I am still unsure at this point if I am styaing at this point in or around December, or if I am heading back to the USA. For those of you who do not know I am in Korea with a "teaching" job. I quote teaching because in all realitiy it is not teaching. It is just not what I thought at all. If all you care about is making some money, then this is a great job. I will admit money is irreveleant. I don't care. Money is smoething that is gone quicker thean one actually gets it and when you die even if I had as much money as someone like Bill Gatees then its all gone anyways. If I am hired to do a job, then I want to do what I am hired to do. I came to teach English not baby sit, and at least at my job I feel like this is what I do with the majority of my time. At the very least the textbooks should be accurate and up to date. I find at least one mistake a page, which then I have to take 5 minutes to correct that mistake and another 5 minutes trying to explain to a class that doesn't understnad me that well that the book is wrong and why. In a 25 minute class, this is too much time. Maybe I already know my answer at this point, and maybe I just want to vent right now. Maybe Korea needs to get with it if they want to learn English otherwise scrap the whole program and do better things with their education.In a lot of ways this is a major disapointment to me as I thought Korea was very interested to learn English, but it is clear to me they may want to... but they do not want to do the necessary things to allow the kids to learn the language. Most of my life I have dreamed of coming to Asia, and then it eventually became Korea. I am really sad about this. In a recent newpaper that I read in Korea, it even said that "9/10 Koreans are frusterated with their English Ability." I even shared this article with a class of 30 year old women. The thing that frusterated me was the article talked about more programs. The issue is not needing more programs, as Korea has enough programs. The issue is that they need to improve the programs they already have. For example have books that are acurate (as already stated). I know at least in the USA, we cannot have books that are not accurate and up to date. If it has a mistake it cannot be used by law. Next, they need to get rid of (Korean) teachers whom do not speak it well. I find it mind boggling that the teachers do not speak it well at my hagawoon. In this kind of logic, I feel I should go and teach a Korean language class. Next, at a certian point, there should not be any Korean in a class. Maybe not the first year, but perhaps the 4th year at the minimum. The students are required to take it for 10 years. If you see a class that is the students 7-10th year, 90-100% of any given class is done in Korean. Lastly, they will have the students spend about 2 weeks memorizing a "script." The students do not have any idea what they are memorizing means, and as soon as you move on, they forget it. I would much rather see more focuus on vocab or better yet do what I did in Spanish class. I had to come up with my own dialogue with a partner for tests. And ever test this became more and more, so if we didn't get the material in the chapter, our converstation would be hurt in the test. In any case I really feel like me staying and continuing is a cheat to the students, and I do not think I can be one of the people responsible when these students one day try and use their "English ability" and realize that all those years were a waste of their time.In closing I would like to ask:
If you are one whom believes in prayer and the power of prayer....Then I would ask that you pray that God would help me with this decsion. If I can find clear reason from him of if I should stay, then I will stay. But if not then I think I will come back in December or around then.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
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1 comment:
lean on God. He will provide direction.
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