I have some time to kill, sitting in my classroom, and not yet assigned classes. It’s nice to have the time to adjust – so much better than the hagwon way of throwing you into the deep end on the first day. But I can’t work on my blog, because the school’s internet filter blocks my blog-host’s IP address. So I turn to Carl Kwan, to kill some time.
The orientation I attended last week was pretty good. Well-designed, well-paced, with good presenters. But another aspect of working as a pet foreigner for the public schools system in Korea is that the central Education Ministry can come up with some ill-conceived rules, requirements, and initiatives. I’m suffering from one of them now.
They have required everyone to complete a “20 hour online seminar” series about teaching as a foreigner in the public schools. I think it might have once been a good idea – but the badly designed/written curriculum, combined with a stunningly irritating presenter, make the actual completion of the series of videos and quizzes excruciating. Carl Kwan, the Chinese-Canadian presenter, likes to say his own name. I suppose that can be an effective schtick with students, but it gets old fast. And he loves the word “um” – which I very much doubt is effective with English learners.
Well, anyway. Here’s a screenshot of the now infamous (in my mind, at least) Carl Kwan.
