Most EPIK teachers I know have elementary schools. They have students who barely understand anything, especially directions; BUT they have sports day, picnic day, English camp week, field trips, songs day, and more. All the teachers (including Koreans) leave at the same time and have dinners together. And so on. But many of them also aren't really finding the teaching rewarding--or rather that they won't/aren't making a difference.
My students go to school from 8:30 (some start earlier with private tutors) and go until 10pm (some go longer). They have lunch and dinner at school; at break they are running to the snack shop on campus to grab some sugar to stay awake for the next 50 minutes of class, which ends up being about 12 minutes, when they literally cannot keep their eyes open. All in the name of standardized college entrance exams. Here is a great video (thanks Matt) to paint a portrait.
I would consider this the biggest challenge of teaching in a high school in Korea.
I have a fairly large range of English skills--results of the widely-varied amount of English they've had before, during, and after school before high school. I have 17 classes of either all boys or all girls classes; each with 35-46 students.** It's all different--one class is a nightmare (for every teacher in the school), and yet another is the most diligent, motivated, excitable bunch I've ever had the pleasure of teaching.
The problem is, I can't blame them one bit for wanting to sleep through my class. I mean, flirting with the teacher, slapping the classmates you are with for 15 hours a day/6 days a week is going to get OLD. I do what I can to include as many real life situations and videos as possible, but some just can't do it. Some of them I can even tell they WANT to. But...just...can't...keep...eyes...open! One of my co-teachers commented today,"you must go through a lot of money for candy." For some of them, it's the only thing that keeps their eyes (and the energy of the whole room) on the prize.
In the afternoon, they get a 20 minute break. One that is spent cleaning the school. I've come to love my little 3rd grade (american equivalent to seniors) boys.
"Hello teacher!" Everyday. They're so happy to have gotten "stuck" with my room. I give them candy and help them practice for their (very intense, repetitive, vocabulary tests); though lately, they've been helping me with my vocabulary more.
"Hello students! How are you today?"
"Oh, veddy tired. Veddy tired." "So, so." "Fine thank you. And how are you?"
Each Friday, we all do the whole "TGIF" shpeel, and then they start talking about class until 6pm on Saturday. Monday we talk about how they studied on Sunday. Even on the first 72 degrees day! Yet, each day, they leave my room, "thank you teacher. I love you. See you tomorrow!" I really love them too. That's heart.
Knowing the levels of stress that I had in graduate school, working at Rasmussen, etc., it all sucked. Ulcer sucked. Wrinkly, dried up, and bitchy sucked. But I was post-25. They are 15-17. I've read about the suicide rates being high here among their age group, but I found this (and used it for my essay writing class too) interesting:
http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2011/01/04/2011010400291.html
All in all, I don't pretend to have answers (and we all know America's system is jacked too, at least they play much fairer here, student to student). I just feel icky about it sometimes. The Korean teachers are grossed out by it as well. The system is spending a massive amount of money to bring native English speaking teachers in and I hear (office gossip) that they are talking about trying to cut the hours slightly (an idea some of the parents are rejecting). I understand the justifications for why they're doing it. I would just be so interested to have a conversation with some of the people who have this discourse, and run the show. Or shit, even just a fly on the wall.
In the meantime, the least I can do is buy some candy, and help them with their vocabulary tests on break.
**But I also have 2 Teacher Trainings classes (for the 9 other Korean English teachers) and 2 Essay Writing courses that I'll talk about later.
Koreans are intense about school in a way that I don't think any other (non-Asian) country is. If you're anything other than Korean it's difficult to understand the intense and specific nuances of the culture and the heritage. The suicide rates are really high around the time of "THE BIG TEST", it's so competitive, so hard, they expect so much and the Korean students just learn to deal with the enormous amount of stress. Unfortunately some don't deal as well...it's really sad, but they can't deal with not passing or just the anticipation will break them. I couldn't imagine. Apparently the point of all the stress is to over prepare you for college and the real world so that once you pass the test and are on your way to a degree, it's a piece of cake. It's screwy Korean thinking, but it makes some sense.
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