The Students

Korean students have it tough...man I thought my life was hard when I was their age; I had nothing to complain about. These kids do nothing but study, it's a shame. They go to school then to an academy or 2 or 3 and then go home. A lot of them don't even get home until late and most if not all also have to go to an academy on Saturdays. By the way academies are schools that specialize in a certain subject usually and they get homework from them as well as the homework from school.

I work at an English academy and my students are always complaining about being tired or being hungry, especially the night students. I have elemetary students from 430pm to 730pm and then middle schoolers 730pm to 1030pm....it's even tougher for the middle schoolers since they're being pressured to get into a good high school so they can get into a good university. They're always tired and you have to try and get them motivated and energetic which is easier said than done.

I do have some energetic ones which helps. In the last hour of the class we do this group project thing, they get separated into groups and then have to put together a mini presentation. The subject changes each class. One night with my middle schoolers, we were doing this and one group started singing YMCA lol I was cracking up I wanted to take a video of but as soon as I got my camera out they got shy but here's the video anyway ^_^

Another thing about the students is they're brutally honest sometimes lol they have no problems what they think about you or what you're wearing or anything like that. My coworker said a student told her that her blue nail polish was inappropriate. I've mostly had good experiences with that though they do like to play around too. I've heard from other teachers how they're students called them ugly or said they're no help, though said these things laughing so I think it's they're attempt to joke around. They definitely need to laugh with all the pressure that's put on their shoulders.