15. Extra Duties

In the beginning you will be easier to manipulate. Your co-teachers may ask you to do certain things and you’ll probably say yes; they’re relying on the fact that you don’t know your contract that well, and don’t want to start off on the wrong foot in your job or co-worker relationships.

Ms. Gang may ask you to do a co-teaching competition, this is a horrendous idea. She has no concept of how to co-teach in reality, and if she won that contest, the world as we know it would end.

Some teacher may ask you to do after school activities, one might be optional (you need to make sure to clarify), I highly suggest you do not take it unless you really want to teach it. Going home is much more valuable than staying after school for that time period. I had two mandatory and one that was optional, but I thought that the two mandatory were also optional. So I got trapped doing three after school classes; I then learned to never make any assumptions in Korea.

A general tip, if they ask you do anything, say no. They don’t really have the ability to force you to do anything, even though they will try to convince you otherwise. The Korean equivalent of employee management (organizational behavior) – ask very nicely, mood swing, tell you you’re being bad, leave.

The Korean teachers may get you to do a speaking test. That is a can of worms. I did it all by myself the first semester. 800 students times a 2 minute speaking test equals one tired-ass native speaker. The second semester I told them that I wasn’t doing it because I did it all myself the first semester. I like being fair. This concept has yet to catch on; it’s still a foreign concept. Technically, if you have to argue, your job is to teach the students, not necessarily to test them; that’s their job as I interpreted it. Your contract is up for interpretation, it’s like haggling – how much are you willing to argue to get your way. Just be aware of the false threats and comparisons that will no doubt appear in these debates. Sometimes, it’s a matter of how important it is for them, that determines the amount of time they spend to argue and stress out about trying to convince you. The second semester they did it themselves and took the classes away from me, yay. They’ll probably rethink the procedure from now on though.

There were two times I did something extra, but it wasn’t for the teachers it was for the students. In the first semester there is a speaking contest. I helped the students do that and one of them won first place. I asked what she won and she said nothing… they don’t win anything for winning the contest… lol. That makes you feel a bit strange. The second time there was some student that wanted to go to a language school in Suwon, so I helped clean up her interview/speech. I figure if I can help a few students, the ones that want to do something with their lives, that’s great.