Currently: Drinking hot tea in the teacher's lounge writing this blog.
Today's lesson went extremely well and I feel that the kids are actually starting to feel comfortable around me. Normally, I would be able to sense the student's unwillingness to learn English, but today I didn't. Many of these students feel that learning English is a torture. I don't blame them for having that type of mentality about English. These kids are perhaps the most hard working kids I've ever seen. Their whole life revolves around learning English and doing good in school.
Korea has a limited number of colleges and their acceptance rate is extremely low, which puts tension and stress upon these kids. When they get to high school, it's even more intense. Most high school students attend school from morning to dawn. According to what I know, most high school students would attend a private English institution after attending their regular school session. Some of my elementary kids are already doing that. And on the weekends, they study. There is a large demand for Native English teachers and these Koreans are willing to pay the price.
The pressure that the Korean society puts upon these kids is ridiculous. These kids are not even acting as kids any more. I can't remember ever working this hard when I was a kid. All I remember was having fun and being a kid. While my parents did repeatedly emphasize the idea of success to me, they didn't quite remotely dictate that idea to me like these Korean parents are doing to their kids. My idea of success and doing good in school was gradually learned through patience, mistakes, self-growth, and motivation from my family and friends.
In Korea, it appears that they don't tolerate mistakes and there is no room for failure. Lugubrious as it is to see these kids having to think and behave like adults; this is Korea. And the dreadful thing about Korea's education system is that, elementary kids don't get graded, hence regardless of how well or poorly they perform in school, they will still be able to move on to the next level.
I find this type of system to be ineffective. Since these kids are not graded, they have no idea what level they are at and the repercussion of this results with the students having to study twice as hard when they do move on to the next level.
