Exploring Daejeon

It's the end of my first week in Daejeon and all is going well so far! Everyone at my school is really nice, although it's a bit strange being the only foreign teacher. I work from 11.00am to 7.00pm every day and teach around 6 hours a day - my classes range from kindergarten to middle school students. I teach some phonics classes - the first time I've taught phonics (as the Korean teachers handled phonics at SLP). It's fairly easy, but fairly boring, although, as the students are in elementary school, they're a lot of fun and enjoy playing silly games!

I spent the weekend exploring Songchondong and some of Daejeon. Even though it's the middle of October, the weather is still warm and sunny. There are some shrines in my neigbourhood, the largest of which is called Dongchundang. The park is a tribute to a Confucian scholar Dongchundang who lived here.

Dongchundang Park

Songchondong is on the outskirts of the city with countryside and mountains just the other side of the motorway. The nearest mountain (visible from my apartment) is called Gyejoksan and apparently there is some kind of fortress at the top, so I'll definitely be hiking up there sometime!

The city centre is a little spread out. The old downtown area (Eunhangdong) is between Daejeon station and Jungangno. There is a large outdoor market near the station and then a mostly pedestrianised shopping district over the river with clothes/shoe shops, coffee shops etc. There is also a large underground shopping mall which runs from Daejeon station.

The bridge which leads into Eunhangdong looks a bit like a giant Croc shoe!

Then there is new downtown near City Hall in Dunsan-dong which is centred around the Timeworld/Galleria department store. There are less shops here, but lots of restaurants, bars and clubs. The main foreigner bars seem to be Yellow Taxi and Sponge. Then there are a couple of large department stores elsewhere. Say is in Seodaejeon and is a pretty big department store with lots of concessions including Uniqlo, Artbox and Kosney. There is a Lotte Department Store somewhere, but I've not found it yet!

Return to Korea!

Ever since I finished the CELTA course in May, I had been pondering what to do and where to go in the autumn. I was offered 2 jobs in Europe - one in Bratislava in Slovakia and one in the Czech Republic. Both jobs looked great and I would be teaching teenagers and adults rather than young learners, but sadly the salaries offered (and those throughout Europe) seemed close to subsistence level. I was really keen on the Bratislava job, but after spending a weekend there, it was clear that my net salary would barely see me through the month.

Soooooo, I decided to come back to Korea! I was hoping to get a job in Seoul, but the huge influx of young American grads due to the recession meant that jobs were not so easy to come by for a 30-something Brit! I had three phone interviews and was offered two jobs - one was with an English village in the middle of nowhere which had shorter hours and more vacation time, but was in the middle of nowhere and one with a hagwon in Daejeon. The woman I spoke to in Daejeon seemed really nice and friendly on the phone and they were willing to give me an extra 2 days vacation as they really wanted me, so I accepted and a few weeks later was on a flight to Seoul! I flew with Emirates - nice food, lots of legrooms and a widescreen video screen with tons to watch! I had a whole set of films I wanted to watch on the second leg of my flight from Dubai to Incheon, but fell asleep immediately after finishing my meal and didn't wake up until the next meal service came round, about an hour before landing! Nice to get such a good sleep on a plane though!

Birmingham and Surrey

After finishing work with ELAC, I was offered another summer camp job with a different firm (who shall remain nameless, but who definitely lived up to the summer camp stereotypes!).

On the way down to Surrey, I stayed overnight in Birmingham and met up with Tunde from my CELTA course who was teaching at Birmingham Uni over the summer. She definitely had a cushier job, teaching for about 12 hours a week for much more money, but then again, she does have years of experience teaching adults! We went out for some food and had a good catch up.

I arrived in Surrey on the Monday to find everything in chaos awaiting the new students arrival. I waited at the station for about an hour for someone to pick me up and there wasn't a bedroom ready for me. In the end, another teacher and me just went to find a room and picked one that looked as if it wasn't being used! As the camp was at a boarding school rather than a university or college, most of the rooms were shared (luckily all the staff were given single rooms the next day) and didn't have locks, so I had to lock all my valuables in my suitcase and hope for the best.

