Teaching Archives - Living in Another Language

Teaching ESL is Hard

Written by: Amanda // Category: South Korea, Teaching

Here's the plain truth: 99.9% of people don't know what an ESL teacher is, or what they actually do. The shocker? Neither do I sometimes. Some may try deceiving their relatives into thinking they have this huge important job, when really that teacher hasn't the slightest clue what's going on. Welcome to my world. Sigh. Here are a few disclaimers about this post: a. I've never worked in a public school, and I know 90% of their employed foreigners are legitimately putting together lesson plans, learning boards, etc. b. This is a generalized post about the stories and jokes bounced off of teachers in a social setting. Don't take this post too seriously. c. I really do love the randomness of my job. If anything it leads to a very ... Read More

Thirty-three reasons why I love my job.

Written by: Amanda // Category: South Korea, Teaching

Last year I taught kindergarten; I taught a lot of kindergarten. Five separate classes, five days a week with the same 33 kiddos. It didn't start out that way, I started out with Yellow Team (brand spankin' new 5 year olds who didn't know any English) and Blue and Purple Team ( 6 year olds who already had a year + of English). After Derik left, I inherited his students too: Green and Pink Team (7 year old graduating students). I had my hands full, and I'm gonna be honest, sometimes I wanted to pull my hair out. I was so tired after teaching kindy that I just wanted to curl up and take a nap instead of teach the rest of my six elementary classes in the late afternoon. There was always one fact that remained throughout the year, I ... Read More

So…you want to be an ESL teacher?

Written by: Amanda // Category: Expat Living, South Korea, Teaching

First of all, what is it? ESL stands for English as a Second Language, and is for people whom English is not their first language. Obviously as a teacher you'd be teaching the very young, teens, and even adults English. Korea holds a very special place in ESL destinations...and that's because it remains one of the highest paid locations in the world. It's no secret that being an ESL teacher can be quite lucrative...especially for a newly graduated college student. Nine times out of ten, most academies and schools will pay not only for your housing needs, but for your flight ticket over, and most of your teaching materials. This is why the opportunity to save money is so great. How much could a person make? The average starting salary is ... Read More

Year one

Written by: Amanda // Category: Expat Living, South Korea, Teaching

Many of you may not have noticed, but we've officially been in Korea one year. I honestly didn't notice until I was asked on our one year anniversary...how long I had been in Korea. Thank you stranger for reminding me, or this blog post may not have happened. I guess this month also marks a year of blogging. I couldn't be more in love with my blog...thanks for reading it. I've actually been quite surprised and blessed with my readers. I originally just made the blog for my family and friends to read, but then 10,000 views later I realize that it may be (hopefully) benefitting others too! Thank you for your comments, suggestions, and emailed questions. One year. What can I say? It's gone way to fast. I am so thankful that my husband ... Read More

Weird Wednesday (01/09)

Written by: Amanda // Category: Teaching, Weird Wednesday

There are some things that never cease to amaze me, or make any sense. Thus the reason for creating my weekly post 'Weird Wednesday.' You can check out the first post from last week here. As winter approached Geoje Island, I began to notice the lack of proper heating structure in Korea. Either you're getting heated out of your home due to the apartment above you having their floor heat on full blast, and the apartment below you doing the same thing (I call it the grilled cheese effect, and Derik and I happen to be the grilled cheese), or you're working in a school that, for some reason, still uses space heaters as it's only source of heat. I can live with the space heaters. I can live with wearing my jacket and gloves all day at school. ... Read More

Delicate

Written by: Amanda // Category: South Korea, Teaching, Weekly Photo Challenges

A snowflake. Is there anything else more delicate? Intricate? One-of-a-kind? It still blows my mind that each one is made differently. It reminds me how complex the world was created...and a lot of times we just take it for granted. This week's photo challenge wanted readers to post a photo that means something 'delicate' to them. A few weeks ago I was preparing my classroom to look 'Christmas-y' with my kindi students. I, of course, whipped out the old trick of paper snowflakes. The kids had never made them before and had an absolute blast cutting paper. After trial and error, trial and error (lets face it, it took us ALL a while to figure out that you cant cut all the edges), we finally had a winning batch of truly unique ... Read More

Halloween: ‘korean style’

Written by: Amanda // Category: Holidays, Teaching

I have this little boy in my class that is obsessed with the world renowned hit song by PSY: 'Gangnam Style'. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, click on the link immediately. It will only help you understand my little boy named Tim. He can sing this song backwards, forwards, and also can impressively sing quite a few parodies. He's decided to take the phrase: "Gangnam Style" as his own, and anything he thinks is cool and relevant to him he calls it, "_____ style!" Im talking about everything. On Fridays I try to do crafts with my little Kindi students. I usually end up with some sort of origami paper craft, it's the easiest and with the least material. I found some cute strawberry origami paper, so I decided to make strawberries ... Read More

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