the 98.57% (or 98.4%) man

I got my evals back. Depending on how you calculate them, my average this time around is either 98.57% (345 out of a possible 350 points) or 98.4% (if you average the percentages from the three classes that reviewed me-- 95.2%, 100%, and 100%). Either way, I'm over 98% this time, so I don't think they'll fire me quite yet.

What seems to happen in this department-- and this is only a theory of mine-- is that the bosses, who do not come in to observe classes, rely almost entirely on student reactions to determine whether a teacher is doing a good job. A lot of front-desk rumormongering substitutes for hands-on management, which is much the same as what happens at many hagwons, where information about teacher conduct is passed along to secretaries (or to unwilling Korean colleagues), who in turn pass the information along to the supervisors. As you might imagine, I'm uncomfortable with this way of running things. If I were a manager, I'd be sure to block out time to observe my teachers directly, and I'd be sure to know well in advance what I was looking for.

Criteria vary, of course; different people look for different things in a good teacher. When I observe teachers (as I did in the US and have done here on several occasions), I normally take notes that include "time stamps" to get an idea of how a teacher flows from activity to activity. So: How evenly paced is the lesson? is one question I want to answer. Another question is How organized is the lesson? Yet another is What reinforcement/review strategies does the teacher employ? In other words, does the teacher leave a few minutes at the beginning/end of class to recap/review, or does s/he at least block out some review days (esp. before major evaluation periods such as quizzes and tests)? No reinforcement at all (and I've been guilty of this myself) is not a good thing. There's always a temptation to rush through a lesson, but that temptation needs to be resisted. Review is crucial, especially in language class.

Some points I don't care about:

1. How well does the teacher dress? It means jack shit if the teacher dresses well but sucks at his/her job. Koreans do say Oshi nalgae-da (roughly, "The clothes make the man"; literally, "Clothes are [your] wings"), but class after class of Smoo students have confirmed my impression that undergrads actually prefer teachers who dress in a manner that doesn't convey uptightness. One reason why I chafe at teaching businessmen (something I haven't done in over two years) is that I have to wear a suit. That makes me sweaty, uncomfortable, and, well, stanky. I much prefer the relaxed atmosphere at university. You've seen enough photos of me to know that I dress like a slob for my classes, and I've never once received a complaint about it.

2. Does the teacher make the students feel good? While I strongly believe that learning comes more easily in comfortable settings, I'm not fundamentally interested in cultivating a pleasant ambience. I know myself and know this will happen naturally in most classes, partly because of my sense of humor but mostly because the students I teach are generally decent folks. Unfortunately, many students tend to judge their class experience almost entirely on feelings, with only a few conscientious ones truly concerned about content. A better question than Does the teacher make the students feel good? is: In the end, did the students meet the teacher's cognitive and behavioral objectives? Students who have a good time but learn nothing should not pass into the next level. Unfortunately, many do. More on this in a bit.

3. Does the teacher give the students many handouts? Quite a few students are under the impression that "preparation" means that a teacher walks into the room armed with photocopied handouts. For some reason, this is considered a "rebellious" alternative to the department-assigned textbook. But stealing some random shit off the Internet and photocopying it for the students is not prep. Actual preparation takes time, and it does mean extra hours in the office. Not many expat teachers here seem willing to devote that sort of time to what they do.* Teach and go is the rule, and it's a shame. It also fuels the general disrespect many Koreans have toward foreign teachers, and doesn't help the image of those teachers who actually make the effort to do a good job.

I promised I would say something about student progress from level to level. One problem is that students who don't deserve to move up to the next level often do so anyway. They manage this in part because a given department has no clear criteria for level promotion. Students might, for example, go from Level 1 to Level 2 by passing the class, or they might fail Level 1 yet get into Level 2 by taking a placement test with an "easy" interviewer. Why is this even allowed? The idea that a student who failed simply should not move up is lost on many hagwons and university departments in Korea. Another problem is that some departments do have clear criteria for promotion, but those criteria aren't enforced by the relevant powers. This is frustrating for teachers who don't want to see incompetent students rise in the ranks.

Teachers seem to break into two major camps when it comes to the question of levels, progress, and evaluation. One camp is partial to Dr. Spock's idea that grades are inherently odious: not only are grades misleading, but they also give students the wrong motivation for taking a class. Learning ceases to be about education and becomes more about getting the "A." As a result, these Spockians believe class should be modeled on a low-pressure, "divergent learning" paradigm where students can create their own content or take their studies in whatever direction they please. The teacher isn't there primarily to push, but rather to facilitate. Evaluation, if it happens at all, is framed and reframed in terms of the student's self-established goals. This is a reasonable view: studies show that students regularly learn more when intrinsically motivated to do so. Tailoring lessons to the specific needs of a given class can yield very positive results.

The other camp, whose view I find equally reasonable, believes that students need structure, and that if you initially accept the idea of levelling, you are implicitly accepting the idea of evaluation. Convergent learning is more important to this camp: students should come away from classes having demonstrably mastered certain skill sets. This requires an "objective" measure of progress, something both the student and teacher can recognize, which can be used to determine whether a student is ready to move on to the next level. I say this view is reasonable because it's very hard to determine how, exactly, a student should move up to another level if every teacher in the department is, effectively, "doing his/her own thing." A large number of departments allow this to happen while paradoxically requiring students to register for and progress through different levels. Without some overarching departmental philosophy, effective curricula won't be put in place, and students will ultimately pay the price for this negligence.

In my ideal department (which we can't have because our staff is down to two expats), there would be a two-track system, each track appealing to students with different fundamental orientations-- convergent and divergent learning-- with the two tracks eventually meeting at the end of the line. This fusion would be the natural result of language mastery: whether a student goes through a structured or unstructured course, if they spend enough time in either track, they will eventually be able to handle higher-order cognitive tasks in the target language-- discussions that require analysis and synthesis, for example.

Teachers who, by temperament or training, prefer the divergent/Spockian approach should be assigned the task of handling that track. There would need to be a lot of discussion, though, about how exactly these teachers hope to measure student progress, or whether progress, per se, is even an important notion. Much of the preparation for the Spockian track would be in the area of underlying philosophy, general departmental goals, and specific cognitive objectives. The teachers assigned to the convergent, non-Spockian track would need to lay out specific behavioral objectives because it would be important for students to demonstrate mastery before progressing to the next step in the program.

I think the two-track system should also allow students some leeway to jump from one track to another. It strikes me as unfair for a student to enter one program and then be locked in. On a business level, I see that as a sure money loser. But everyone likes having a larger gamut of choices, and the track-jumping option would let students know they have some room to stray from their chosen path and see what life in the other track is like. However, I don't know how the track-jumping option would work in reality. It's obvious that a student can't constantly jump from one track to the other; this muddled approach wouldn't benefit the student at all. But how much jumping is too much? I suppose that would be something for each individual department to discuss.

Anyway, just some thoughts about the Big Picture. Comments welcome, as always.

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*To be fair, many teachers have outside commitments that prevent them from spending too much time in the office. This is perfectly understandable, but because I've worked in the American high school system alongside 40- and 50-something teachers who have families, I know that you can make the time, despite domestic commitments, to do your job right. Sorry if I sound like a sanctimonious asshole, but my selfish reason for sermonizing like this is that I do worry about what sort of reputation foreign teachers have in Korea. As things stand, our overall reputation is in need of serious rehabilitation. Yes, true: a big part of the problem is the bad hiring practices that allow substandard teachers into Korean schools to begin with. But reducing the problem to Korean hiring practices rings false to me.


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