It’s really strange that they would put the power of the entire lesson planning into the hands of the 'foreigner.' It leaves them at a huge disadvantage. They have become lazy from their arrogance. Especially here, where there is no review or collection of your materials. Like some other foreigners, some choose to show movies at the end of the semesters to de-stress and let the students have a little fun. I do believe this is within our power. The Korean teachers show movies as well (i.e. when I’m busy verbal testing the students and they’re doing nothing). Some teachers will not care at all if you watch a movie. Some of the others are a little more cautious about how they handle the situation.
No matter if you are showing a movie or teaching English, some Korean teachers will take the classes away from you the week before the testing. The end of the semester is a time for the testing. From the beginning to the end of the semester, the students are supposed to cover and know certain materials; I believe the teachers are judged on this performance. The teacher’s will take your classes, mostly without notice. Sometimes, the students will arrive, you’ll start a film, and then the Korean teacher will walk in 5 min late as usual and tell the students to go somewhere else… I find that quite humorous, the students become de-motivated because the foreign teacher wants to show them a movie and their Korean teacher took it away from them... Serves them right though, they should both know what I’m teaching at all times, even after numerous attempts to get them to review/work on it together, and come to the class on time just like the students do.
Korean teachers are okay with you doing things as long as it doesn’t conflict with anything they want later down the line… This concept conflicts with our job understanding, if it wasn’t told to us beforehand and it was already done before with no complaint, then it is okay (trial and error). I think anyone would expect similarities of procedures between the first and second semester.
In the second semester, starting the week before the test, I tried to show a movie to the students; even though there were 3.5 weeks left technically (taking into account alternating regular and remedial classes it comes down to roughly 2 classes left per class – exactly one movie). The first level teacher already decided that she would take the students and didn’t tell me. The second level teacher had no problem and watched it with the class. So then, I started the movie for the 3rd level students... the 3rd level teacher came in and was like, “you should teach and not show movies,” and I asked “why?” I was never told I couldn't watch movies, I also said that I did it last semester at the end as well. She then said, "I'm asking you to not show this movie starting tomorrow, and I responded, “I'm going to keep on showing it.” I told her she could take the class from me if she wanted to and teach them if she wanted to, since the other teachers do the same thing... she thought about it for like 20 seconds and then took the students; lmao, that was easy.
Before taking the class, she asked the students if they wanted to learn or watch the movie... this, I thought was the most absurd thing I had ever heard... on one side, they want to have fun, but they know they have a test, on the other, the oppressive teacher that will strike down any opposition while asking a obviously one sided question – that’s a good way to strike down any independence they might have actually had. The students are trained to be followers…
The next day, the second level teacher Hong, did exactly the same thing as the third level teacher… you’d think they would tell each other things… so then she took the rest of the second level classes that week. So for that week, I didn’t teach any students with exception for showing half a movie to two classes of the 20.
The third day, the third level teacher strangely decided to tempt fate and try having a class with me again, the same situation played out. She additionally asked why I was there if I was just showing movies, to which I replied even a movie can be used to teach English. I stated that I would have a worksheet to accompany it, she wanted to see it, and I said it wasn’t ready yet; it would be ready after the movie. She took the class away again. If she, and any of the other Korean co-teachers, were logical they would ask me what I was teaching before going to the class and looking like a complete fool in front of the students…
The same day, the third level teacher finally decided that she would try to use me for her last two classes that week. She was teaching to the test, of course, and going over last year’s test word by word. She wanted me to read; fine I’ll read, but I’ll pace up and down desks aisles and read in the most boring and low voice I can muster. I figure you can pretend not to understand anything grammatical, they treat us like we’re idiots anyways.
So, some teachers will go out of their way to prevent you from showing a movie, others will sit back and allow it. One teacher even asked if I would show the movie next week… uh, sure. The second level teacher tried to follow suit with the third teacher by trying to get me to ‘add’ to her teaching of the book. The first day she asked me to explain what a page of idioms meant to the class… lol, I didn’t even know what 80% of the idioms meant and had never seen them before. I told her I didn’t understand most of them and then ended up not saying another word the entire class, while she lectured away, and I just walking around aimlessly.
It’s strange, I feel as though they don’t have the power to change what you’re doing. They can only ask you to stop doing something they don’t like. I still can’t comprehend the stupidity of not knowing what the foreign teacher is teaching. Technically, I just forced their hand in my favor. I figure they could have easily just made me help whatever they want to teach… but that doesn’t happen here, this cooperation so clearly marked in the contract has no meaning to them.
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