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

July 28, 2011 by · 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 10 Things to Do in Seoul

June 26, 2011 by · Leave a Comment

One of the largest and by night the most colorful cities in the world, Seoul is truly an eye-popping experience.  Whether you’re here for a month or three years, never hesitate to seize any chance to take a look around.  The following are 10 popular destinations.

  1. Gyeongbok Palace.  Destroyed and reconstructed several times, Seoul’s grandest palace offers English tours (three times daily) for foreigners looking to learn about Korea’s history and architecture while admiring the stunning view.  It’s closed on Tuesdays and not far from the Blue House (the President’s seat).  You probably won’t have much trouble finding it, seeing as it’s at the north end of Sejongro, Seoul’s main thoroughfare.
  2. Bukchon Village.  Nearby Gyeongbok and Changdeok Palaces sits this well-preserved village of traditional wooden homes (hanok) featuring small courtyards, beautiful outer walls, and tiled roofs.  Take your time through the neighborhood and admire the art galleries.
  3. Eat.  A lot.  Anyone who’s ever had kalbi never forgets it.  The same can be said of doenjang jjigae (stew with bean paste, vegetables and/or meat, and tofu) and bulgogi (literally “fire meat,” marinated barbecued beef, chicken, or pork).  If you’re feeling brave, try the kimchi, although you may want a breath mint on hand.  For a full-course lunch, try heading to Baedongbaji in Samcheong-dong.
  4. Shinsegae Department Store.  A stroll through here is a cultural lesson in itself.  A veritable labyrinth of shopping snares like fresh fish, beloved kimchi, and Ferragamo shoes will likely mesmerize you for (gulp) hours.  Prepare to be overwhelmed by the sheer variety of goods offered and have a well-earned breath of fresh air on the rooftop.  Find it between the Namdaemun market and the Myeongdong shopping district.
  5. War Memorial and Museum.  Sadly the butt end of countless foreign invasions, prepare for a sobering morning by visiting the museum ($3 admission) and learn about its military and cultural history.  Much of its current tensions with nearby neighbors (and those across the Pacific) make a lot of sense after some time spent here.  Head for Samgakji Station via subway line 4, and try to visit the place early in the day to give yourself time to cheer up.
  6. Bugaksan.  Seoul is nestled in the mountains, so you might as well climb one.  On this one, you’ll find several trails to take you through reconstructed 15th century gates along fortress walls.  About 40 years ago, North Korean commandos sent to assassinate the president climbed the very peak but were unsuccessful.  The Seoul Fortress is newly re-opened for touring (although you’ll want to make your reservations at least a week in advance) since its closing over security concerns.  Don’t forget to bring your passport on the trail.
  7. N’Seoul Tower.  This 480m high beauty—complete with elevators and a chill lobby—replaced Mt. Namsan’s fortifications.  The area underwent a makeover in 2005 and now looks totally modern.  Take a seat in one of the many cafes and restaurants (try the revolving one) and admire the evening lights.
  8. Namdaemun market.  The best place to get the best bargains in town is undoubtedly Namdaemun market.  You’ll find everything from household appliances to food, jewelry to fabrics in a stretch of street-vendor stalls.  Try some of the vendors’ food—mandu gook, a dumpling soup, is a widespread favorite.  Get to the market via subway line 4 to Hoehyeon Station.
  9. Cheonggyecheon Stream.  It may not be a babbling brook in the woods, but this manmade waterway is the place to bring your romantic partner, although half of Seoul will be doing the same.  Whisper sweet nothings all the way to the stream, just off Sejongro.
  10. Itaewon.  Even if you’re new to Korea, if you’re a foreigner you’ve likely heard of Itaewon’s bars, clubs, and shopping district near the U.S. Army base.  In the basement of the Crown Hotel is one of Itaewon’s most beloved clubs, Club Volume, where you’ll hear some of the world’s most celebrated DJs.  It’s not all late-night entertainment, though; have Sunday brunch at Le Saint Ex, a French wine bar and bistro.

Don’t forget that Seoul is also home to four UNESCO World Heritage Sites: Changdeokgung, Hwaseong Fortress, Jongmyo Shrine, and the Royal Tombs of the Joseon Dynasty.  These are worth checking out, too.

Bio: Alexis Bonari is a freelance writer and researcher for College Scholarships, where recently she’s been researching African American college scholarships as well as college grants by degree level. In her spare time, she enjoys square-foot gardening, swimming, and avoiding her laptop.

 

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Top 5 ESL Teaching Tools for Automatic Activities

October 4, 2010 by · 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 3 Realizations You Must Know Before Dating Korean Women!

September 27, 2010 by · 10 Comments

Back by popular demand. This is a guest post by BlueM. You can find his newest ebook here.

I’ll get straight to the point.

If you’re coming to Korea and want a serious relationship with a Korean woman, think twice!

Contrary to what many clueless people say: dating or getting seriously involved with a Korean woman, isn’t easy at all. In fact it can be downright frustrating no matter how much you love each other!

I’ve been living in South Korea for more than 3 years, going on dozens of dates and then dating many Korean women not because I wanted to, but because of I had no other choice: I’m a foreigner.

I’ll explain.

I’ve read books about the country, am learning the language, and have helped both foreigners and Koreans with their dating lives. These are my conclusions:

Korea has some of the most beautiful and fun women in the world, but if you want to have a serious relationship with them in Korea you need to understand and accept a few things.

You need to understand that dating a foreigner is still seen as taboo here. On top of that, you’re going to have communication barriers beyond just language. Finally, you need to ask yourself how long you plan on living in Korea and if it’s worth it at all!

Dating a foreigner is still taboo!

