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So my teaching as I said started at a children's institute. If you want to come to Korea I suggest you find out exactly what kind of prepartation is required of you to teach. I was told minimal preparation and that i would be playing english games often with the children. When I got to the hogwon, I realized it was the Hogwon of Hell where games were not permitted. I lasted at this institution for about 1 month. What happend during that one month? One day, I was pulled into another room so that i could be yelled at and told that I was a terrible teacher and that the kids and my other 3 co-workers hated me, and that I needed to realize how much money was spent on me to come here and I better change quickly. I would ask how and i was told that I was told how to conduct the classes nothing more can be said... Whatever... All the people i have met here seem to have had it much easier then where i was. About a week later I was again told to attend a meeting where 2 teachers and the Director would talk to me and help me figure out a teaching method... This meeting was not to do that. The three people in the meeting sat on one side of the room while i sat on the other and all that was going though my head was "Let the bashing begin!" I couldn't hold my frustration in any longer and was ready to be fired. I really thought i would be coming home after my month of Hell. I knew that I could never be as perfect as she wanted. Things turned around after that. About 2 days later another director, Mr. Kim approached my old director and asked me to work for him. At his institute i would be teaching adults. My director thought it was great to get rid of me, and i was glad to be going to a new job.
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In the children's institute, I was basically told to teach Who, What, Where, Who With. This means to ask questions like "Who is she?" "What is she doing?" Get it?... Classes are 50 minutes long... If i am bored of doing it after 5 minutes then how could the children possibly like doing it? I was not allowed to use the book but I had to base my classes on what the children learned in their other classes... How do you do this? I have no clue. Explains why I am not working there now. No Games were allowed. Don't be affraid to come to Korea though. Like I said I was at the HOGWON of HELL! A lot of my friends had a lot of fun teaching at there hogwons.
Teaching adults consists of conversation and correcting their pronounciation. For some, taking an english class is all about getting a better TOEIC Score, for others, it is about learning english to be able to have conversations with foreigners and for promotional reasons at work. Overall though, the more english you have the higher your pay and level at work. So, that is my job. I ask the students what they want to learn and what the objective of learning is and I try to do what they want. This is a hard task cause they all want different things.
My favorite book to use is Interchange. They have a variety of levels and a CD comes with the book. Its great for Vocab, Listening, Games, and conversation. Oh yeah, I should tell you when you begin teaching a class you are expected to choose the book and level for your class. Give them some options, take a few books to class with you so they can select one.
For the more intermediate classes, we just do conversation in class. This is also difficult. Some people do not want to use a conversation book which makes it more difficult for me. There are so many conversation books and they are great, check out the local book store.
I also teach business english. This is quite a task. I have never taken a business course in my whole life and now i have to teach business english. Again, there are a lot of great books out there to help you with this and there are a lot of things online.
I am so much happier teaching adults. I was teaching at Samsung Electronics, LG Phillips Displays, LG Innotec and Hyandai Foreign Language School. I do wish that i had more time with primary students, but my time with the adults was very rewarding. |
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