Heard about Teacher Teaching Teachers?
In some of the public schools, there are English classes for Korean English teachers. Teachers are treated like any other student in Korea. They want situational conversation with some new vocabulary and like to follow scripts. If you ask any of them to think creatively, they will complain that it is too difficult or they will try to give some other excuse to avoid any chances that they may get it wrong. The most common excuse you will find is “I don’t understand him as he does not sound American”, even though the instructions are being displayed through a PowerPoint presentation.
You can use a set format for the lessons and most of them come along well. Most of them lose their students when they deviate from a set format or even when they correct pronunciation. Teaching teachers for the first time could be seen as a way to introduce some variations as your regular classes mostly involve listen, repeat and practice.
If you ask during the first class what they expected or ask for feedbacks after each class, you would just meet with a wall of blank stares. You can join a site with conversational lesson plans, they might love it, and most of them really do.
Sometimes it’s just a waste of your and their time. Most Korean teachers dislike the fact that you are in their school, let alone having to spend time learning English. Most of the Korean teachers have very low English speaking ability and eventually they drop out of the class. There are two types of teacher training in Korea. The first one is training them for teaching their own students and the second one is actually teaching them a conversation class. It’s better to know what they want from you rather then giving them something they don’t need.
Source: Dave’s ESL Cafe Forums
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