4 + i + no idea what you're doing = X, where X has yet to be seen but cannot equal less than madness
So, looking back over the last blog entry, I think you can tell that I was absolutely shattered when I wrote it. Or at least, I know, my own writing well enough to know that I was shattered.
After the holiday there were just 3 days of school - Wednesday through Friday - which were really tough. The kids were all little shits, filled with holiday juices and totally prepared to do no work as this half-a-week ‘didn’t count’. Friday was especially bad because, well, it was Friday which meant Cadbury’s Crunchie bars all round. Saturday also sucked a bit because we had to work, sort of.
Becky was told that she was going to this conference thing in Seoul and that I could come if I wanted to. Being a good husband means knowing that it’d be better/easier for her if I went too, plus it means I could see more of her. Basically our school is one of a franchise, with many schools all over Korea being run in a similar fashion (I weep too). The conference thing was all about “4+i learning”, this new system of testing and grading students that’s going to be introduced in the coming months.
To be blunt, it’s not going to work. The system has not been thought out at a practical level and the concerns of the teachers were not answered in any meaningful way during the Q&A session that followed. The test is supposed to take about 5 minutes per student, which is impossible when it must be completed in a single lesson and there are often over 15 kids (40 minute lesson, time for 8 kids with a zero change over time - plus we have to explain what we’re doing - which takes a long time because we don’t speak Korean). When asked how we were supposed to achieve this, we were told ‘successful time management’.
Maybe if I was The Doctor.
Other issues include having to mark several tests per student THEN input all these scores online so the kids/teachers/parents can check the student’s grades on the internet. This is doubly problematic because we have only one computer that’s online at our school and all of the teachers, both foreign and Korean have things to add to the scores database thingy. Oh and the website/database is all in Korean too. Having the test on CD when the school doesn’t have enough CD players. Having to conduct the tests outside of the classroom (it was suggested in the hallway), which leads to the two problems of a) where to plug the CD player in and b) what to do with the children whilst you’re not in the classroom.
The issues with the test itself dwarfed all of this. Already we are getting used to the fact that as our school is a private school, no student is allowed to fail and no student misbehaves. It simply does not happen. But this new test has numerically based scores, unlike our current tests, that are subjective, i.e. you get a grade I decide on as long as it is a C or above, preferably a B. This new numerical scoring system means that some kids will fail.
By some kids I mean most of them. Maybe 75% - 90% of them.
Since it’s numerical, we can’t fudge the scores. Or so we thought. Responding the question asking what we should do if a student fails to answer within the allotted answer time, we were told to ask them a different question.
Yeah - allotted answer time. The test is on a CD and tells you when you can answer, when you can listen and when you can go to the toilet, eat, sleep, etc. Not good, as it also means we can’t speed the exam up to squash all the kids into one lesson.
On the questions themselves, oh dear. Basically the kid gets to listen to something. Then has up to 30 seconds (depending on skill level) to sit there and think about the answers. Or, more likely, forget everything they just heard. Then they are asked questions on the piece and have to respond within the allotted answer time. Although, as explained above, if they can’t they don’t fail they just get another question.
These kids can be as young as 5 - they’re never going to be able to remember two or three pieces of information from a dialogue they heard (maybe) twice. Shit - they couldn’t do it in Korean!
It was a good laugh listening to the example questions though. One used blatantly incorrect English, so bad even I picked up on it. The other sounded like Steven Hawking was trying to entice a young boy with farming innuendo. More scary still, the young boy didn’t need all that much enticing.... Suffice to say that we were not the only ones laughing, nor was the laughing crowd entirely composed of foreign teachers.
After that was all over, we headed to Itaewon to get steak. Mmm.... Steak.... Using the leaflets and instruction booklets for the 4+i tests as makeshift umbrellas, caught without one again!
In other news, we finally got paid, but it was late and then subsequent visit to the bank to sort out transferring the money to the U.K. was not fun (or, again, punctual). We got through it though. We immediately spent a small fortune (nearly $300.00) on stuff from Paizo, to keep us going.
When the parcel arrives, if we’re not in to collect it, we’ll get a little sticker put on our door. If we take it to this little old man in a shack near the apartment, he’ll have kept it safe for us. We’ve already had a little parcel experience, and thus christened the little old man in the shack, Shaq.
He knows Shaq Fu
In other news, I’ve not watched any more Power Rangers Turbo for a while, after having a very bad dream that I am sure featured Justin. But in the episodes I watched prior to my ‘episode’, I was scared to notice that Carlos seems to have taken over the role of Cat in terms of being Justin’s love interest. The episode ‘The Darkest Day’ did feature an awesome scene, where the Turbo Megazord gets boarded. Picture collage below.
