Tag Archives: korea

S.Korea schools get [racist] robot English teachers (via @daylemajor )

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via news.yahoo.com

Do I find this implementation racist and insulting to non-Caucasian teachers, hell yes! They are taking a teacher from the Philippines and putting a white women’s face on them. This could have been done a lot more realistically with true videoconferencing without having to add a layer of animation, which will end up deadening much of the facial cues leaving the animation nearly useless in this regard.

One defense of this could be that they want to maintain consistency in the appearance of the teacher even when using a variety of staff on the back-end. However, that still doesn’t explain the white-washing.

With that said, this is the first implementation of robot teachers (robot-assisted language learning–RALL) I’ve heard about that make some sense. This is basically videoconferencing with a mobile monitor (with some ability for arm and leg movements). This is much better than the stuff presented before that is basically a rolling tape player with some ridiculous voice recognition. Having a skilled teacher behind the robot is key and, at least for the foreseeable future, the only way to provide an optimal educational experience.

As I saw in a presentation by KICE a few months ago, the biggest problem with using videoconfernced teachers in classrooms is having a trained (and motivated) teacher/facilitator physically in the classroom with the videoconferenced teacher. Local teachers tend to sit back and watch or, worse yet, just leave the classroom during the videoconferencing time. In addition, there is little planning time afforded local teachers, thus they tend not to plan classes with their videoconferenced co-teachers. This finding is nothing new to native English-speaking co-teachers in Korean public schools. The same complaints have been heard for years. They were hired as co-teachers, but end up planning and conducting classes alone as a result of both teacher apathy and poor oversight and training.

With all this in mind, I’d say where is the time and money for training local staff? Without it, these high-tech innovations make for great publicity, but lousy education.

Corporal Punishment Ban Undermining School Discipline – should read, lack of training undermining…

Around 12:30 p.m. Oct. 15 in a middle school classroom in Suncheon, South Jeolla Province, a teacher approached a female student and asked her what she was writing in her notebook.

When the teacher tried to take the notebook, the student protested. The teacher hit her on the head and the student revolted, saying, “Is it right for a teacher to hit a student? Just teach!”

The student tried to leave the classroom but the teacher grabbed her neck and hair to force her to sit down. The student then grabbed the teacher’s hair.

An official at the education office said, “What teachers want most is alternatives to corporal punishment,” adding, “We will encourage implementing alternatives next week at the earliest.”

via english.donga.com

Aside from the fact that these problems occurred before the ban and stories are plentiful of large students beating their smaller teachers, this is a natural process of adjustment. There is a culture of violence in classrooms that relied on a mixture of affection and abuse to “control” students. New bans on corporal punishment are, thus, causing great consternation for teachers who relied on this method.

Schools need to provide better training and options for handling difficult students. One idea that some schools have implemented are “reflection rooms”. A mix of positive and negative engagement is probably best. The best way to improve student behavior is to engage them as individuals. Give them choice in their studies, projects, and interactions in the classroom. Respect their contributions. Of course, there are always going to be those who will not respond to this treatment (and teachers who are unable to do so for reasons of skill or simply oppressive teaching conditions and requirements). For those, more punitive measures may be more (at least immediately) effective. Detention, suspension, expulsion, labor (cleaning, volunteering), extra homework, seclusion, and removing of freedoms/opportunities discussed above are all possibilities.

Above was my measured response, and this is my emotional response. If you hit your student, you should not be a teacher. In fact, you should be arrested and charged with child abuse. Teachers who cling to these outdated, brutal classroom management techniques would be comfortable as prison camp guards, as their approaches are more akin to this profession than education. Those who cry that they cannot control their classroom without this brutality should ask themselves whether it is worth it? Is it worth torturing your students to help them? I hope that sounds as silly to you as it does to me.

The Valley – great short on Silicon Valley and entrepreneurship by @seanchoe

An all-around good guy working in IT here in Korea, Sean Choe, put this together while on a quick tour of the States. One of the really great messages is from the guy at Rock You, Jia Shen. He talks about building respect by creating and running a good business rather than working for a big, established company. He seems to be speaking directly to the Korean experience. The fact that you don’t have to work for the big guys (Samsung, Naver, etc.) to be considered a success is so foreign to many in Korea (particularly parents).

