5. Motivation

Being a teacher in Korea is one huge ball of de-motivation. The distinctive western trait of trying to succeed, to excel, to become better at what you do, is useless here in some regard. A person can only become so good without some type of training/mentor/guidance. Trial and error, considered to be the slowest of all learning procedures, will be your guide.

There is no reward for doing a good job, no punishment for doing a bad job. No reviews of performance for you or the Korean teachers. Too many things here are just for show; the fact that we’re in Korea is because they need people that look western at their schools, not anything to do with our ability. They could care less if we stay or go.

We are babysitters; we do have the ability to teach English, but are unfocused and typically ineffective at helping the majority of uninterested students learn. At first, you’ll want to make a difference, but it’ll pass after you stress out and realize the futility of it.

After mentioning that they should be helping me make lessons numerous times, once a teacher responded that they didn’t know how to help me… this I find that very ironic, they’ve had four years of learning how to become a teacher, have beaten numerous other people to their competitive position, have attended numerous demonstrations and teachers training sessions, yet do not have the ability to “try” and teach something that they should already know – how to make lesson plans.

The Korean teachers get no benefit to helping us teach, there is no reason for them to care. Likewise with us, we have no real reason to perfect what we do. We’re surrounded by antipathy, or lack of caring, and it tends to pervade our thoughts. If Korean teachers “look good” they get promotions/perks/look better in the eyes of their supervisor etc, but we aren’t compelled to try harder since we don’t have these reasons. We, most likely will work for one year, maybe two, and then leave – no reason to invest in the job at hand. I’m not saying I do a crappy job; I’m just saying that you’ll get to a point where you’ll only put in so much effort to teach, and that level will become very low due to your environment.

The same goes for building work relationships between co-workers. The Korean co-teachers will try to use you to their advantage at all times, be wary of this. If they ask you to do anything not pertaining to your job, I highly suggest you decline – no matter how their outward appearance may seem. Always, know your options; always ask if a requested task is optional. Always ask what will happen if you say no. Always ask if there are any other options when they present only two to you; often they will later think of a third.