Another assessment tool this particular hogwon uses to test children as young as five years old is the phone test. They do this so that parents can hear their children speaking English over the phone. It creates more work for me, and was one more reason why I was at school until 9pm this week. I prepare questions that we have been going over in class and call the student at home and ask them. There's only one problem. All of the visual cues that I have in the classroom are not there. How many five year old Korean kids are used to talking on the phone to their teacher? Yeah, it's weird. It was a weird experience for all.
A phone conversation would go like this:
Me: What is your favorite animal?
Kid: ... silence....
Me: not knowing what else to do but repeat myself...What is your favorite animal?
Kid: It's a turtle.
Me: What kind of animal is a turtle?
Kid: Silence. silence. More silence.
Me: What kind of animal is a turtle? Is it a mammal?
Kid: A turtle is a reptile.
Me: Good! Why is a turtle a reptile.
Kid: Because it has dry skin. (This is one of our speaking points.)
Me: Good.
Me: What time do you get up?
Kid: I get up at 1 o'clock.
Me: (Thinking this is wrong, but it's in perfect English so I'll let it go.)
And so on and so on until I have tested all 20 of my kindergarteners. I get to phone call the second graders next week. Oh joy!
7 comments:
It's stupid but most Korean Hakwons do the same thing. It's the parents who pay the money and Hakwon owners should assure them that their kids are making progress after all.
Thanks for all the comments! I know the reason for them, and I agree that it is one of the best measures of accountability out there. I'm just remarking on what I notice, I hope I'm not coming off as judgmental at all, because I'm not judging at all. It's really an eye-opening experience so far!
sorry for making a mess of your blog... I mean, I found I made some errors and want to correct them. My poor English is getting worse as I have no chance to practice. So my comment was,
I don't mean that by any means. I just hope you have a good memory of the country and its people. Of course, there are lots of mean people out there but what part of the world don't have people like that? One of my favorate quote is "This,too, shall pass away".
Woops, another mistake.
This time, I'll not delete the comment. Just add an "s" at the end of the "quote".
I did something similar as an RA. I had to call all of the incoming freshman to see if they had any questions. It was too awkward. They all thought they were too cool to talk to me. Haha
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