> Hi Athena,
> People that do not share your opinions:
> Mary choi: is a korean worker with a low degree, etc....
> Jacky: maybe an infamous recruiter no too honest,
> Schools administrators: stealing pensions fund from the teachers.
> Baek: probaly getting a phd from a degree factory called private
> university in Korea.
> and,
> I keep hearing remarks by you and others here: Read the Korean
> Herald, read articles (in English) written by Koreans, read the other
> English newspaper. Well, since those are local English publications
> that need to sell to local English speakers, maybe they are critical
> to Koreans for marketing reasons. I do not agree with them most of
> the time, but is legal and I respect that.

> My 2 cents: both you and Mary Choi are the same.

> Katy Yeong --

Hi, Katy & all the ESL teachers:

There are two faces of a coin. I did see all of them.

Once I was assigned teaching Writing in a pretty famous language center to two classes. Most of the students were sent by corporate businesses. Many students didn't attend classes, not often handed in reqired assignments. In class, they dept asking HOW to WRITE. Told them that they could write whatever they way they want. I showed them lots of examples from famous novels. At a mid-term exam, lots of them failed. Many of them figured that they couldn't pass and sent the class leader to me for leniency. I gave them not favors, but I allowed them extra hours for reviewing. Then they went to the school admin who came to me to see if I would raise their marks which I refused. In order to keep that source of students, the school didn't fire me but assigned another local teacher to take my classes. By giving them a model composition, the students memorized the model, and all passed the course.

In that same school, a Russian lady was hired to teach part-time English to a Saturday kid school. She was no good in English at all, but she took the job because she needed the money to support the family at home. She came to me every Friday evening, and then teach the kids the next day.

In another school, there was another younger foreign teacher. He was doing photophy before. No degrees. His classes were said by his students the most boring. They complained but to no avail. He knew it was difficult to satisfy the audience.He came to me for advices very often.His students came to me for problems, too. Yet, whenever came to the re-imbursement of medical expenses, the school had no problem with him, and picking on mine very often. My plane ticket bought at rush season was re-imbursed the same as his at a lower rate at end of February. Since it was at the end of the contract, I even didn't have time to argue.

Alex Wu