So you think you want to be a great ESL teacher-the person who excels above the rest and makes classes awesome for their students and keeps them coming back for more. The one whose students actually learn English and improve their skills. Do you have what it takes? Keep reading …
My Great Students-Not all True Remember when I was talking about how great my Korean university students are? Motivated, speak English well, blah blah blah. Here’s exactly what I said in Is My Korean University Job too Good to be True? I work in the English department and so only …
Student Centered Classrooms: All the Rage These Days These days, all the current language acquisition research advocates student-centered classrooms. This is for good reason! Teacher-centered classrooms, beyond the very, very basic level of learning a language, or for extremely young learners have largely proven to be ineffective at creating students …
Think about the ideal situation for teaching in a Korean university. The harsh reality that most of us find ourselves in is different, and in some cases, kind of opposite. Thankfully, in my current job, most of the classes that I teach meet most of these criteria and I really …
Microphones for 20 Students? Why? A little mini-rant for today. Whenever I go into classrooms that only have 20 or 30 desks filling up the entire space, there is always a microphone that has been put to obvious use in the immediate class before me. Like it’s actually sitting on …
Time to Leave Korea Forever? At the end of the semester, I give out an anonymous survey asking the students questions like what was their favorite and least favorite part of the class and how were the tests and homework in terms of difficulty, in comparison to their other classes. …
TTT-Not my Usual Style The test-teach-test (TTT) approach is not my usual style of teaching, and most days, I lean more towards PPP (presentation/practice/production) or task based teaching. However, for simple grammar concepts or vocabulary that students have studied before, the test teach test approach could work very well. Don’t …
Foreigners Can’t Teach Anything Besides Conversation Over my decade or so in Korea, I’ve heard the same thing from Koreans so, so, so many times. It goes a little something like this, “You’re a foreigner! You can’t possibly teach grammar, or anything besides conversation for that matter.” One Example of …
Stephen Krashen and Compehensible Input Stephen Krashen thinks that comprehensible input is the most important factor, in learning a language. He says that our brains have an LAD (language acquisition device) and that the teacher’s job is to provide input to it, in a low anxiety situation, where student’s affective …
Class Management Strategy: High-Level Uni in Busan These past 3 years, I’ve been working at a higher-ranked university in Busan, so that even the worst students are actually not that bad and the only thing I’ve had to do for “discipline” is have a little talk during or after class …
What I was Teaching A few years ago, I was teaching in an extra program that had 45-50 minutes classes and I had to cover 2-3 pages of the Smart Choice: Level 2 textbook. I taught 5 of these classes in a row and the difference between them was pretty …
Thank You Admin! Those who have been around the ESL Teaching world for a while have all had the experience of admins (who often have never set foot in a classroom as the teacher) choosing terrible ESL textbooks for classes. Once in a while it can work but more often, …
Evaluations in Korea Actually Matter When you teach English in a South Korea university, you’ll see very quickly that student evaluations really do matter. At my current workplace, the bottom 50% of teachers get the cut at the end of the end of their contract and evaluations serve as the …
I’ve just finished my 8th year of teaching in universities in South Korea and when I compare my first shaky semester as a naive newbie to now, it’s almost astounding the differences in my teaching and classroom management styles. Anyway, here are my tips for newbies teaching in a Korean …
Syllabus for Teaching in a Korean University: an Introduction A common question I get from those new to teaching in a Korean university is what kind of syllabus they should make for their classes. A standard one is sometimes provided by the university but most often, it’s up to the …
