Shortly after I agreed to become one of LIKE’s teachers back in 2007, I took an online course and earned a certificate in teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL). I thought the extra credential might come in handy at some point, and I wanted to be prepared for the reality of being in charge of a classroom—something to which I had never before aspired. The course was minimally helpful because it presumed the students to be adults eager to learn, not children whose parents had enrolled them in numerous after-school academies; English was and still is most popular in Korea, but don’t forget math, science, music and other subjects.
What were the requirements for being hired as a teacher at LIKE or most hagwons? Let’s say the bar was set fairly low. If you had a degree from an accredited four-year institution, were a native of one of the designated English-speaking countries (USA, UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand or South Africa) and could prove you did not have a criminal record, you were good to go. Of course, teaching experience was a plus but few had it. I felt somewhat more prepared than the average first-time hagwon teacher due to the aforementioned TEFL course and my age. I had been on this earth more than five decades—twice as long as some of the wet-behind-the-ears recent grads who were being hired along with me.
I am writing this piece 2 1/2 years after my last class at LIKE. I have since taught numerous adults individually or in pairs and have learned to employ some exercises that are valuable in terms of vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation and so forth. With some modification, these would have been immensely useful for the kids in my classroom at LIKE. I hesitate to critique the school’s curriculum, but in several cases it was inadequate—poorly conceived and poorly executed.
A linguistic and cultural gulf separated me from most of my students, and no amount of good intentions could have bridged it. Even so, there is one thing I wish I had done before getting on that west-bound airplane in late 2007: I should have mastered the basics of the Korean alphabet known as hangul. It is an ingeniously simple system of letters and syllable blocks which comprise words, which in turn comprise sentences. I am still far from fluent in Korean, but I can (in most cases) read the language. Had I been able to do so when I was teaching, I think it would have helped me to relate to my students. As an example, I offer a sweet young girl named Lee So-Mi. Far better it would have been if I had realized that she was not just Lee So-Mi but 이 소 미. Or, for that matter, Park Seung-Yeon (박승연), Kang Ah-Reum (강아름) or Seo Min-Ju (서민주).
I also regret the times I had to termporarily expel a student. To do so was essentially a sign of failure—failure to teach, failure to control the classroom, failure to engage the students. Not that I didn’t try mightily to do all three. While I was at Chilgok, there was a boy who constantly misbehaved. He tested and exceeded my patience quite often. When he did so, I had two methods of expelling him. In the first, I silently walked to the door, opened it and motioned to him. In the second, I emphatically pointed at the door and said, “Get out!” He never protested in the least. Only toward the end of my time there did I grasp that he was a good-natured kid with attention-deficit disorder.
At Yongsan, I recall three students whose actions merited the ignominy of being kicked out of class. One was a girl of about 13 who certainly had an attitude. Let’s call her Miss Park. Her personality was such that if she behaved well, the others did too. If not, they followed right along. Miss Park was causing problems by making snarky comments in Korean which caused mirth for her fellow students and misery for me. After a couple of warnings, I told her to stand up. I moved her desk out in the hall and told her to sit there while I conducted class with the door open. Interestingly, Kim Hee-Man, the school’s director, happened to be walking by. I was so displeased, I did not bother to explain to him what I was doing or why.
In a different class, a boy said something inappropriate, the purpose of which was to make the others laugh. (Does this sound familiar?) When I told him to leave, he apologized profusely: "Please, no, Teacher. I’m sorry. Please." That made no difference because he had to go. I ended up lifting him out of his chair and escorting him to the hall. I only made him stay there a few minutes because I knew he had been duly chastened.
Finally, a very smart and good-looking young man committed some egregious act. Go, I told him. In the hall, he received a firm talking-to. He made no effort to respond and was completely defiant, with his chin jutting straight out. Odd as it sounds, I felt a measure of admiration for him. He was a gutsy kid.
Add Comment