The camp was expecting around 200 Chinese students aged between 10 and 12 for 2 weeks. The teachers were expected to teach for 3 hours a day and do activities for 6 hours a day, a pretty hefty workload, especially with staff meetings on top. The Course Leader was a deeply unpleasant man and was pretty much unprepared for the new students. The students were not streamed according to ability and I ended up with one class of 30 students ranging from complete beginners to Intermediate! One of the teachers lasted a week then quit and I lasted about a week and a half... not a great experience!

Nottingham

I spent July teaching at a summer camp in the UK (in Nottingham to be precise). For those of you unfamiliar with the concept of summer camps, they are a study vacation for (mostly) European teenagers studying English to give them a chance to be immersed in the language and culture for a couple of weeks. Working for summer camps has a bit of a bad rep due to long hours, low pay, shoddy accommodation etc, but I struck lucky working for ELAC. They were recommended to me by Jim, one of the guys I was on the CELTA course with as he works as a Course Director for them, and fortunately I ended up working with him and his friend Kera, who I met when she visited him in Budapest.

As the camp was based at Nottingham Uni, we all got our own en-suite rooms which were in good condition. We taught for around 6 hours a day and supervised evening activities a couple of times a week. As the students came with their own group leaders (usually their teachers), we didn't have any onerous pastoral duties (getting the students up in the morning and making sure they go to bed at night). We also had 3 meals a day provided; the catering was a bit monotonous (and the Italian students complained a lot about the food), but it was much better than the food I was served at university!

We had to plan our own lessons (although we did have plenty of text books and other resources) which was time consuming, but meant we could be creative in our lesson plans and I could put all that new CELTA training into action! For the most part, the students were great and I really enjoyed teaching them. They were mostly Intermediate-Upper Intermediate, so the speaking activities flowed really well as they were able to reason in English and put their views across.

The best thing about working here though was definitely the people! The other teachers were all great and I made some really good friends. After a few days, it felt as if we'd known each other for years! We would always go out for a few drinks on a Saturday night which is how we invented slide conga and Rich invented slide-boarding using ashtrays as skis!

Nottingham itself was nicer than I thought it would be.... the city centre is very Victorian with lots of grand buildings and is great for shopping! We gave the pubs a good sampling - special shout out to the Three Wheatsheafs where we spent many an hour and the Johnson Arms for introducing me to Crabbies Alcoholic Ginger Beer! The only dodgy moment was being shouted at by some chavs on a Saturday night who took objection to the house party we were at and threatened to "shoot us up"!

CELTA course

The CELTA course is very intensive and hard work, but I learnt a lot over the course of the 4 weeks and came away with a Pass Grade B! I made some great friends on the course, especially among my TP (Teaching Practice Group).

CELTA trainees, April - May 2010

If you're thinking of doing a full-time CELTA course, you need to be prepared for long hours, a lot of hard work, being thrown into teaching (you teach a short lesson on the second day of the course, very daunting for those who had never taught before!) and to be observed and given feedback by both the tutors and your peers. A lot of the TP assessment will concentrate on lesson planning; the evenings before a teaching session were always spent doing very detailed lesson plans!

The timetable went something like this:

9.00 - 11.00 Teaching Practice

11.00 -12.00 Feedback

12.00 - 1.00 Lesson planning

2.00 - 5.00/5.30 Input sessions (seminars with the tutors concentrating on a certain topic, eg Teaching Pronunciation)

In addition, there are 4 written assignments to complete (approx. 1,000 words each).

However, it wasn't all work....some evenings (ie the ones with no lesson planning required) were spent at the Moskva Ter Bisztro across the road drinking 300Ft (less than £1) beers or meals out. Friday nights were spent at Godor (a vast underground bar near Deak Ferenc Ter) or Moskva Ter.

The only lowpoint for me was having a nasty bout of food poisoning around the end of Week 3 which left me unable to leave the flat and unable to keep any food down all weekend. I blame the dodgy Chinese takeaway...most of the Chinese takeaways here have buffet counters where you choose what you want and they stick it in the microwave to heat up, not the best way to deal with rice. Best to avoid!

Monsoon Season

When I first arrived in Korea, I was warned about how hot and humid it would get during the summer months. So far, we've had a few weeks of nice, sunny weather (hot, but not so hot that you have to spend every moment huddled under the aircon), mostly perfect summer days (the type we have in Britain about once a year). However, no-one warned me about monsoon season! For the last week or so, we have had torrential rain. Busan (which I am visiting next week) made international news earlier in the week when flooding caused one street to be blocked by various debris including several upside down cars (for a picture, check out the BBC website http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/8153739.stm).

