It was a hectic week or two, but I managed to get through it. Why the last teacher at my school insisted on testing the students and having it count towards their grade is a mystery to me, but I figure it was to give the students more incentive to take the class seriously. In my opinion, I don't think that foreign ESL teachers should test in public schools, at least when it relates to the students grades. Most probably aren't qualified and it's notreally the point of why we're here.

In my opinion, there is already way too much testing going on in Korea as it is. It seems the students are always preparing for some new exam or another and why should we add to that burden. It's all about getting them talking as much as possible in class and out, and give them other reasons to want to study English. Korean students don't seem to be motivated unless they are tested and to me that is a poor reason to learn. Learning for me has alway been about self discovery and exploration of new things. I've never needed a teacher to guide me, well, maybe when I was in Elementary school, but after that I studied things because they were interesting or they might be useful to me in my future life. We, as ESL teachers, need to concentrate more on making the students understand that by learning English they are opening new pathways in their future and not limiting themselves to a life in a monolinguistic society.

Anyway, enough rambling, its the weekend and time to relax. Hopefully, things will slow down a bit and I can get some writing done.