2-2, you get an F

Oh MAN!
I just had the most brutal class. So brutal, in fact, that I made myself wait for half an hour before I wrote about it, for fear that putting it down in words might actually cause explosions if I didn't calm down first.
First off, let me just say that, as a teacher, I am wasted on many of these classes. I don't mean in the way that my highly sophisticated humour is wasted on most of you ignoramuses, I actually mean that I am wasted on them because of my lack of ability.
I am not a teacher. Not a professional anyway, I am a teaching assistant, brought here to help with conversation and pronunciation. And I am teaching a class of 30 kids vocabulary and sentence structure, and simple sentences that they need just to be able to understand 30% of what I say. I had to teach my classes what to do when I said "Take out your books"! By eighth grade, you really should know that. That may be one of the only things you know, but you really should know that. That's something your teacher should have been saying to you in english class every day.
Anyways, to try to give them a jump start on reading/speaking/writing, I have been trying to teach them phonics. SO for the last four weeks, I walked these kids through the alphabet, the letters, the sounds the letters make, how to produce the difficult sounds, and finally, for the last two weeks, long and short vowel sounds.
SO yesterday and today, I had a game to review. Yesterday was on and off. I could tell many kids were guessing, but that was fine, I had a safety on the game so that they could not win on guessing alone.
Then, I got to 2-2 today. First class of the morning. Wake-up call to reality.
I get in, I do a quick review. Everyone says they understand when I ask. I explain the game, which is easy, because we played the same game with different vocab last year.
I ask for volunteers.

No volunteers.

I say "That's fine", jokingly, and I start eating the candy I had brought as prizes, making exaggerated oohs and ahhs at how delicious the snickers minis were. There were some remarks on the fact that the candies were small.
What the fuck??!?! I'm your teacher, and I'm offering to give you candy. Get the hell out of my classroom.
So, finally, I get two volunteers. Now, things will start rolling. Once they see a kid get a candy, it's on to easy street.
The game bombs. One kid gets the first questions right, the other gets it wrong. Easy, a clear winner goingn to the second question. When I ask the second question, the kid who lost and was supposed to be quiet blurts out the right answer. The kid who should have answered has no idea what is happening. He stands there, I tell the other kid t be quiet.
Nothing happens.
The kid who lost makes a final desperate grab at a candy by pointing to the correct answer on the board. The kid who lost is in a daze. I send the kid who lost to his seat. The kid who won timidly points at the correct answer because he saw the other kid do it.
He gets a candy.

Let's face it, that kid won the lottery. He had no idea what set of circumstances had led him to this candy.

I send the kid to his seat. I ask for more volunteers. Understandably, no-one puts up their hand. I'm already full of candy, so I give up on the game.

After that, I attempted to drag out of them the difference between a long vowel and a short vowel. Well, five minutes later, I finally got someone to tell me what the vowels are.
WE'VE BEEN DOING THIS FOR TWO WEEKS!!!
So, I got a little peeved. Why did no-one say they did not understand all those times I said "Do you understand?". I mean, yeah, okay, embarassment. But how much embarassment could there possibly be when no-one understands? Why did my coteacher not say at any point "The kids are just repeating what you say, they do not understand. Maybe you should review it again." Why did she not jump in and clarify what I was saying when every way I tried saying "A long 'a' says ay" was obviously going over their heads?
God! I am so angry! These kids are at such a low level, they really can not learn anything from someone who cannot follow up with them in Korean. Why does the Korean school system have such a problem seeing this? WHY?!?!

to clarify: 2-2 students are in the equivalent to grade eight, which means they have been studying english for probably six years. They still don't know the alphabet, they don't know the sounds letters make, and they can not distinguish between long and short sounds. "Just teach them conversation!"