Live, love and eat kimchi...: Teaching in Korea- Progress Report

My main purpose of coming to Korea was to teach, yet I realize that I haven't written a whole lot about it in my blog. There have just been too many exciting adventures in my free time, that I haven't gotten around to it. The last time I wrote about my teaching experience, I told you about all of my challenges and how I was being taken advantage of my school by teaching completely on my own (against the contract) and without any teaching materials or curriculum. I vowed to keep a positive attitude and make an honest effort, and that's exactly what I have done.

The last four months of teaching have been really challenging, but it has gradually gotten easier and I am finally enjoying teaching on my own (mostly on my own, now). The major turning point came when I finally stood up and made my voice heard about the difficulties of teaching 4th grade alone. Although I didn't want to "give up," I realized that the communication gap was too large for me to be effective on my own. The 4th grade level is too low and to sit and listen to a native English speaker for 40 minutes straight, without any Korean, was just too difficult for them, hence the behavioral problems. I spoke up to my co-teachers (which I had already done, but this time I was much more insistent) and they suggested I write a letter to my Vice Principal fully explaining myself. When he read my letter, he was fully convinced and realized that it would in fact be much more effective to co-teach for 4th grade. He agreed, so long as I would still teach 5th and 6th grade on my own, which I happily accepted.

So, I have been co-teaching on Mondays and half of Tuesday with a young, energetic teacher named Jolie and the collaboration works great. Jolie is there to teach and translate in Korean, and I still serve my role to teach listening and speaking as a native English speaker. It really is very effective, and I can tell that the students are happier, more at ease and much better behaved in a situation where they understand whats going on. Plus, the co-teaching situation not only helps the native English speaker, it also helps the Korean English teachers improve, which is really needed in most public schools.

Now with my improved 4th grade situation, I have more time and less stress so I can be better prepared to teach alone. I 've learned a lot from my last three months of teaching and now have very good systems in place for my 5th and 6th grade classes. I pretty much use the same formula for every class; a 5 minute introduction, 10 minutes to review and present new information in an interesting way, 15 minutes for the main lesson, and 15 minutes to practice with games or activities. The biggest lesson I've learned is the simpler the better. I now focus on one or two phrases for each lesson, and even if it is too easy for the high level students, it still serves as a fun way to review, as well as practice listening to and conversing with a native English speaker. Though they've always thought my class was fun (I've played games through out the whole semester), lately I can tell my students are really understanding things better, and they are much more confident and happy because of it.

Just to sum up a few things I've learned about Teaching ESL in Korea (alone):

- Simple is better; stick to one or two key phrases and your students will have a much better experience
- Sometimes it's OK to give up; When things in the classroom are repeatedly not working, you need to make a change. Otherwise, you are doing yourself and your students a disservice.
- Play games! As long as you keep your students learning and speaking English the whole class, then the more fun, the better.
- ESL students will love you; If they have behavior problems, it's probably not that they don't like you, but rather they just don't understand you.
- Positive reinforcement is essential; make a reward system and stick to it. I have a group sticker chart, where teams can earn candy.
- Keep a positive attitude. There will be good days and bad, but if you keep a positive attitude and a smile on your face, the bad will be few and far between.

Finally, I don't think I could have turned this into such a good experience without my own conscious effort to keep a positive attitude. It can be really hard living in a foreign country when you don't speak the language and you can't even communicate with your co-workers. There are a lot of foreigners in Korea who probably get out of bed in the morning expecting the worst, and that's what they get. This year I've made a new effort to make a positive experience out of every morning. For me, that involves eating a healthy breakfast and drinking a nice cup of coffee while I check the news back at home. Then, on my way to school, I listen to podcasts, which are my new obsession!! If you own an iPod, you can download hundreds of thousands of podcasts on any subject right from your itunes for FREE. On the way to school, I listen to "self help" podcasts which sound corny, but they are really amazing. My two favorites are "The Daily Boost" and "Motivation to Move" and they are 10 minute long, positive thinking podcasts that really help me get pumped for my day.

Here's a list of my favorite podcasts, if you are interested:
- The Daily Boost
- Motivation to Move
- NPR: Wait, wait, don't tell me
- Nutrition Diva
- This American Life
- Stuff You Should Know
- NPR Storycorps
- The Moth