Applying to teach English in South Korea

PenguinJim

No. Your second example, you should be encouraging the students to use English. You are not encouraging the students' [dogs] to use English.

Ethos is a word that just happens to end in 's'. There is no generally-accepted plural in English, but "ethe" is the most common (it's "ethoi" in the original Greek).

When you are teaching English in Korea, I suggest having your students do their classwork and homework on computer, as it will be simpler for you to upload and for us to correct.

ostrichnomore_2

I'm not sure whether to chip in and help as, not trying to sound awful, your English is quite poor and I don't think you'll be capable of teaching it. But here's another one:

'I am keen to learn from co-teachers' who being a native of Korea is bound to have immense knowledge of the student body.'

Instead of my correcting this, you think about these two points
co-teachers'. Why are you putting an apostrophe in there?
'being a native of Korea is bound' - in what way does this part of the sentence disagree with 'co-teachers'?

BillJones

top_drawer wrote: »

Thanks for the grammar advice, I hope I've applied it right.

Correctly. You hope that you've applied it correctly.

I think that you may need to take some courses yourself before you look to teach the subject.

tomtontom

Can I ask, do you really want this? Aside from the grammatical issues, nothing you have written shows any real passion, it all feels very scripted. I wish you luck, but would question whether you have really thought this through.

silverwhistle

BillJones wrote: »

Correctly. You hope that you've applied it correctly.

I think that you may need to take some courses yourself before you look to teach the subject.

Ok, another question to set you thinking: what word class is "correctly" and why does BillJones prefer it?

Is "right" the same word class? Can it be any other word class as well?

PenguinJim

BillJones wrote: »

I think that you may need to take some courses yourself before you look to teach the subject.

tomtontom wrote: »

Can I ask, do you really want this? Aside from the grammatical issues, nothing you have written shows any real passion, it all feels very scripted. I wish you luck, but would question whether you have really thought this through.

The problem is, we've barely scratched the surface of correcting all of the basic grammar and punctuation errors, and then we would have to devote hours to fixing the quality of the actual content, too!

I have taught English in Asia for a few years, not too long ago.

I have had the privilege of working in an excellent school with strict criteria, high standards and a delightful focus on the students and their education. I was extremely busy, and it was a wonderful experience.

Before that, I had the misfortune to work at a terrible school where the managers were incompetent, the teachers were hit and miss (pleasingly, slightly more than half were "hit"... but they all left after the contract was up (and in one case, before!)), and the focus was on the parents and squeezing more money from them. One teacher from South Africa did not have English as their first language and could not quite manage a perfect English sentence... ever. And yet, he was not replaced when this was discovered, presumably because he was Caucasian. Throw in the failure to pay the 30 hours overtime that was detailed in the contract, and, naming no names, I do not recommend working for Wagor High School in Taichung, Taiwan - unless your English is terrible and you are desperate to teach English anyway!

I've worked with a few teachers whose English is above average, but they aren't quite experts, and aren't trying to improve. My particular bugbear is when some of them shorten "every day" to "everyday". Obviously because of the existence of the adjective, their computer spell-check hasn't highlighted this to them, and the result is hundreds of students misusing "everyday" for the rest of their lives! My experience suggests that this is a fairly typical standard of ESL teacher.

The OP has obviously considered that their English is poor, but they have decided that they will go ahead and teach students improper English. They clearly accept the risk that the students may, in future, apply to a Western university with a handwritten letter and be rejected for applying English as they were incorrectly taught. They understand that by representing the UK as an English teacher whose English is poor, they will be damaging the reputations of decent English teachers and embarrassing the UK. But it's not just the OP who is to blame. The schools should be administering basic English tests to new teachers. The parents should be making sure that the school they choose for their children has a good process for selecting foreign teachers.

Some people may claim that by signing a contract to teach English while clearly being unable to carry out this responsibility, the OP is, at best, being selfish, not taking their responsibility seriously, and putting a salary ahead of the educational welfare of their students. Perhaps at worst, they are committing fraud and consigning their students to a difficult future where they may lose education and employment opportunities because they cannot apostrophise correctly (for example). But the school is also culpable in this, and as long as there are awful schools in South Korea and Taiwan which are willing to hire any old whitey to impress the parents, there will be a queue of whiteys who think that they can grab an easy pay-cheque by pretending to teach English for a year.

top_drawer, have you considered Taiwan? I understand that Wagor High School in Taichung is hiring new teachers this year... again.

top_drawer_2

PenguinJim wrote: »

When you are teaching English in Korea, I suggest having your students do their classwork and homework on computer, as it will be simpler for you to upload and for us to correct.

Thanks but no thanks as I intend to do it myself, hence I'm on MSE asking for advice. If I wanted someone to correct it without question then I know a number of people who would, I didn't use examples as I have found that the one I suggest is an exception to the rule in some obscure way.

The tirade in your next post really wasn't necessary, other posters have managed to say what you mean without having to resort to being nasty or sarcastic.

Ostrich no more - yes that's a pretty poor sentence I was struggling to come up with something sucky up enough whilst still saying what I want to say. I need to convey a more genuine belief that co-teachers are going to be an asset rather than a pain.

Tom Tom Tom - Yes I really want this and I've worked hard at getting to where I am at doing so. This past few weeks I have averaged a 60 hr week across three different shifts, I'm not feeling any love for anyone or anything at the moment.

silverwhistle - I think that *correctly* has more clarity as opposed to right. I don't know a great deal about word classes but I guess I would categorise *right* differently to *correct* as right suggests more of an opinion / less formality.

Thanks to everyone who has responded with something helpful.

Annisele

top_drawer wrote: »

silverwhistle - I think that *correctly* has more clarity as opposed to right. I don't know a great deal about word classes but I guess I would categorise *right* differently to *correct* as right suggests more of an opinion / less formality.

If you want to teach in South Korea, I think you're going to have to learn about word classes! I think silverwhistle's point might have been for you to think about whether you needed a verb/noun/adjective/adverb etc in that spot, and then think about whether you'd used the right one.

I occasionally proof read documents for a Japanese friend. I'll correct his work, but the only explanation I'll be able to give is "your version sounds odd". Five minutes later he'll come back and tell me that I'm quite right - and he'll justify that with something utterly incomprehensible about my proper use of the past subjunctive (or some such thing).

For me, that's fine, because I'm not a teacher (and he obviously finds my corrections helpful because he's still asking for them). But he'd rightly be upset if, as a teacher, I couldn't explain what was wrong with his original sentence. If you're teaching less advanced students, that'll might be less of a problem - but I still think you'd benefit from knowing the names of various different parts of speech.

Edit: and as a native English speaker, you probably won't find that all that hard - you just need to learn names for the stuff you can already do. I learnt most of my English grammar through studying foreign languages, so it took me forever - but I think that if I hadn't been trying to learn the language at the same time, the English grammar would have have been fine.

poet123

The one thing that foreigners who learn English have in common is that what they learn at school is grounded in basics. Their grammar, punctuation and sentence construction is usually excellent, much better than native English speakers. I think you will have real trouble answering their grammar questions or teaching them much in that regard. Additionally, the students expect quality teaching and my understanding is that they can be quite vocal with their complaints if they don't feel they are being taught correctly.

BillJones

top_drawer wrote: »

The tirade in your next post really wasn't necessary, other posters have managed to say what you mean without having to resort to being nasty or sarcastic.

I know that people have been a little harsh, but this is probably because they are so surprised at the very poor standard of your written English, considering your intentions to teach it professionally.

I know that it's not nice to have peope correct you, but it's not being done without reason; it's to try to explain the disparity between your ability and your aspirations.