Sweet Korea High

I recently was given the task of providing five of my grade six classes with an oral exam. It wasn't much of a surprise as grade six students do a lot of testing to see what Middle School they will get to attend. At first I was a little worried about what it was that I should be testing them on, but eventually my co-teacher informed me that the students needed to be able to handle tenses; past and future tense. I thought, no problem. Then I was told that I would have one period per class to do the testing. Let see, that's an average of 36 students per 40 minute class. Surprisingly I had to fight to get an additional class period in which to do the testing, giving me two minutes per student.

Yeah, you can kind of figure out already how well all of this is going to go.

So testing day came and I had prepared a whopping three question quiz to give each student. I was already depressed by the level of importance that English education was being given. Of course I managed to leave the first round of testing more depressed than when I started.

It came as no shock that those students whose parents pay for them to attend an English academy after school did the best. Of course this is a poor school in a poor neighborhood so the number of students wasn't that high. In fact I think the number of students who did quite well on the test was equal to the number of students who didn't utter a single word.

I came out of this first half of testing really wondering what I was doing. Unfortunately, it is very easy to get apathetic about the job and simply coast on through. Most of the students are uninterested in what your teaching, and too many don't have the necessary language skills by grade six to make grade six lessons appropriate. For the most part the Korean teachers have little to do with what is going on. In one school I stand alone in front of the students and struggle to get meaning across while at the other I have two co-teachers who offer limited translation if I specifically ask them for it. It is obvious that far too many simply don't understand what is happening when after four years of English instruction, they still don't understand the difference between 'how are you?' and 'what day is it?'

My unfortunate first reaction was further apathy. It's hopeless to really get them to understand so why fight for it. That lasted about two hours. Then I was left to wonder 'what can I do to change this?' Now when I say 'change this' I don't mean change the entire Korean educational metntality towards English, but rather what can I change about what I do to try and make my English classes more beneficial for the students.

There is definitely some room for thought and experimentation here and perhaps I should feel somewhat sorry for my current students who are going to be used as test subjects for any new ideas or methods that I come up with.

***

The Korean school system is definitely different than the Canadian one. I was talking with my co-teacher yesterday about the testing that our grade six students were going to have to take next week. I was asking if she thought any students might fail. She was puzzled for a moment and then explained to me that the testing has no bearing on whether or not a student would pass or fail as no students fail in Korea (at least at the elementary level). Rather the end of year testing determines which tier of Middle School they will get to attend. 

Unlike back home, where a student attends a school based on proximal geography, here in Korea that only happens with elementary school. In grade six students are tested and placed in an appropriate Middle School. In year three of Middle School the students are tested again to determine what High School they can attend. After three years of High School, they are given the University entrance exams (much like SATs from what I can tell) which will determine what Universities they can attend.

So it doesn't take one long to see that much a person's future success can be determined by their Middle School placement tests taken when they are 10 or 11 years old. 

This is serious stuff. This is the high suicide season in Korea where numerous students kill themselves over poor academic performance. A poor test score not only affects the school they can attend but potentially the career they can achieve. It also brings shame upon the family's honor and such a shame needs to be expiated. 

***

I thought I'd mention another conversation that I had with my co-teacher. She asked me what would a mother in Canada say to their child if the child refused to obey. She explained that the Korean method of guilt was to threaten the child with the absence of their mother. That the mother would leave the recalcitrant child. 

I explained that in Canada it was the other way around. Rather than having the mother leave because of the actions of the child, we would tell the child to leave. The oft-used "if you think you can do it better than go" routine. This of course shocked her to no end. I tried to explain the logic that why should the mother suffer exposure when it is the child that is misbehaving. Rather the child should bear the burden of the consequence. 

She wasn't buying it.