Issue and Overture

There are some issues with the Hagwon system of English education that I think I need to speak badly about real quickly. A hagwon is a business, which means its primary objective is to make money over educating its pupils. Obviously this is a necessary evil in Korea, where the schools are widely understood to be so bad that it is basically mandatory for students to go elsewhere to actually learn anything.

I see students on a rotating schedule for either two or three times a week. Classes with me are thirty five minutes long. They spend another thirty five minutes with a Korean teacher. The classes with me are supposed to be exclusively conversation and are meant to be exclusively conducted in English.

Obviously though, these are kids. These are kids who speak Korean twelve hours a day for every single minute (other than the thirty five during which they see me) of their lives. They mess up occasionally. Sometimes when groping for an English word, they may slip into Korean. When struggling to explain something they want me to know, they may accientally use a few Korean words.

So at this point over here, I have a very, very limited Korean vocabulary. It might be just over or under a hundred words. Most of the words I've learned and used I've picked up from the kids. Korean children are the only Koreans not shy with their language, not yet convinced that English is superior and that when in the presence of someone English speaking, only English should be spoken, or nothing at all. The Korean adults I've spoken to are hesitant about their abilities to speak Korean to me and are even more hesitant to teach me anything. If you are a native English speaker, people seem to feel that you linguistically have it made and that there is no reason to learn Korean.

So the kids are a good source for me.

But only outside of class. For my elementary, middle schol and high school children, there is absolutely no Korean allowed in class. To enforce this, I have developed a system of strikes. If they are caught once for speaking Korean, their name is written on the board. Slashes are added to the name as the incident is repeated. If they use Korean four times in one class, they are in trouble. Big trouble that I haven't yet had to impliment.

This goes for me too. Occasionally I slip up and use a word of Korean to explain something. I do this mostly intentionally. Because when I want them to tell me what they did this last weekend, I want to remind them to use past tense. But if I say past tense, a word their Korean teachers have not taught them, one which they do not understand in English and one which they basically do not need to understand, they won't know what the fuck I am talking about. So I will use the Korean word for past tense and then pretend it was an accident and write my name on the board. It's sort of a fun thing for the students to see me mess up. It keeps my class humorous.

Recently I got a tremendous lecture from the head teacher at my school, whose name is Jade teacher. I am not a huge fan of this woman by any means, specifically because she is a bully and kind of a mean person. She sat me down and reiterated very angrily and seriously that English teachers are not to speak any Korean. I thought I was in trouble for my four strikes thing. Which seemed ridiculous but plausible. But as it developed, that wasn't the case. I wasn't being told off for using three explanatory words of English per class.

I was being told off because of my Preschool and Kindergarten kids. These are kids who have never taken English in their lives. Kids who are learning the goddamn alphabet. Who don't know what to say if I greet them in English. These kids are not ready for an immersion program. Not to mention that this is NOT by any means an immersion program. If I were to just speak in English to these kids, nothing could be taught. Nothing would get done. They don't understand instructions like "read," "write," "stop," "sit down," "no copying," etc.

I ran this by Jade teacher. She told me, in brief, that it doesn't matter. That I need to stop speaking English to these five and six year olds and that they need to stop speaking Korea in my class. Again, these are kids who don't know what "Hi" means, kids who don't know an A or a B from a hole in the ground. This is not really possible.

And as unlikely as it is that these kids are going to start speaking a foreign just because Jade wills it to be so, it is even less likely that I am ever, in a million years going to get a classroom with twelve five and six year olds to not talk unless they are speaking English.

I told her this but said I would try.

The next day, I instituted the English only rule. First I said it in English, feeling that this was the only way to not be hypocritical. But obviously this just got me really blank Korean stares. It made me laugh, which made the kids laugh, but otherwise got us nowhere. Thankfully, laughter was not yet prohibited.

So, haltingly, aware of my own hypocracy and unwillingness, I explain to them in Korean that there would be no more Korean in Ari Teacher's class. Even the kid's looked skeptical. But we gave it a go.

Korean children are competitive as hell and tend to tell on each other where possible. This means that now in my kindergarten and pre school classes, I have almost no time to actually teach a lesson. All that happens in these classes is students yelling "Ari Teacher! Tim Korean!" Then I turn to Tim and say "Tim! Korean?" Tim, shakes his head hard and looks innocent, "No Korean!" By the time my interaction with Tim and his accusor is finished, another student will have been accused.

But man. They are getting good at saying the English word for their language. Ironic, eh?

For two weeks now, I have not felt like a teacher. I have been a warden.

When speaking to Jade about the insanity and unreasonableness of this notion, I cited the fact that the English only rule is ridiculous because the Korean teachers conduct their classes virtually all in Korean. I've listened to or sat in on many many classes of Korean teachers' classes where not a single word of English is spoken.

And here is the amazing thing. Jade told me this wasn't true. That the Korean teachers only teach in English. She claimed that all her classes are in English, which I can personally attest to as being utter bullshit. I found this insulting, that she would lie to my face and expect me to go along with it. However, I pretty much went along with it, because she is my superior and that is how things are done in this area. You don't contradict your goddamn superiors.

Jade then asked me which Korean teachers only teach in Korean. Because the Koreans love telling on each other. Of course I'm not going to get a Korean teacher in trouble for doing what all of them do, what Jade does. So I back down. Which is what Jade wanted and is very comfortable with.

But this week I have decided I am sick of this. Because of one student who has somehow managed to be an even bigger wuss than I am where rules and authority is concerned.

I spoke in an earlier post about one of the little girls named Candy who is terribly cute but who speaks absolutely no English. This rule has been particularly hard on her, as you might imagine. She gets told on once every few minutes. So Candy has begun doing something that I've read about students doing when they are scared of getting in trouble for something they have difficulty controlling.

She has started pretending to be sick. Every time she sees me she says "Teacher..." Then she looks mournful and holds her stomach. I ask her in Korean (whispering like I'm dealing drugs) if she is sick. She nods and points to the bathroom. I let her go. She stays in the bathroom for the remainder of class. She is fine through all of her class with the Korean teacher, but when I show up her face falls and her little hand goes to her stomach. This happened four classes in a row.

I am not teaching Candy English, I am teaching her acting.

Finally, I got sick of this and annulled the No Korean rule for my youngest classes. I still say "No Korean" a lot but I don't write people's names down and when the kids tell on each other I have unfortunately taken to saying something along sarcastic lines of "No kidding?" in Korean.

Jade asked me today how the No Korean was going with the kindergarten and preschool kids. And so I took a leaf out of her book and lied to her face. I told her it was going fine and that the kids were really coming along.

She seemed really pleased.

Now I just have to hope the goddamn kids don't tell on me. But when they do...I think I'll be ready with some more lies.