Teaching English

Teaching English in South Korea is hard work.

My students range from elementary to middle school students. The young ones or the elementary students' classes usually start at 3 in the afternoon until 6 in the evening. The middle school students' classes start from 6 in the evening until 12 midnight.

The young ones are the easiest to teach. At the beginning of the school year, we started with songs and easy to do puzzles. Now, we are already talking about the characters in the stories we read as well as related events.

Some of the higher level elementary students even have debate. They talk about everything kids their age talk about. They argue about the use of cellphones, if the boys should go to military and others. Some of the ideas they present are really good. Even the things they write about are also good.

The middle school students have books which are quite difficult to read. Their book, Core Topic, is about America's history and other related events. Yesterday, we discussed the use of "petroglyphs" or drawings of Native Americans. Some of the words are quite difficult for these students. They even have to use their cellphone dictionaries to learn the meanings of words.

Even the questions in the book are quite difficult for some. I even have to point to them where to find the answers.

Of course, they have also classes in Korean. In fact, they have two classes with Korean teachers. One Korean teacher discusses grammar and the other one discusses the book and other things.

At the start of the year, one of the Korean teachers said the students are having a hard time understanding the topics he was discussing. They could not understand Native Americans or Indians because here in Korea, there is no such thing as "Indians".

But now, slowly, they can grasp what they are being taught. They even to write essays as homework. Homework is usually written in A4 paper and the number of words are specified. This way, they will not just write for the sake of writing. They even have to memorize and recite the homework.

Whew! A student's life is really not easy here in South Korea.