickly finishing the worksheet everyone else had done 20 minutes ago.
It felt good punishing students productively instead of violently. I feel like it's my moral obligation to show my co-teachers that there are better ways to discipline children than leaving them with bruises.
posted by Uzura at 7:39 AM
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