I think I’ll show this to my students and get their feedback on the messages. Many of them are at a point in their lives and a point in Korean history when being entrepreneurs is looking like a good option.

Eleutian – I think that this is a pretty cool service. Ideally, collaboration between video-based teachers in Wyoming and English teachers in Korea

via eleutian.com

I would love to experience this in person. This is an amazing program. I’ve been saying for years that we need to use technology to connect qualified masses of teachers to those who need them around the world.

This is not a cheap program, but it is a well-integrated program that includes the use/adoption of Korean curricula, (ideally) collaboration between the the teachers, and the provision of native English-speaking teachers to areas of Korea that have trouble staffing them.

I saw a presentation as well that painted a pretty good picture of the program. Unsurprisingly, as I alluded to above, collaboration was the real issue. Korean teachers did not collaborate as much as was expected. This isn’t too surprising as it is the same result that we have seen many times in collaboration studies in the States. Most importantly, the Korean teachers were not compensated (in time or money) for the “extra” collaboration. The American teachers were paid for all of the time that they spend on the service so it’s not too difficult to see why they were willing to do so.

If this is really going to work throughout Korea, much still needs to be done. First, training in collaboration and methods specifically revolving around the use of videoconferencing needs to be added for pre-service programs and in-service training. There is no way that teachers are prepared to do this. These are some of the same problems we see in NEST-NNEST collaborations now in Korea. We are going to make the same mistakes again if we continue to put the technology before the training.

International Food in Itaewon | 10 Magazine Korea – Nice overview. I never know where to go in Itaewon

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via 10magazine.asia

Nice overview for folks like me who don’t get to Itaewon enough and usually end up there on a whim. I tend to go to the same places over and over. I’d love to experiment a little. The article includes recommendations for: Geckos, Chef Meili, Wolfhound, Suji’s, Roofers, Foreign Food Mart, Rocky Mountain Tavern, Marrakech Night, Le Saint Ex, Zelen, Santorini, Copacabana, Bungalow, Chili King, Irani, Berlin, Tony’s Aussie Bar & Bistro, and Petra.

Not all are great, but it’s a great list to choose from on my next visit.

Gyeonggi Province liberalizes student regulations – Still some defend the practice. Check out the pictures, just sick

Gyeonggi Province liberalizes student regulations
The student human rights ordinance includes S.Korea’s first ban on corporal punishment
» A collection of photos, provided by the students’ rights organization Internet Virus, shows bruises and scars from corporal punishment at South Korean schools.

By Hong Yong-duk, Senior staff writer

A “student human rights ordinance” including a complete ban on corporal punishment for elementary, middle, and high school students and liberalization of student hairstyles has been established for Gyeonggi Province. Revolutionary changes are expected in Korean school culture, as Gyeonggi is first of the nation’s 16 metropolitan and provincial offices of education to establish an ordinance spelling out the ban on student corporal punishment, which has been a customary practice in schools.
via english.hani.co.kr

Read the entire article. There are other changes as well that are long overdue, including fewer restrictions on hair style, expulsion of pregnant students, and forced attendance at religious events.

Inside Korean College Life: 10 Survival Tips Pt. 1 & 2

via thethreewisemonkeys.com

These are two great posts providing insights on Korean university students that are not obvious for even the most observant professor.

Good read

Part 1
Part 2

Endangering education – Great, brief commentary on academic inbreeding

Living things that pursue completeness prefer crossbreeding. Even primordial cells knew this. Instead of blocking germs that threatened to infiltrate them, the cells sought co-existence and co-prosperity with them. Today, the mitochondria in our somatic cells provides evidence of this phenomena. Even if we humans do not consciously choose crossbreeding, our instinct for it is certainly in our DNA.

The same principle applies to education, where academic inbreeding decreases competitiveness for both students and schools. Educational institutions that succumb to this problem fail to keep up with current trends, which is why Ivy League universities in the United States often hire from outside their ranks.

via joongangdaily.joins.com

While academic in-breeding goes well beyond simply being at the same school, this is a significant problem.

These professors primarily graduate from a SKY university and then do their graduate studies abroad. This certainly lessens the damage of in-breeding. However, this also ignores the cadres of qualified, talented applicants who happened to either bloom later or thrive in other environments. It is a terribly short-sighted.

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