I finally decided to study Korean seriously starting this year. It wasn’t a beginning of the year motivational decision, but it came out of years of consuming Korean art and culture while dabbling in the language indecisively. I went looking for a tutor and found one who’d teach me remotely.
The demo class was ‘not-bad’ — which is to say that the teacher successfully made me realise that I didn’t know horseshit and would greatly benefit from tutoring. I knew that already, so I said okay, sure, why not and gave her my money only to attend the actual classes and regret it within minutes. The reason why this matters to me is that as a potential educator myself, these are complaints I would like to never be raised in my own teaching. (No refund, so that’s what I am stuck with now)
What makes the tutor bad:
- Her pronunciation sucks: This would be difficult to pinpoint without years of content consumption that has developed my ear to a point where I might not know what things mean, but I can tell one sound from another. Sis ain’t it. Korean has particular sounds, and the script has been designed to complement it, which she ruins completely.
- Teaches by the book: The teacher visibly teaches from a book, jotting down points on her whiteboard as we sit down and copy from there. This is bad because to acquire a language, you need to hear it spoken and for the teacher to give examples from their experiences with the language to facilitate discussion and doubts. Not happening here, nope.
- No Homework: At this point, you’ll probably wonder why I am even stuck with her. But it’s covid, and the meaning of Demo classes has changed a lot. So we’re here, and we’re squares of idiocy. We have reached our 12th class with just one exercise as homework. How does she, as a teacher know that we’re learning anything?
- Horrible Work Ethic: I didn’t think of myself as someone who cared about work ethics but apparently I do. I dislike people not being on time, ‘forgetting’ about their commitments, not preparing in advance and casually changing schedules. She does all of this, and then some.
- Complex Grammar Points yeeted out the window: Another bad teacher habit is that she breezes over-complicated grammar points like future tense, past tense etc without stopping to discuss them in context. It isn’t helpful, it isn’t smart.
- Doesn’t make us speak or write: This is an extension of the grammar point but speaking is so crucial to language learning that it deserves its own point on this list.
These are the major gripes I have with this very specific tragedy I am a part of currently. But how am I going about this without plucking out my eyelashes? I am simply dedicating myself more to self-studying honestly. Its actually going rather well. I am progressing slowly but securely, using her class as a revision desk and an opportunity to overview what I need to delve deeper into, on my own.
I am also utilising this compulsory activity as a reminder to stay motived. Most people join classes for the basic reason that it provides a classroom environment and gets you into that psychological space of facilitating education. On my own, I was a lazy bean. At least this class is frustrating me to the point where I push myself to study, even if it's out of pure annoyance.
Annoyance and hatred are amazing personal motivators, I’ve noticed.