The reason my job, and all the others like it, exist is because English is the most important language in the world. It's the most important language in world because the United States is currently the most important country in the world, and that's what they mostly speak there.
Before the United States, England was the most important country. They also speak English there. That's where they thought it up, in fact. But now, sometimes, people who speak English from countries that are not England have a difficult time understanding what English people are saying because they have accents and they use slang that nobody but people from England use.
The reason that there are many jobs in Korea for English speakers to become teachers of English is because Koreans want to learn English. I think they want to learn it because it's currently the most important language in the world, and not for many other reasons.
For instance, I don't think they particularly care about how nice English sounds.
Many Koreans also learn Japanese, Chinese, and German. They probably learn Japanese and Chinese because they are close to these countries, and because so many people in the world speak Chinese. More people speak Chinese than English, in fact.
But Chinese is not currently the most important language, so it's less popular for Koreans to learn Chinese.
I don't know why they want to learn German. Maybe I'll ask them that sometime.
Koreans are required to take English class in public schools these days, similar to how public schools in the United States that are nearby Mexico require the students to take Spanish classes. Similar to many of the students in the United States who are required to take Spanish classes, many of the Korean students who are required to take English classes don't really want to learn English, and they don't try very hard.
There are English “hagwons” all over the place here. You can hardly throw a stick without hitting at least two of them. Hagwon roughly translates to the word “academy” in English, but there isn't really an equivalent sort thing in the United States. Maybe a better translation would be “after school program.”
There are all kinds of hagwons in Korea: some are for piano, some are for Taekwondo, but the most popular kind is for English.
Some families in Korea have lots of money, and some of those families that have lots of money want to send their kids to English hagwons. So what this means is that instead of going home after school, the kids go to an English hagwon, like the one that I work for, where they have more school.
Many of the kids who have to go to hagwons after school are probably thinking “Wow, I have a lot of work to do!” But then again, maybe they don't, because so many kids in Korea are doing the same thing.
Similar to classes in a public school, many of the students in English hagwons don't really want to learn English, and are only there because their parents made them go.
Some of the students want to learn English, or maybe they are thinking “I'm going to be here every day after school, I might as well try to learn English.” They probably aren't thinking that thought in English though, because then they probably wouldn't need to go to an English hagwon.
My job is to come to the hagwon every weekday, and then stand at the front of a classroom with between three and ten children in it, and then to talk at them in English.
This is also sometimes called “teaching English.”
Most of them don't understand the majority of what I say to them, but usually there is one kid in the class that understands enough, or one kid will guess correctly what I'm trying to tell them, and then I can point to that kid and say “Yes, do this.”
I usually give that kid a thumbs-up when I say that, because in Korea a thumbs-up means basically the same as it does in the United States, and the kids will understand that I think that kid was doing a good job.
Often times the students will not do anything close to what I told them to do in English. Sometimes this is because they can't understand what I'm talking about, and sometimes it's because they don't want to do what I'm talking about. Sometimes it's hard for me to tell the difference between these two things, so sometimes I discipline the students when they don't understand me, and sometimes I don't discipline them when they are deliberately not doing what I'm talking about.
The reason I discipline the students is because I think that if I don't discipline them that they won't respect me and the other teachers will think I'm too soft on them, and they won't respect me either.
One way I discipline the students is by making a disobedient student stand with both of their arms straight up. This is supposed to embarrass the student. It might also tire them out from keeping their arms up if they have to do it for a long time. This is something I only use on students who have disrupted class in a way that my usual methods can't control.
My usual method of controlling the behavior of my students is by writing the word “stick” on the whiteboard at the beginning of class. By now, all of my classes know that “stick” is short for “stickers.” They also know that if anyone in the class does something to throw off the order of class, I will erase one letter. I will also add letters if they are being well-behaved, or if they are trying to answer my questions.
I very rarely erase all the letters, and I try not to erase too many, because sometimes the students will start to give up if they see the class is losing too many letters, and when that happens it means that I've lost a lot of leverage with them.
I write the word “stick” on a whiteboard about five times a day, or twenty-five times a week.
I have more than five classes a day, but the reason I only write “stick” five times is because I don't write it on the board for the preschool classes. The preschool classes all have their individual names permanently affixed to the whiteboard. They have a running tally each day that records how many stickers they will be awarded at the end of that day.
There are no real stickers. The name comes from a folder they have that's called “Sticker Book.” What I think is that originally my bosses thought that they and all the teachers would be giving out stickers to fill the sticker books. But stickers are expensive and they are hard to peel off sticker sheets in the quantity that they would need to be pulled off in order to distribute them to all the students who earned them.
So instead of stickers, the kids get stars drawn with a red pen or sometimes a red crayon (I've even done it with a black pen before when there was nothing red handy). Recently I have been drawing circles instead of stars because circles are much easier to draw. Only a few of the students complained about that. I usually give them stars if they ask for stars, but most students don't seem to care.
They also don't seem to care that they don't get any real stickers in their sticker book. I think that if I was a kid, I would care about this. I think a lot of them probably don't know what “sticker” means. They probably think it means red star or circle (or black, in a pinch).
One time a kid in my class spoke after I had just told everyone “No more talking, or I'm going to take away a sticker”. So I had to take away a sticker even though I didn't want to. I don't like taking away stickers to begin with, and in this situation I especially didn't want to do it because I thought this was one of those situations where he didn't understand what I was saying.
But I felt I needed to take away a sticker, because I knew the kids who I really did want to be quiet understood what I meant when I said “No more talking, or I'm going to take away a sticker,” because they were immediately quiet after I had said that. I felt that if I didn't take away sticker now, they would think that I was soft, and next time they might keep talking when I want them not to.
So I erased a sticker. Everyone in class knew whose fault it was, and the two kids who I had wanted to be quiet decided to go up to the one who talked and punch him in the head. So they did that. They must have thought that although I didn't want them to speak, I was okay with them physically attacking each other. I wasn't, so I took away all of their stickers.
Some kids really like their red stars or circles.
If you are a Korean student at the hagwon I work at, what you do with the red stars and circles is this: you save them up and save them up until “sticker day” happens. This happens twice every six months, or four times a year. When this happens, you can trade your stickers for play money. You can use the play money to buy snack foods, play games, or buy toys.
It seems pretty silly to me, and I sometimes wonder why the students get so crazy about collecting these completely made-up things, and then I remember that money is pretty much the exact same thing, but for grown-ups. That doesn't help me understand it any better, but it does make me acknowledge that the sticker collecting never really stops, not for most people, and not for me.
Every month, my bosses pay me 2.2 million won. Won is what the grown-ups in Korea use for stickers. 1200 won is worth about one US dollar (the dollar is what people in the United States use for stickers. It's generally thought of as the most powerful and dependable sticker in the world, and that probably has something to do with English currently being the most important language in the world).
My bosses also pay the rent for my apartment, which is a very good thing for me, because I would have no idea how to pay my rent otherwise.
There are several things I don't know about, like what my mailing address is, or even the name of the building that I live in. When I describe where I live to people, I just tell them about the restaurant at the bottom of the building, which is called Jjokki-Jjokki. I tell them that I live on the fifth floor of the Jjokki-Jjokki building.
They seem to know what I mean.
