More from the front lines..

This week marked the beginning of my "Administrative" classes here at BPU. These are something like Staff Development classes in the states - employees take them to get some kind of credit with their managers. Employees get off work at 6 and are expected to be in class by 6:10.

The first day of my class, only 3 of my 12 students showed up, so I had a chance to talk to them pretty extensively. I went through my basic intro routine and then started asking them some questions. The first thing I said was that they wouldn't have to buy books. They nodded their heads in relief and one even said, "that's good." Which was why it was odd to discover, about 5 minutes later, that each of my students already had their books. As I followed up why that was the case, I discovered that the three doughty lads before me had taken this particular B level class, the one I am teaching them in now, last semester. They then launched into some rather personal attacks on the previous professor (who, of course, I knew) which gave me the disheartening feeling that they weren't inclined to like ANY professor. As I began asking about the missing students, who it turned out were missing because they know the first day of any class at BPU is administrivia, it became clear that ALL 12 of my students had been in the class at the B level the previous term. ALL 12 of them had also been in the class at the B level the term before the last one.

And, of course, they had all been through the exact same book in those two previous terms. I went for the inspirational speech; something along the lines of, "Well, if you've been in here two terms and you're in your third, now is the time for us to work together to move you up to level C."

You might have thought I had asked them to eat cold bricks of pig-shit without kimchi on the side. All three physically recoiled in their seats and two threw up their arms in front of themselves. Larry, Curly, and Moe all yelled, "no teacher!" in high voices and then hastily proposed various arguments as to why they were in the B level and that was where they were supposed to be, and that was where they intended to stay.

This was a bit dis-spiriting, though it did allow me to mentally start adjusting the bar.... down a bit.

The next class 10 students showed up and they all had books.... excellent! I began on my lessons and these guys were fast and accurate. When we did the readbacks everyone's answers were perfect. Which made me pretty suspicious, since they didn't understand English very well.

A closer look and, DUH!, after two semesters with the same books, they already had the correct answers written in them. ;-) Thank god I had some worksheets from the workbook to hand out. The class also demanded that the class end at 7:30, and I accomodated them in that wish.

Still, pretty emblematic of BPU and the Korean English Language Education Enterprise in general. The students are forced to be in my class because their employer "wants" them to learn English, but no one cares in the slightest if they are learning English.

Oh well, it won't be a tough class, but still...