FINAL comments, nightmare POSEF

Remedies have been 'suggested' for the POSEF problem.
My response?.

In short--been there, DONE that, sadly DOES NOT WORK.

Suggestions and my answers(?).

*Use physical punishment like the Korean teachers:
Yep. And pretty much from day 1, those students were so awful.
There was my special stay-after room cleaning for the really bad table or group. Plus group or individual humiliation punishment of kneeling out in the halls or in front of the rest of the class.

* Be loud and be heard.
HENCE I used a mike.
Not only did I use a mike, but any instructions were also typed out and projected on the screen. With most the class talking non-stop over the mike even, you had to have 'visual' explanations of the instructions.
note: My instructions were never more than 5 minutes, if that even. So there was no excuse for "English is too hard/too long..." whatever.
I taught at ELEMENTARY level previous to the high school and they had no problem understanding my very basic instructions.

I had other things I tried out that I will not bother going into here because really, at the heart of the matter, lies a more insidious two fold problem. At the macroscopic level, fundamentally Korean society still views women as lesser. So you can swear and whack and punish all you want, but if you're not doing it in a pair of pants, you'll find yourself just doing it all over again the next week. At the more microscopic level, if your fellow teachers don't have the decency to show professional respect for you (and they don't), the kids won't either. They aren't stupid. Ignorant, yes, but not stupid. They can see how the Korean teachers, teachers THEY respect, treat the foreign teachers. If their native teachers show they don't care, the students follow suit and also do not care.

And that's it.
If you have any suggestions then leave a comment for the other victims of that place. It's highly likely I have already tried and done them, in which case I will note that and how it doesn't work when they are published.

But if you are smart, you won't even bother.
Take my advice--bypass Korea and head straight for a different country like I am.


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POSEF rule #32 - we don't care.

POSEF rule #32:

Stealing and defacing the foreign teacher's property is OK.

We don't care and will do nothing about it.
So if you are feeling frustrated and destructive, knock yourself out!
Just get those scores up and we will turn a blind eye to it!


Really, they don't care.
What else should one think when one returns from the weekend to find their two sweater jackets missing? (weekend of 5/15-5/16)
I reported it immediately to receive yet again another bland, "Oh, that's too bad. I don't know what could have happened."

～＊～FIN～＊～

And that's not the first thing to go missing or be defaced to the point of complete uselessness.

Numerous personal magazines (usually missing, several obscenely defaced), comics (horribly defaced like the boys spit in them or blew their nose in them), and other "extra" materials to make the classroom environment more well-rounded and inviting. Because as anyone with even a few months experience much less a few years will tell you, the English conversation class is even more worthless than the music class.
As such, the clever teacher must find other ways to get them to do things.

If they still care by that point that is. -_-

The ironic(?) thing is they gave me NOTHING but a filthy, empty classroom to start with.
Not even a textbook.
And I revamped it from floor to ceiling with posters, a book corner, a separate work/lab table, a special free-chat corner to the point that one upperclassmen English teachers came in to take pictures of it because "the daughter of this teacher is just starting an English club and he wants to show her what a good classroom looks like. You are the best English conversation teacher we have ever had."

*click*snapsnap*

At least they could reimburse me for my loss incurred by one of their precious students. After all, until the items were recovered, the ENTIRETY of sophomore-world came to a screeching halt when a bunch of the students' items were stolen from their classroom. The only people with keys to the room are other teachers and the porno-movie club. Not even the janitor goes in to clean that place, so it was one of your little darlings..

You know what I have to say to that all-mighty POSEF?

You make it very obvious that you don't give a sh1t about what happens to the foreign teachers, so why do you expect them to care about anything in return??


Cheers! (^_-)-☆

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plush, cottony POSEF tissue

Well, I was going to post something different about why you want to avoid taking any ESL teaching post with POSEF in South Korea, but something better came up.
(And, yes, I am being sarcastic.)

My contract ends on May 31.
However because I am traveling with a pet I can not leave until June 7.

They are aware of this.

Last week Ellen (Unyeong Lee, 2-fa[ed b1t[h-a13rt) assured me that "POSEF doesn't pay for it, but you can stay longer in that apartment until you are able to leave."

TODAY it's "You have to be out when the contract ends."

Excuse me?!

And I am supposed to do what for an entire week?
Sleep outside??

With all my luggage and a pet?

That would be GREAT advertisement for how POSEF treats its employees.

Actually, sadly, that would be a very accurate advertisement -

WELCOME TO POSEF WHERE WE USE AND LOSE YOU AFTER HINTING THAT WE WANT YOU TO STAY ON.

Our lessons, my friends?

We, the ESL teachers on the front lines, are the only ones protecting ourselves.
And we can only protect ourselves by sharing information.

Because to organizations like POSEF and Hagwons like Avalon, we are just toilet tissue to be used for wiping their a$e$ and then be flushed down the drain. After all there are a dozen rolls more out there waiting to be used so just wipe, flush, and move on.

Look forward to more fun POSEF information in the future!


Cheers! (^_-)-☆

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tis the season - TOEFL

The biggest problem encountered in TESOL education overseas has been the new speaking part of the TOEFL. For once in the mostly passive educational environment of Asia, students are forced to not just speak, but THINK.
As in think about something other than the latest movie, cell phone app, or trashy, vacuous trend.

Materials to support such thinking activities (hence speaking) are notoriously lacking even in regards to sources in their native language.

In an effort to avoid spending more money for my own textbooks (my company - POSEF - can not apparently afford to purchase a few meager learning materials, much less text books for its students much less the teachers.), I searched and found some sample question sites online.

English Club : includes actual audio file samples and transcripts in case the audio files flunk out on you.

TOEFL HELPDESK : Nice lengthy list of speaking topics.

Internet TESL Journal : HUGE selection of questions arranged by category. Not necessarily TOEFL related.

English-Test.net : sub-forum concerning the TOEFL test. Nice wealth of material, but you need to search through to find speaking-related posts.


Cheers! (^_-)-☆

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