Anyway, best wishes to all!
After the holiday there were just 3 days of school - Wednesday through Friday - which were really tough. The kids were all little shits, filled with holiday juices and totally prepared to do no work as this half-a-week ‘didn’t count’. Friday was especially bad because, well, it was Friday which meant Cadbury’s Crunchie bars all round. Saturday also sucked a bit because we had to work, sort of.
Becky was told that she was going to this conference thing in Seoul and that I could come if I wanted to. Being a good husband means knowing that it’d be better/easier for her if I went too, plus it means I could see more of her. Basically our school is one of a franchise, with many schools all over Korea being run in a similar fashion (I weep too). The conference thing was all about “4+i learning”, this new system of testing and grading students that’s going to be introduced in the coming months.
To be blunt, it’s not going to work. The system has not been thought out at a practical level and the concerns of the teachers were not answered in any meaningful way during the Q&A session that followed. The test is supposed to take about 5 minutes per student, which is impossible when it must be completed in a single lesson and there are often over 15 kids (40 minute lesson, time for 8 kids with a zero change over time - plus we have to explain what we’re doing - which takes a long time because we don’t speak Korean). When asked how we were supposed to achieve this, we were told ‘successful time management’.
Maybe if I was The Doctor.
Other issues include having to mark several tests per student THEN input all these scores online so the kids/teachers/parents can check the student’s grades on the internet. This is doubly problematic because we have only one computer that’s online at our school and all of the teachers, both foreign and Korean have things to add to the scores database thingy. Oh and the website/database is all in Korean too. Having the test on CD when the school doesn’t have enough CD players. Having to conduct the tests outside of the classroom (it was suggested in the hallway), which leads to the two problems of a) where to plug the CD player in and b) what to do with the children whilst you’re not in the classroom.
The issues with the test itself dwarfed all of this. Already we are getting used to the fact that as our school is a private school, no student is allowed to fail and no student misbehaves. It simply does not happen. But this new test has numerically based scores, unlike our current tests, that are subjective, i.e. you get a grade I decide on as long as it is a C or above, preferably a B. This new numerical scoring system means that some kids will fail.
By some kids I mean most of them. Maybe 75% - 90% of them.
Since it’s numerical, we can’t fudge the scores. Or so we thought. Responding the question asking what we should do if a student fails to answer within the allotted answer time, we were told to ask them a different question.
Yeah - allotted answer time. The test is on a CD and tells you when you can answer, when you can listen and when you can go to the toilet, eat, sleep, etc. Not good, as it also means we can’t speed the exam up to squash all the kids into one lesson.
On the questions themselves, oh dear. Basically the kid gets to listen to something. Then has up to 30 seconds (depending on skill level) to sit there and think about the answers. Or, more likely, forget everything they just heard. Then they are asked questions on the piece and have to respond within the allotted answer time. Although, as explained above, if they can’t they don’t fail they just get another question.
These kids can be as young as 5 - they’re never going to be able to remember two or three pieces of information from a dialogue they heard (maybe) twice. Shit - they couldn’t do it in Korean!
It was a good laugh listening to the example questions though. One used blatantly incorrect English, so bad even I picked up on it. The other sounded like Steven Hawking was trying to entice a young boy with farming innuendo. More scary still, the young boy didn’t need all that much enticing.... Suffice to say that we were not the only ones laughing, nor was the laughing crowd entirely composed of foreign teachers.
After that was all over, we headed to Itaewon to get steak. Mmm.... Steak.... Using the leaflets and instruction booklets for the 4+i tests as makeshift umbrellas, caught without one again!
In other news, we finally got paid, but it was late and then subsequent visit to the bank to sort out transferring the money to the U.K. was not fun (or, again, punctual). We got through it though. We immediately spent a small fortune (nearly $300.00) on stuff from Paizo, to keep us going.
When the parcel arrives, if we’re not in to collect it, we’ll get a little sticker put on our door. If we take it to this little old man in a shack near the apartment, he’ll have kept it safe for us. We’ve already had a little parcel experience, and thus christened the little old man in the shack, Shaq.
He knows Shaq Fu
In other news, I’ve not watched any more Power Rangers Turbo for a while, after having a very bad dream that I am sure featured Justin. But in the episodes I watched prior to my ‘episode’, I was scared to notice that Carlos seems to have taken over the role of Cat in terms of being Justin’s love interest. The episode ‘The Darkest Day’ did feature an awesome scene, where the Turbo Megazord gets boarded. Picture collage below.
Anyway, best wishes to all!