Monday, July 26, 2010

Calling All English Teachers, past or present... Survey

If you are an English teacher right now, or were last year, or were in 1984, there's a survey I'd like you to do...

1. click on this link
http://www.ballotbin.com/voterReg.php?b=15507

2. put your e-mail address in the two boxes.

This step is necessary so that we know we're getting unique survey-takers, not the same ones again and again.

3. After you've entered your e-mail address, the survey website will send you an e-mail with a link, and then it will forget your e-mail address forever.  Another person will get an e-mail saying "hey! another person did the survey!" and that will be it: your address will never be connected to your answers, and will not appear in any kind of database.  Promise.

4. Once you get that link sent to your address, click on it, and fill out the survey.

It asks you questions about your experience teaching in Korea - answer the questions about your entire time teaching in Korea.

5. Tell your friends about the survey.

This survey is being conducted by ATEK (http://atek.or.kr/survey), but you don't have to be a member of ATEK to participate.  You don't have to be a teacher right now to participate, you don't even need to be in Korea to participate: all you need is once, at some time in your life, to have been a teacher in Korea.  We're hoping to get a large enough sample size that the statistics will carry some real weight as representative of the "average" teacher's experience in Korea.

If you had a bad experience, or a great experience in Korea, we'd like you to participate, so that the whole thing's balanced: so don't just do the survey if you've got a gripe; do it if you had a great time, too.

As you know, ATEK, the Association for Teachers of English in Korea, is an organization whose mission is to improve life for English teachers in Korea; ATEK is conducting this survey to better understand the situation of English teachers in Korea, so that we know what the major issues are that affect teachers, and how to better serve English teachers in Korea.

4 comments:

Chris in South Korea said...

Done.

FYI to the readers: no one's checking the e-mail address against any member list. You could even create a throwaway e-mail if you're paranoid. It's worth five minutes of your time :)

Jason said...

Hi Rob,

I finally went and did the survey...but it really seems to be aimed at researching hogwan native teacher issues...

I might be making a survey aimed at E2 visa/public school native teacher issues...we'll see if I have the time to make a question list and then put it into an online survey...

I'll probably send you a draft of the questions if I get to it.

Cheers,
J

The Seoul Searcher said...

You forgot the question: Did your hagwon leave management of teachers to other teachers, leaving your professional fate in the hands of angry spiteful people who will give you bad ratings for not being their friend, all the while giving good reviews to people who have no life outside of work and hang out with the supervisor teacher all the time, despite having never watched either of your classes, and despite the fact that all the students and their parents gave you a favorable review?

Also:
Were you forced to relocate your classroom to the first floor because a new teacher was black and needed to be moved to a less visible location so as not to scare parents, all the while told that the rationale was that a newer teacher didn't deserve one of the "luxury" first floor rooms, even though you specifically stated that you were perfectly happy in your room, and the new teacher had already set up shop in his first floor room?

I have a feeling that the hagwon business will be dead in 10 years, so ATEK, more power to you, but soon there will be fewer teachers anyway.

I could be wrong though..

Roboseyo said...

Seoul Searcher: if the questions got that specific, the survey'd probably be 500 questions. :)

Jason: a lot of these questions are about things that happen more often with hagwon teachers. You're correct.

If you designed a survey for public schools, I think you'd do a great job of it, given your years of experience in public schools, and ATEK would be happy to put it up on the surveys page. Gathering information like that always helps ATEK know the needs of English teachers, which helps us communicate those needs better when we're contacted by employers or decision-makers.