Apparently monsoon season lasts a couple of weeks, then there is a brief respite of sun and clear skies (when all of Korea takes their summer holidays) before typhoon season starts in mid August! Still, the rains gave me the impetus I needed to properly sort out my new-ish apartment which is now tidy and gleaming in readiness for Lisa's arrival on Thursday.

Some school students in Bucheon have been diagnosed as suffering Swine Flu, so several of the public schools here have closed for summer a week early. We were a little hopeful last week that we may get an extra week off for vacation, but sadly money rules at a hagwon, so it looks doubtful.

Just an update...

I've been a little slack in updating this regularly mainly because I'm not doing quite so much sightseeing as I did when I first arrived in Korea and have checked off a good number of touristy things around Seoul and Bucheon. I am very excited as I will be having my first visitor from back home soon as the lovely Lisa is coming to stay for a fortnight at the end of July. We're going to travel down to Busan to spend a few days by the beach, hopefully venture over to one of the islands near Incheon and spend some time in Seoul.

I was off work for 4 days with tonsillitis, but luckily the antibiotics cleared it up. Being ill in a country where the most people don't speak English was an experience I'd rather not go through again, but I was lucky that there is an information desk for foreigners and the nurse there helped me through the process. I had a belated birthday night out on Saturday. I met Robyn, Dara, Janice and Keith for pizza, then we went to WB Bar for cocktails before going to Double, a club near Bucheon station where we saw a Korean hip hop band called Supreme Team and watched bemused as the Koreans went mad for them!

I'm trying to get in a routine of keeping fit. I walk round the park near me a few times a week and have joined a softball team which meets up for the first time on Saturday. Let's hope it doesn't get too hot for a little while! We've had some glorious weather recently which has been a good excuse to stock up on some summer clothes. Most of the summer stuff I bought with me was holiday clothes, so I needed some skirts and sandals for work. I haven't had too much trouble finding shoes and clothes here, although a UK size 6 is the largest standard shoe size here! There aren't many decent clothes shops in Bucheon, although I've discovered a large Uniqlo concession in the GS Square Department Store! Apparently July and August are very hot and humid. I had a little taster at the weekend as it rained all day on Saturday and then got very warm and humid on Sunday. Thankfully it has been much fresher today. I have air con in my apartment and at school - I think its my favourite ever invention!

I'm still enjoying teaching and the majority of my students are great. The preschool students are continuing to pick up English at a quick rate. It amazes me how well some of them are able to communicate in English when 4 months ago, they could barely speak a word of English! Today, I had an open class when the parents sat in on a lesson. It was pretty stressful as some of the parents complain about anything. One girl's mother complained that her daughter wasn't getting as many stickers as her friend (the students are given sticker sheets which they can exchange for a gift when completed). This is the same mother who complained about art class a couple of months ago, so I'm sure she will have something to say about the open class! I think I had my revenge though as the students made flower trumpets in art class today which I allowed them to take home with them and they were very noisy!

I've not taken many photos recently, but I was walking around the Jongno area in Seoul the other week and thinking to myself that often Korea doesn't feel very Asian when I came across some little alleyways which felt much more Asian than all the towerblocks and shopping malls.

Sadly it seems that these little alleys nestled in amongst Seoul's high rises are becoming increasingly rare. Not far from here, the area of Pimatgol, a tangle of small streets, has recently been demolished as part of the 'urban renewal' process. It seems a shame that these little characterful areas are disappearing to be presumably replaced by more homogenous office blocks.

Update

Its been a busy few days...

On Thursday, all the preschool teachers went out for a meal. We had samgyeopsal (barbecued pork) in a traditional Korean restaurant which meant sitting on cushions on the floor. My bum went numb after about half an hour, give me a proper chair anyday! The Korean teachers, who seem so quiet in school, really know how to knock back the booze. I ended up having to drink a shot of soju in a glass of beer - it did not taste good. Afterwards we went to a noraebang (private karaoke rooms) and I sang Delilah which reminded me of rugby days out in Cardiff and made me feel a little bit homesick....

Friday was Teacher's Day when students give cards and presents to their teachers. Sadly, our school had sent letters to the parents asking them not to give presents, but I still received a few including chocolates, doughnuts, candles, an umbrella and 100,000 won (about £50) in Hyundai gift vouchers!

