Teaching | Teaching Kimchi

Ask Teaching Kimchi: Can I find a job in Korea for a year that starts at a specific month?

July 28, 2011 by Paul · Leave a Comment

I wanted to enquire about places for English teachers in Korea where there are 2 spaces available for a start this September (2011), for a year, or in February next year (2012), for 6 months. We are both degree qualified people from London. One with a degree in English who has taught English before and the other with a degree in Chemistry who has taught English before in a foreign country. We are looking to come to Korea together, and would like to find out if there is availability this year such that we could be together, not necessarily in the same school (although this would be perfect), but perhaps at two schools in a similar area / province so we can live together. We would be open to teaching in a city location OR countryside location and would consider either. If it is too late to apply….perhaps you could facilitate a start in September this year (and stay for a year) for one of us, and the other could come in February next year (and stay for 6 months). Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. Regards, Ben

Short Answer: Yes.

Long Answer: There are hakwons (private academies) and then there are public schools. Korean Public schools begin in March and end the following February with a month or two break in the summer, and a month or two break in the winter.

Hakwons are always hiring. Public schools, not so much. They don’t follow the typical Western Education schedule (developed around harvest time- I think.)

Your best bet is to find a RELIABLE Hakwon for two. Recruiters love high quality foreign folks, because when they connect teachers they can collect a bounty of a million won (Roughly $1,000 USD) or so.

I hope that helps. It looks like in your question you’re already asking other firms – smart move.

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Top 5 ESL Teaching Tools for Automatic Activities

October 4, 2010 by Paul · 1 Comment

Guest post from: Maria Rainier is a freelance writer and blog junkie. She is currently a resident blogger at First in Education and performs research surrounding online schools. In her spare time, she enjoys square-foot gardening, swimming, and avoiding her laptop

If you’re a teacher of any kind, you’ve probably experienced the sudden and frightening realization that you’ve got empty time to fill and no creative ideas for short activities. This can be especially difficult for ESL teachers because thinking on your feet to educate children who speak a different language is a unique challenge. One of the best ways to stay prepared for those surprising times when your lesson comes up short is to plan ahead and keep teaching tools within reach. If you’re not comfortable with building in activities on the fly, add optional material to the end of your lesson plan just in case. Either way, you can use the following tools to help you keep your students focused and learning for the full duration of the day.

1. Wordless Books
This tool is well-suited to teaching younger ESL students, but if you’re feeling creative, you can make a picture book for older classes using photos from magazines or other sources. You won’t have to worry about making up a story – that’s your students’ job. Whether your wordless book is purchased or handmade, it can be the perfect way to spend extra time once you’ve exhausted your lesson plan. For younger students, have everyone sit in a circle while you hold up the book for them to see and turn the pages, letting your students take turns making up a few sentences for each picture. If you have older students, pass the book around and have each student describe his or her page of the story in a few sentences. By doing this, you can have them explain what the background and characters look like before they continue the plot of the story. This makes for a slightly more advanced degree of vocabulary usage, verb tenses, and creativity.
2. Songs
If you’re musically inclined, keep a list of English songs that your students might like to learn. Whenever you have a few minutes to spare, you can either sing a song that you’ve already taught as review or teach part of a new one. Students often enjoy making music and are happy to participate in this activity. You can also take requests from your students if they know song titles that they’d like to learn, then have students vote on which song they want to learn next.
3. Question Cards
Keep a box of index cards that have simple questions on them and set aside some time each week to write new ones as you teach fresh material to your students. Whenever you find that you need to fill some time, take out a card and have students raise their hands to see who can answer the question correctly first. You can use the material on these cards for test questions or extra credit questions if you re-word them. It’s also a great way to keep track of what your students have learned over a semester, which can help you develop assessments and re-work your lesson plans based on student progress.
4. Monolingual English Dictionaries
If you have the funding, it’s a great idea to buy enough dictionaries for each of your students to keep in the classroom. If not, try keeping one dictionary for every pair of students or as many as you can get. Not only are monolingual English dictionaries excellent teaching tools on their own, but they’re also helpful to students while you teach and in short activities. For example, you can tell students that they’re allowed to look up unfamiliar words that you’ve used in your lesson plan. If you want to turn this into an activity, have students write down words they don’t recognize as you teach. At the end of the lesson, have everyone share their unfamiliar words and try to guess what they mean. Then, encourage students to race each other to see who can find each word in the dictionary first.
5. Newspapers
Having access to English newspapers is a great opportunity for developing short classroom activities for ESL students. If you can easily get enough for each student to have one, you’ll be coming up with creative activities in no time. If not, you can just get one or a few copies for everyone to share. Some examples of newspaper activities are:
• Go to the Sports section and read the first article, then write down five adjectives that describe a star soccer player.
• Skim through the Entertainment section and find two places you would like to visit, then write a short paragraph about why you chose those places.
• Find three new words on the front page, look them up, define them, and then write a short paragraph that uses all three words correctly.

