Cheating and Plagiarism in Korea

What is considered cheating in a Korean classroom? I don’t know. I can only speak for my classes, and I can only speak from my experiences at this private academy, but I have seen some behavior that surely would not be tolerated in America.

To clarify exactly what my job is: I teach almost 200 students throughout the week, ranging in ages 8-16. There are five Koreans teachers that each have about six classes they regularly teach every day. Once a week the kids come to my class so they can practice applying what they’ve learned through writing, reading, and conversation. I see these kids once a week for 50 minutes, so it’s important to form a relationship with the students and be as immediate in the lesson as possible.

The students have tests every day. Sometimes they have Translation Tests in which they have to translate about ten sentences from Korean into English, but usually they have spelling tests. Surprisingly, the words in these tests are not grouped into any category. Recalling my experiences learning Spanish in high school, we learned words in a category (colors, numbers, clothes, zoo animals, etc), then had a spelling test. But these tests in Korea are filled with seemingly random words. I gave a spelling test to a class of 12 years olds today that included the words ‘microphone’, ‘party’, ‘consideration’, and ‘wrench’. There may be reasoning behind this, but I haven’t found it yet.

But that’s neither here nor there. The point is the handling of cheating. When I first started teaching four months ago, I noticed how much students talked amoungst each other during the test. I lashed out at them, threatening to rip up their test if they wouldn’t be quiet. But gradually, after seeing other Korean teacher deliver tests, I realized that this behavior was normal in all their other classes. One Korean teacher actually sits down and has conversations with her students while they are taking a test. I guess there is something to be learned here – it creates a relaxed atmosphere, which the students could use considering all the tests, classes, and homework pressures they have. And after test after test, day after day, the students become a little immune to the pressure. A couple weeks ago I blew up at a student who barged in late and disturbed the class during the test in such a disrespectful way, I felt I needed to remove her from the class, even after giving her several warnings…But that student deserves a blog post for herself.

But I can’t help but wonder if it’s ok to be this informal with students.

Last week the students in my advanced class asked me a question –Describe the typical woman you go for. I’m almost certain this question would be taboo in classrooms in America, but the Korean teacher actually facilitated this discussion between the students and me, so I guess it was ok. I didn’t feel comfortable. I pushed myself to be open about the whole thing, but it was going into a place I didn’t think was appropriate for the classroom. Later in the class the students wanted to know my monthly salary. This I would not tell them. I decided to be open about my feelings about women because it may create a more relaxed relationship with the students (and, based on my observations, teachers seem to be more open about their private lives here in Korea), but my salary was neither necessary for them to know, nor productive exchange for a better relationship. I guess that’s where I drew the line. And of course, or course, sexual habits are completely off limits for discussion, although to my surprise, I did have a teenager ask me about mine during class. I ignored the question.

So I got used to the talking during tests. Occasionally you’ll hear the students say the Korean definition for a word out loud, thinking I don’t know enough Korean to hear them cheat. True, I have only a small Korean vocabulary, but I know the alphabet well enough, and have the answers before me, that I can usually call the students out. If I catch them cheating, I give them a warning, and if they continue, I threaten to rip their test paper up – that really keeps them quiet!

Sometimes the students will whisper the answers in English. Why they try this I don’t know; it’s very stupid. If you’re going to cheat, don’t do it in English with me standing right there!

Turning this post toward the question of plagiarism, I have witnessed, on a couple occasions, teachers ordering students to copy the answers into their workbooks when the students get behind with their work. I have many students that miss class a couple weeks in a row, come back, and find they are pages behind everyone else, and of course, they have no idea how to do anything. When pressed for time, one Korean teacher took another student’s completed workbook, gave it to the troubled student, and ordered him to copy the other student’s answers into his own book. This is plagiarism, hardcore.

In this system, you must keep everyone on the same page, and when it’s time to move on to the next workbook, it doesn’t matter if they’ve learned anything, as long as their workbook is complete.

So I feel bad for my students. In the situation above, that one student (his name is Edward), is a very sweet kid. He has a learning disability, without any doubt, so he gets behind A LOT. There are no special education classes here in the private academy, so students who have learning disabilities have to fend for themselves like everyone else. As a teacher, you have to try and look out for these students and give them the help and encouragement they need. Edward is a great kid, a little weird, a great artist, and always talks to me and says hi. He’s not stupid and I feel bad that he’s getting pushed through this system at a pace he can’t keep up with, and all I can do is look on in disgust when another teacher chooses to deal with his problems by forcing him to plagiarize another student’s answers into his book just so he can move on to the next level.

Anyway, I was thinking about all of this today when I came across an article in the New York Time from 2002 about a high school biology teacher who gave 0s to 28 students after they plagiarized their semester long project. After listening to plenty of angry phone calls, the school board overrode her decision and the teacher resigned in disgust. The article is here: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/14/us/school-cheating-scandal-tests-a-town-s-values.html. This is an entirely different scenario than what I’m facing here in Korea, but it does make me wonder about the differences between education in Korea and the USA.