Problems with ESL teaching

[Bobtheduck]

At the school in which I teach, I have a wide variety of students. My teaching was rather freeform and I was given no instruction for the first portion of my time here, but recently I've been told to follow the curriculum strictly.

In the afternoon, this means doing review on their native GnB curricululm. This is mostly fine, because I just have them read the dialogue, then try to adapt some phrases to other situations. Sometimes the book gives alternative word suggestions, so that makes it easier, but sometimes it doesn't. That's mostly OK.

What's NOT OK is the curriculum they've chosen for the Kindergarten. It was not developed as ESL curriculum, but adapted for it later as an afterthought. That means a good portion of their books expect things that the kids have no way of doing. For example, the "student books" which basically mean reading and putting stickers, have a sticker book with a picture for each letter (with no letter written on it.) I was working with the 7 year olds, and thankfully most of them know their alphabet and the basic sounds the letters make, but even so, some of the pictures are of words that they don't know, so they don't know where to put the stickers...

If I try to demonstrate to all of them at once what each word is, for instance, they won't listen. I'll get a total of 2 of them looking at me, the rest just ripping through the book and a couple maybe putting stickers in the wrong places without actually listening to me. If I try to go to them one by one, which I was doing this morning, they get angry with me for not paying attention to them every moment. If I try to work with one kid, the rest of them will shove their books in front of my face, they'll poke me with the books, they'll tap me over and over again, and they'll push each other out of the way. I have no way to discipline them except to send them to the head teacher's office, which isn't a punishment for most of them, and if it is, it stops being so if there are 2 kids in there.

I had been giving them workbooks, and they went through the books and outlined what they were supposed to outline, but of course they were supposed to go through those books over the course of a month... There's no way to tell them "only do one page" when I give them the whole book. It's just not possible. I try to do the sounds and play CDs with the songs and do chants, but they won't do them. They don't listen. They talk to each other in Korean, and at least 3 of the kids actively test me while the rest simply do it naturally.

One of the girls in the 6 year old class HAS to be Autistic or something. She won't look at me, she's never uttered a single word in English OR Korean since she's been there, and she goes to the bathroom without asking at least 6 or 7 times a class. Every time I see her, she's rubbing antibacterial stuff on her hands (because there is no heated water and no towels or paper towels to dry hands, washing is extremely impractical, particularly during winter or what may as well be winter.) In any case, this is a common problem. I get special needs kids who are dumped into a class with kids their own age without regard for those needs. They're expected to just catch up with the rest of their class.

When I was printing my own stuff for the kids to do, at least they were all on the same page, doing the same thing, and they weren't off doing things they didn't understand and have no way of understanding. I said I wanted to go back to that, though I'd try to adapt it to the curriculum they were doing.

Now, the main Kindergarten teachers DON'T SPEAK ENGLISH, so I had to go through my fellow teachers who sort of speak it... Well, one really. One who doesn't, who is also a teacher in the afternoon (and always looks angry) whined (I'm sorry, there's no other way to logically put it since I don't speak Korean) to the other two who do speak English well enough to try to talk to me. I tried to explain my problem, and they seem to think that the problem is that the Kindergarten teachers aren't in the class to keep the kids under control. There is some truth to that, but the plain fact is the curriculum is HORRIBLE as ESL material... Just plain HORRIBLE! The English teacher's guide is made for Kindergarten teachers teaching native English speaking kids, and the "bilingual" teacher manuals are made for, well... Bilingual teachers, though I'm not entirely sure it's even made for them, instead it may be a direct translation, but I have no way of knowing that. (Off topic, but the computer guy, who I constantly get the impression hates me, just dried his hands with Toilet paper... There's no hot water, no paper towels, no facial tissue, no soap in the bathrooms, no towels, and people use toilet paper for everything... They DO sell paper towels and regular towels here, I know I've bought some... what the crap...)

The angry one said "Learn, no!" when I said I was going to do printouts. They all talked in Korean for 5 minutes at a time, and I got 5 second responses. Paris, the one doing most of the translation for Anna (the angry one) said "They just color, they don't learn." I think that's BS, actually, at least as much as they learn in anything, they've learned a bit in my handouts because they do usually remember about half of what I teach with the handouts. All the conversations that actually mean anything, as everything in this Country is, happens in Korean. Same with banking in "English", same with government stuff... Anyhow, bunny trail.

I'm getting really frustrated with this because I have no power to teach this way. What's worse is while I'm not the best teacher in the world, the only impression I can pull from the way Anna talks about it in Korean and the incredibly butchered English in which she rarely speaks is that it's my fault. It's my fault this isn't working, and GAAAAAH! This is one case where that is most certainly not true! The other native English speaking teacher agrees with me on this stuff, but she's so cynical from doing this 3 years, I don't know I can really take what she says, because it's hard to get a positive thing from her on it.

My schedule is very light, especially compared to most ESL teachers, but light or not, it's still stressful feeling like I can't do anything. Those morning classes are a nightmare, and since I don't have many options in my life, I'm kind of stuck... If I were to, say, lose this job over a curriculum dispute or because I have no way of teaching it the way they want, I've got NOTHING. My GA degree gets me NOTHING. The only thing I love to do and think I'm decent at is writing, and that's what I've wanted to do all this time, but fiction writers don't generally live off royalties from books. I may be able to find an office job, I guess, and at least I'll have some longish-term experience under my belt if I make it to October, but otherwise, I have nothing. I need to figure this out, but it's so difficult when all important conversations take place in Korean...

So... There we go. That's what I'm going through right now.

[Tsukuyomi]

I'll pray that all goes well and something can be reached ^^

[Reon]

Hey Bob, it definitely is a tough situation your in right now. Really glad you shared with us and hoped in just doing so it relieved some of the stress. You seem like a pretty strong Christian so I hope your leaning to God in all this and helping combat situations with verses. Even just finding one verse a week to help me deal with something and even verses to compliment it totally seem to remove stress (Phil 4:6-7). I gotta say man after I went through your pictures it definitely shows how much potential and ability you have to teach these kids. Obviously this curriculum has put a barrier in the way of teaching these kids and has made it difficult, I'm believing that you will succeed none the less and having faith in the prayer I pray for you that God will uphold you. Even if this seems like a last hope or that there would be nothing, hold onto God. "Godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. (1 Tim 6:6-8)". Hold onto that truth.

Your an awesome person and I'm believing for miracles in your life.

Sincerely,
Ryan

[Bobtheduck]

Forgot to update. I talked to the head Kindergarten teacher though a translator and I said I'd try it again as long as there was always a Korean teacher in the class. I couldn't find most of the stuff i needed this morning (some of it my fault, some of it not) so I was really late starting the 6 year olds, but when I got to the normally nightmarish 7 year old class (basically the same class that was the 6 year olds a month ago, sans the special needs kid...) I was able to get them to do the sounds and songs, or rather the Korean Teacher was able to. They won't listen to me unless someone's there to babysit, but it did go much better this morning.

[Reon]

Good to hear =)