On Friday night, we went out for samgyeopsal again (this time seated on proper chairs, my bum was thankful) for a leaving party for one of the American teachers. After stuffing our faces, we went onto the Park for a couple of drinks. The others headed to a club near Bucheon Station, but I needed an early night as I was moving apartments the next day.

I moved into the apartment just vacated by the teacher who just left while the new teacher moved into my little cell! My new apartment has a separate bedroom, is a fair bit bigger and actually overlooks the street rather than the airshaft. The only downside is that it has a slightly funky smell and needs a good scrub to make it habitable...!

Last night, a few of us went out for a meal at an Indian restaurant called Annapura near Bucheon station. I've been craving non-Korean food for a couple of weeks and the restaurant was a nice discovery as the curries and naan bread were delicious! The restaurant has nice, comfy booths and Bollywood musicals playing in the background. I just hope I can find it again as the streets and alleys around Bucheon station are a bit of a maze!

Pros and cons of teaching in a hagwon

In Korea, it is common for parents to send their children to hagwons (or private schools). As well as hagwons which specialise in teaching English (like the one I work in), there are also hagwons specialising in math, science and art amongst others. It is not uncommon for students to attend several hagwons as well as their normal school and I've heard of hagwons running classes until midnight! As an English teacher in Korea, you are likely to work for either a public school or a hagwon.
The benefits of working for a hagwon are that you will be working with other foreign teachers, so you will get to meet and work with other people who speak English (or at least American English!) which can make it easier to settle in. If you work for a public school, you are likely to be the only English teacher on the staff. There are many horror stories on the web about unscrupulous hagwon owners, so it is important to do your research before signing anything (do a google search for "hagwon blacklist")!

You may end up doing more teaching hours in a hagwon than you would in a public school, but on the plus side, you are teaching from a set curriculum and there is much less prep work and lesson planning to do. Public school teachers theoretically get more holiday time, but they may have to teach English camp during the summer holidays. Teachers at hagwons may have to work more unusual work hours (eg after school classes). Luckily for me, I teach 9.50 to 6.50 on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, but finish teaching at 2.20 on Tuesdays and 1.20 on Thursdays.

The main downside to working for a hagwon from my point of view is the parents! Korean education is very competive and the parents (or at least the mothers) take a very keen interest in how their children are doing at school. Fair enough, I hear you say, after all they are paying for their children to attend the hagwon. But some of them do take it too far.

I teach art to my preschool students in a 35 minute lesson on Mondays and Tuesdays. Last week, one of the mothers rang to say she was extremely disappointed because her daughter wasn't showing enough development in art and that she thought the teacher (ie me) wasn't paying her enough attention as her daughter did not know what to draw in art class. Also her daughter was far too advanced for her preschool class and should be moved up a level and how could teacher not see this as she can speak and write in English fluently at home! The main problem for the daughter regarding art is that she has absolutely no imagination when it comes to drawing as I think her competitive parents have drummed all imagination out of her in order for her to concentrate fully on her education.

I was able to show the preschool manager the drawings done by the other students in the same class which were imaginative and full of colour - just like a normal 6 year olds drawings should be. Although said daughter is one of my brightest students, she is by no means fluent in English and is not ready to be moved up a level, not by a long way.

Having spoken to some of the other teachers, this sort of thing is by no means uncommon as some parents are just so pushy and competitive, they will try anything to get their child ahead of the game and you just have to laugh it off really as it happens countless times. It seems a bit sad to me though that young children can't just enjoy themselves (as well as learning, of course!)

Rant over....

My day was brightened up though when I got into class this morning. One of the students handed me a letter he had written for me over the weekend which said 'Hello teacher. Are you happy today? I am happy and surprised"! Not sure what he was surprised by, but it was really sweet and reminds me that nearly all my preschoolers are happy, bright young children!

Botanical Gardens

Yesterday we had a field trip to the Botanical Gardens on the outskirts of Bucheon for the preschoolers. It was lovely to be out in the sunshine rather than in a classroom, although being responsible for 10 overexcited 7 year olds took the edge off. Koreans count age differently - age is counted from conception rather than birth, so the students' Western ages are actually 5 or 6 years old. It must have been field trip day as the park seemed to contain every preschooler from the whole of Bucheon. Luckily the worst to happen was a clash of heads between two of the students. It made me realise how much their English has improved, especially when one of them came up to me and said "Teacher, explain glacial"!