When it comes to relationships, the only difference between dating in North Korea and South Korea is that both countries have different governments (Not that I’ve tried anything in North Korea! ;-) )

In spite of the “integration” that’s been happening in South Korea’s tourism industry, a Korean woman dating a foreign man is frowned upon and a woman’s peers assume that she is unable to find a proper Korean man so she has to settle for a foreigner.

I’m sorry, but that’s how it is in Korea. I told you, this is going to be brutal, but if you plan on coming here, I want you to know what I wish someone had told me. I want you to know just what you’re facing so that you won’t be as disappointed as I have been countless times.

To add to the fire, foreigners are harshly misrepresented in the Korean media, especially English Teachers. The standard viewpoint of English Teachers is that they’re “losers back home” who can’t get a proper job.  Armed with their fake degrees, they’ll come to Korea to make more money than they’re worth in the marketplace, or to spread AIDS with everyone who’s wearing a skirt.

I hate to say it, but foreigners will never be a part of Korean society as we know it: harmonious, functional, “pure”…

Discover the 3 main choices Korean women make!

So what happens? Korean women either:

a/ choose to go overseas and don’t tell their peers about their relationship(s) with foreigners
b/ choose to have a fling (or two) with foreigners just to satisfy a curiosity
c/ choose to go against their peers and thus against Korean society

When my Korean friends go overseas for the first time, I warn them. I tell them that they will not be the same person when they come back.

Like flying fish that jump out of the water for the first time, they will know that there is more to life than the society in which they grew up in (as for anyone leaving their native surroundings for the first time!)

Some of my Korean friends liked travelling so much that they never really came back. Their bodies might be back in Korea, but their minds and imagination is still overseas.

Choice (b) is very common in Korea. Now with an influx of foreign foods, goods, and people, both men and women are “sampling” foreigners to satisfy their curiosity.

This has hurt me the most. Many times I have had women leave our relationship simply because they never saw it as anything serious anyway (Not that there’s anything really wrong with that.)

Korean women are starting to explore their sexuality (which is great news) but they would not consider a serious relationship with a foreigner because of the reasons I talk about here.

For the last choice, Korean women must seriously consider what their peers will think of them. They have to deal with the stares that they’ll be getting on the street, in the subway, when they try to introduce you to their families.  Not to mention the barrage of questions they’ll be getting such as “Is he just another English Teacher?” or “Wasn’t he on T.V. For raping so and so?”

Note: I’m not even speaking for the foreigners who aren’t Westerners. If you’re from developing countries or aren’t white, then get ready to deal with worse than what I’m talking about here!

If you’re in Korea, you’ll have to accept the fact that some old man (adjoshi) might chase you down , yelling obscenities at your girlfriend just because she is with you. Sure, this is rare, but I’ve had it happen and have heard about it happen to too many friends to ignore it.

Just a few months ago, this article came out. Times are changing but are they changing fast enough so that your Korean girlfriend can feel comfortable enough to just walk with you?

Communication issues

Dating someone from another culture is challenging not only because of the ‘language problem’. You also have to understand and accept that the other person has other values and beliefs too! For Korean women, they hold values and beliefs that their society and culture have given them ever since they were little girls.

For one thing, many Korean women have the fears that I’ve talked about earlier.You also need to understand that in general Korean society tends to value:

-  harmony more than justice
-  the group more than the individual
-  conformity more than independence
-  silence more than sound
-  not being seen as wrong more than being right
-  social status more than the person who has it

These differences in values are what frustrates foreigners the most both in sexual and non-sexual relationships. If you plan on coming to Korea and what to date Korean women, you need to understand that in most cases, what they value and seek out of a relationship is different than what you might expect from your home country…radically different!

We’re not even talking about the language barrier yet. So imagine you are attracted to a Korean woman, and she is attracted to you. The fact of the matter is, if you can’t communicate with her then building anything ‘long term’ will be difficult, if not impossible.

Sure, you can get involved, and even have a relationship started, but eventually she and you will want to talk about deeper things and feelings. Not only that, but you will both have different expectations in your relationship.

Foreigners aren’t in Korea forever

Finally, you need to ask yourself one question: Is South Korea a place you plan on settling in or not?
Many foreigners choose to leave after a taste of Korea and that makes locals conclude that foreigners aren’t in Korea for the long term.

Many Korean women don’t want to get emotionally involved with a foreigner because somewhere in their mind, they figure that the foreigner will leave sooner or later.

What about you? Are you planning on making Korea a place to live in? Or are you just passing by? If you’ve just come to Korea, then don’t worry about this question. You’ll have plenty of time during your stay here to ask yourself that.

The reason why I pose this question to you because you have to be honest with both yourself and with the women you’re with. I personally believe that if you’re not planning on staying here for more than a year, then just have fun and enjoy your time here (just don’t lie to the women you’re with! ;-) )

Know what you’re dealing with and stay aware!

If you’re like me, and you’re seriously considering getting involved with a Korean woman, then understand the obstacles and roadblocks you’ll facing and start looking for that diamond in the rough!

Sure, my experience is that of a typical guy in his late-twenties living in Seoul. Please don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to be a pessimist. In fact I believe that if you’re willing to accept these facts (with an emphasis on “accept”) you can find ways around it. Many people have and are both in happy relationships and happily married in Korea.

I’m also not saying that there aren’t valid reasons for the circumstances we face. Too many foreigners have been careless and foolish here. Too many Koreans got hurt and they don’t want others to suffer the same fate. That’s why I’ve chosen to share my thoughts with you and prepare you for this wonderful country with it’s own wonders and challenges.

Thanks for reading!

BlueM

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Top 5 ESL Teaching Games

September 23, 2010 by · 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.

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