::A Geek in Korea::

Being seen as a semi-coherent Korean speaker with a limited vocabulary that generally understands what students are saying can have it’s downsides. I’m generally expected to fend for myself in classroom situations. This is because usually I can handle most things that arise with ease. Usually. Those occasional problems in which my vocabulary fails me, or it’s not my responsibility to fix whatever is wrong, I have to deal with irate students that forget that I’m working at a disadvantage trying to understand them.

Part of  my responsibility as a teacher is that I have to give a daily vocabulary test in one class. This is a Korean language test, where the students have to memorize a certain number of words for the day, then regurgitate them back on the test. The students load their brains five minute before class, then unload in the first five minutes of class. The desk receptionists are entirely in charge of this test. They issue the words per week totals, they handle making and printing the tests. They handle grading and retesting of students that missed too many questions. They hold the students after class that failed the test and force them to take a retest. The students can’t go home until they  pass. Seriously. If they miss their bus, they have to wait an hour for the next one. No one wants that.

I hand out the tests, collect them, and make sure to hand back the tests after they are graded. Other than timing the tests so that they only take up five minutes of my class time, I don’t do anything regarding these tests. They are fantastic wastes of time when I am running short for material to teach. I love them. Students memorizing English without me working too hard? Great! The motivation to get out of the school and go home at the right time make students care about the results of these exams, unlike the speaking tests I give on a weekly basis.

Today, the test had some sort of mistake. A line had been incorrectly divided, with two questions on one line, and the Korean definition of the second word on the line got split up so that it looked like a separate question. Since the students are simply memorizing the words, then writing them back down, when the number of words and definitions didn’t line up exactly like they were expecting, they freaked out. Seriously. The entire five minutes was nothing but eleven year old students throwing hissy fits over a single misplaced question. I told them to just be quiet, take the test, and talk to the receptionist, because I had nothing to do with the creation of the test. I didn’t make the mistake they were complaining about, but they expected me to come over and manually move the text on the printed page with my mind somehow. When students memorize without really profoundly understanding the material, one little detail is a hard roadblock to overcome. It’s like  their boot drive got corrupted. "Drive Not Found. Abort, Retry, Fail."

The problem was, the students couldn’t explain the problem in English, and I didn’t need to fix the problem myself. I didn’t have the class time to devote to soothing the feelings of every single student. If they had a problem, I wasn’t going to be the person grading the paper anyone. I was simply the only person there to hear their complaints, so I had to listen to them, as if I was going to do something because I understood what was going on. I personally thought the problem was too easy to worry about, because the word the students know was something I did know. If a foreigner with an extremely limited vocabulary can pass your test, it’s probaby too easy to complain about anyway. No sympathy here kids. Take it up with someone else that cares.

Eventually their fits got too noisy, and when I collected the test for the five minute time limit, the whining was getting near intolerable. I eventually gave them a warning about subtracting rewards from their notebooks. Another school employee eventually came in and got the kids to settle down too. When the receptionist finally came in, she was given hell about the test. She looked over the problem and said that there would be no retest for anyone that missed that particular question. Crisis averted, the students when back to complaining about my homework instead of the five minute test. No one want to spend an extra second in school or learning if possible.