One Term Down....

My Experience

I recently completed my first term of teaching. My friends in my system shared their experiences with me prior to my moving to S. Korea, but it was still a bit different than I had imagined. The children's classes take MUCH more energy that I expected. (My parents are both teachers, and I still didn't quite grasp the energy factor until doing it myself).

So, what did I learn from my first term? I think the biggest thing I took away is "planning is the biggest key to success in the classroom." Of course this applies to most areas in life, but I feel like it's a lesson that I can learn over and over and in slightly different ways each time.

With just a few extra minutes of preparation before class, I could make the lessons more interesting for the students. Or even, just taking a few minutes to create or research new word games to play with the kids can really make class more fun.


American Vs. Korean Education

I've noticed a couple strong differences between the Korean and American philosophies of education. Korean children seem to ALWAYS be in school or in some type of educational institution. After a normal day of school ends at around 3pm, students go on to music, martial arts or language programs and then an hour or so later they go to another program. We have students at the institute until 7pm each night!! Eeks! The students are often tired and more than ready to go home at the end of their English class.

The Korean system also emphasizes memorization of information, a contrast from many American schools, that emphasize studying the "why's" and "how's" of issues. I'm trying to be sensitive of this difference and to teach in this method. However, sometimes it's hard to switch to the "memorization" mode.

Pictured above are some of my adorable students.