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Top 5 ESL Teaching Games

September 23, 2010 by Paul · Leave a Comment

This is a guest post by: Maria Rainier is a freelance writer and blog junkie. She is currently a resident blogger at First in Education, researching various online programs and degree programs. In her spare time, she enjoys square-foot gardening, swimming, and avoiding her laptop.

It can be tough to relate to students when you have different cultural and linguistic backgrounds, but games are always a good way to break the ice and teach something at the same time. If you can get your students engaged in learning English while communicating to them that you’re interested in learning more about them as well, you’ll enjoy greater success and improve your rapport. The following are some fun games for any level that can help you learn more about each other and English.
Survivor Spelling

Make a list of the week’s vocabulary words, then have students line up along one wall of your classroom. Explain that you’re going to play a spelling game: starting at one end of the line, each student will say one letter of the word until it’s spelled correctly. For example, if you’re trying to spell “apple,” the first student will say “a,” the next will say “p,” and so on. Anyone who says the wrong letter sits down, and the last student standing wins. Once you’re down to a small number of players, students will be taking more than one turn in order to spell an entire word, so elimination will go faster. You can offer a small prize to the winner, such as a sticker or a new pencil.
Pictionary

Write your week’s vocabulary words on some index cards, then have students come up to the front of the room one by one. Show each student one of your “secret” cards and have him or her draw a picture on your blackboard that represents the vocabulary word on the card. You can decide whether or not to set a time limit or award points, but some students respond better to competitive games. For example, if the class can guess the word within 30 seconds, the student who drew the picture gets a point. You can have a “store” once a week where students use their points to “buy” small prizes if you want to make the game more motivational.
Runaway Story
In this game, you and your students review vocabulary words and have a great time making up a crazy story. Before you start, write down the week’s vocabulary words on index cards. Have everyone sit in a circle, then give each student a “secret” card that no one else can see. Start telling a story, and once you have something funny going, choose a student to continue your story with a sentence that uses his or her vocabulary word. Next, have the student choose a classmate to continue the story. After the last student ends the story, have everyone try to list all the vocabulary words in the story. Whoever can write down the most vocabulary words wins a prize.

Catch You Letter
You’ll need a small bean bag or soft ball for this game. Gather your students into a circle, say a word that starts with “a,” then throw the bean bag or ball to a student who has to immediately say a word beginning with “b.” There are lots of ways to vary this game:
• For beginners, write the alphabet on the board as a reference point.
• Time your game and see how long it takes to get from A to Z, then try to go faster.
• Tell more advanced students that their words have to relate to a certain topic (like food, movies, going to school, or doing chores at home). You can skip problem letters like X and Z.

Meet the Relatives

This game will require students to recall short words that they know in order to keep playing and can help with vocabulary retention. You’ll need a list of (innocent) four-letter words that you can use to start the game. For example, choose “RAIN” and write it up on the board. Have the first student go up to the board and write another four-letter word underneath “RAIN” that has only one different letter (for example, “GAIN”). The next student then does the same, but can’t change the same letter (“PAIN” would be wrong in this case, but “GAIT” would work). Now, the next student can change any letter but the last one (the first letter is fair game again). Keep going until your students can’t come up with any more words. If you like, you can award a point to each student for every word they write on the board and have the points count toward a prize later in the week.

Photo: Public Domain

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Top 10 Famous Korean Philosophers

November 10, 2009 by Paul · Leave a Comment

Most of Korean philosophers have taken positions at government, so their philosophy reveals during tenure except Jung, Yak-Yong.

1. Jung, Yak-Yong: Jung is one of pioneer who virtually helped Cho-sun Dynasty civilians. He also wrote the book that covers ethics of officials, which called Mokminsimseo. He also invented Korean crane to build HwaSeong which is now located in Suwon.

2. Maeng, Sa-Sung: As a integrate person, he did not hesitate to scold king’s mistreatment and adulated as standard official.

3. Hwang, Hee: Also acclaimed as integrate prime minister at Cho-sun Dynasty. He set basic infrastructure of Cho-sun Dynasty and also made rule of courtesy among civilians.

4. Lee, Yi: He recommended raising hundred thousand militaries. In philosophy, he strongly claimed the accordance of human behavior and conscience.

5. Lee, Hwang: Asserted that reason and conscience were different but could make harmony.

6. Song, Si-Yeol: He is one of famous student of Lee Yi. He also claimed same as Lee Yi and in addition, he is very good at politics and rule of decorum.

7. You, Seong-Ryong: Although he was student of Lee Hwang, he showed his talent into politics. He followed Lee Hwang’s philosophy by subsidizing his subordinates.

8. Heo, Kyun: Although he died as who died treachery, he first claimed to break the rule of class, except the king. He wrote one of Korea’s famous novel, Hong Gildong. His portraits were all

9. Cho, Gwang Jo: Cho broke old and fabricated decorations to give chance to all the officials. In addition, he assigned many young civilian.

10. Choi, Chi Won: Choi is one of the most famous literary man and politician at Sinla Dynasty. Frustrated by his class that limited chance to expand his career as civilian, he came back to his hometown and taught peasants to cultivate wisely and economically.