My Name is Trevor Teacher, I am a teacher

Now that I have a few weeks experience teaching I thought I would write about teaching English in Korea. I know I mentioned it on my first post, but I didn't have any idea what I was doing then so it wasn't very informative.

First I'll explain the set up. I go in at 1PM every day and my first two classes are kindergarten. The kids are fun but also probably my most difficult classes. From 2:20-8:40 I teacher elementary classes. I have 4 periods each lasting 1 hour 20 min. Of this I have two classes lasting 40 min. each. I share the classes with a Korean teacher. She has one of the classes for 40 min. and I have one for 40 min. then we switch kids. After every period we have a 10 minute break. As or the teaching, I mainly teach vocab through pictures with the younger classes and more phrases and sentences with the older classes. I don't really try to teach grammar or anything complicated, the Korean teacher does more of that. If I ever do have something that I can't explain I grab the Korean teacher to explain it.

You may be wondering why they bring foreigners to teach when they have Korean teachers who can speak and understand English. It's a good question until you actually talk with the Korean teachers. They do speak and understand English, but not very well, at least they don't speak English very well. I don't say this I a mean way, they speak English better than most other Koreans who speak English, but they have pronunciation problems and phrasing problems. As such they bring us in as more refiners of the kids English, refining both the pronunciation and phrasing (The are happy, not They is happy).

On the pronunciation, Koreans really do have problems with some of the English sounds (just like I'm sure I sound very funny when I try to speak Korean). This can be at times a little frustrating but also at times funny. For instance tonight I spent a while in class trying to get the students to say “Rapidly” correctly. The problem was that they would say it and it would sound like “rapeatedly”. They basically kept overstating the “d”. It was both funny and frustrating since I would say “Rapidly” very slowly and they would go “Yes teacher rapeatedly”. At times its just funny, mainly when its not something I'm trying to teach, just some random word I say that the kids try to pick up. For instance I say “excellent” a lot when the kids say something very well and sometimes the kids try to repeat it. The problem is that they have trouble with the “X” sound. It ends up sounding very funny, even funnier when I try to get get them to sound like Monty Burns from the Simpsons. Strictly speaking its not part of the lesson plan, but it sure makes my day. To be fair I also have the kids repeatedly say the words they are learning purely because I enjoy hearing them say it. For instance one of the classes has learned “waterfall” and somehow some of the kids make the “all” sound both like “L” and “R” at the same time. I usually have to stifle a laugh or a smile when they say it. I don't laugh in a mocking way, but because it is so darn cute and funny sounding. Less humorless but still prevalent is the dropping of “S” at the end of words. They can make the “S” sound just fine, they just seem to not find it important at the end of words. They also over emphasize “D” at times (like I mentioned previously), also “P”. Working with kindergarten kids I understand where this tendency comes from. It's difficult for very young kids to make those sounds so at the younger age we emphasize “D” instead of “B” or something. The kindergarten kids sound better but sometimes the kids keep on doing it later in life.

While classes can be fun and challenging it can also be frustrating. Some of my classes are very rowdy and some of my students just don't listen, fortunately I don't have to deal with discipline. I do some speaking sternly to get them to be quiet, but if I do have any problems with a student or a class I just grab either my Korean teacher or one of the head staff and they take care of them. This is done for several reasons. The obvious reason is its hard to communicate with the kids on such thing, but also a Korean speaker can make threats that can be carried through. The threats usually involve calling the students parents and/or sending the parents a video of what the student was doing (all the classes of CCTV in them). This is also done because the school knows that we don't actually have teaching training so we probably wouldn't know the proper things to say to American students either (although we could have a better go at it). Finally this is done so that the foreigners are viewed in a more positive light so that the kids enjoy learning English more and are more motivated so that they can communicate with us.

Finally I decided to include a couple pictures from a couple of my classes. I took them from my Palm Pre so they don't have the best quality, but the kids still look pretty cute. They are pictures from my more advanced class. I'll try to take more pictures of some of the other kids at some later point. Enjoy!





No, you're not seeing double, the first and second pictures are of the same class and neither show all of the students in that class. Some of the students were shy and thus hid behind some of the others. This is my most advanced class and my oldest students. They are a bit of a hand-ful and I have to crack down some, but they are also a lot of fun since they understand a lot and we can have actual conversations. The third picture is from a mid-skilled class although they are my favorite. All of the students are well behaved and work hard. They are easy to work with and I never have to raise my voice or grab a Korean to yell at them. They are also all eager to learn and as such easy to teach.


On a final note, I am trying to get into the habit of writig more, but I keep putting off the actual writing. To make you feel better I do spend a lot of time thinking about writing and the things I'll put here as I go about my day. I see something and think about how to describe it and how I will phrase it. As such you would think that these things would be better written than they are, but you get what you pay for. :)