I didn't notice a huge amount about the botanical gardens, partly because all the labels were mostly in Korean and partly because all my attention went on keeping my students in check, but I do remember some turkeys who were fighting in their cage and some cut bunny rabbits! Afterwards we ate gimbap (Korean version of sushi) for lunch in the park, but then hurried back to school when it started raining!

Its traditional here for parents to give presents to teachers. So far this week, I've received a huge box of gimbap, 4 cakes, 6 doughnuts, iced coffees and fruit. I know this is not a purely philanthropic gesture, I'm fairly sure the parents do this to try and ensure their son or daughter receives preferential treatment (education here is hugely competitive). It won't work, I'm not going to pay extra attention to any student just because their parents gave me some cake, but as far as I'm concerned they can keep on giving me presents anyway!

Easter

Good Friday and Easter Monday are not public holidays in Korea, so no long 4 day weekend for me. We took the preschoolers to the park for an Easter Egg hunt in the morning. There isn't a tradition of chocolate easter eggs here, so the children hunted for hard boiled eggs, they didn't seem to mind though. They found all their eggs and ate them with lunch. If there had been chocolate eggs, I'm fairly sure some of them may have disappeared into teacher's bag...

Although today and Monday aren't public holidays, we do have a long weekend coming up at the start of May. Children's Day ("the day on which to esteem the personalities of children and plan for their happiness") is held on 5th May which is on a Tuesday this year and our boss has given us the Monday off work as well. Fingers crossed that the weather is nice...

Birthday party

Once a month, on Fun Friday, a birthday party is held for all the preschool students. The students make birthday cards for any students whose birthday is in that month and we all sing "Happy Birthday to you" in the gym. The birthday students are given birthday cakes to share with their classmates (and their teacher of course). Good times!

Teaching

Well, I survived my first week of teaching on my own. It wasn't too daunting as the lessons are all fairly straightforward to plan as you follow a set syllabus. I teach preschool in the morning from 9.50 to 12.40. Then I eat lunch with the preschoolers (free lunch is a nice moneysaver). The lunches are usually pretty nice. We always have rice and soup along with 3 or 4 side dishes, including the ubiquitious kimchi.

In the afternoons on Monday, Wednesday and Friday I teach 5 classes of 40 minutes each ranging from complete beginners upwards. I really like my last class of the day, there's only 4 students who are all really nice and they're my most advanced class, so we can have proper conversations in English. My largest class has only 10 students (both preschool classes and my beginners class) and 3 of my classes only have 4 students. On Mondays, we concentrate mainly on conversation, then on Wednesdays you can give the students a worksheet to complete and on Fridays, you can play a game (the students don't realise they are still learning while they are playing a game!)

St Patrick's Day

I teach preschool every day from 9.50 until 12.40 and every Friday is known as 'Fun Friday' when the kids get to draw and make stuff rather than do regular lessons. Today we celebrated St Patrick's Day and all the teachers and students wore something green. I tried to explain to them what St Patrick's Day was all about (not easy when they've only been studying English for 3 weeks), taught them to say "Happy St Patricks Day" and we made and decorated some paper shamrocks.

All the preschool students then had a 'getting to know you' session in the big playgym where they all introduced themselves and each class chanted (ie shouted) 'Happy St Patricks Day'. I was very proud that my class said it the best!

My first day

It was the start of term the next day, so I headed to the school to meet the other teachers and observe classes for the day. There are 8 other foreign teachers (mostly from the US and Canada, I'm the only Brit) and a number of Korean teachers.

I moved into my apartment that evening. Its just a studio flat, but its nice enough and the whole ‘foreign-ness’ may make me forget its titchiness for the time being. Instead of having locks on your front door, here you have a keypad and you have to enter your PIN to get in. I’m fairly sure I will forget mine at some point!

In the mornings, I will be teaching pre-schoolers. They are 6-7 year olds who speak very little English, although its amazing how quickly they will pick up the language as all their classes are conducted in English (even the Korean teachers only speak English to them). On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I finish teaching after pre-school has finished and for the rest of the week, I will be teaching older students in the afternoons ranging from complete beginners up to more advanced students.

My apartment

Kitchenette

Bathroom

Keypad - I'll never lose my keys again!