My Teaching Context

This blog has been started in order to reflect upon my teaching practice as I complete the Sookmyung University TESOL Global course. However, before reflecting on my teaching I thought it would be wise to kick off with a short explanation of the context I teach in, for my own reference and for those who may come to read this blog.

I'm currently teaching at XX Elementary school (ㅇㅇ초교) in Gangseo-gu (강서구), Seoul. I have to teach third through sixth grade once a week, and currently meet fourth grade twice a week. As these classes don't make up my required hours I also teach two daycare classes a week (where I teach those first and second grade students whose parents leave them at school in the afternoon) and am supposed to do a teacher's class every week, but this quickly stopped as teachers become too busy.

My contract states that I am always to co-teach (my official position is that of an assistant), but in reality I sometimes find myself leading classes with the Korean teacher watching, or just teaching alone. I have two co-teachers: J and S. Simply put, I don't get on with J and I do get on with S. I teach with the former two days a week and the latter three times a week.

S is a good, experienced teacher and shares the workload with me well. She makes good lesson plans, but is much more reserved than I am, so I tend to take the lead in our classes. We try to aim for an ideal of teaching everything together side by side rather than one or the other taking the weight of a class or activity.

I said I don't get on with J. The reason for this is that I believe she is simply not a good teacher. Her knowledge of English grammar is reasonable, but her skills end there. This knowledge doesn't show in her production of English, which both spoken and written is hard to understand. Her listening skills are worse.

Of course, this is common in English teachers worldwide, but the problem is that she seems to genuinely believe she is an expert at the English language, and that she is an excellent teacher. She is not. If the situation at our school weren't as political as it is she would be fired, however the situation as it stands doesn't allow for this.

On top of this, this term I have been asked (read: forced) by my vice principle to take over the failing after school English class. The company that was running it pulled out of our school, and the solution found was to give me all those extra teaching hours on top of the ones I already have. So I've gone from 22 teaching hours to 31. This means I teach straight from 9 - 4 three days a week, plus all the preparation for these. I have small consolation in being payed extra for this, but the hourly rate is less than half than my normal hours.

With all this going on I wonder how I will manage any teacher reflection or application of my TESOL course. I rather imagine I will be napping between classes! Nevertheless I intend to give it my best shot.

Hooray to better teaching at the cost of sleep deprivation!

Perhaps I should just take this as preparation to have that baby my wife insists will be coming soon. :D