Teaching in Korea

I'm tuning in for a quick, mid-week post since I was unable to write this weekend (and by unable, I don't mean too busy... rather, too lazy). As you know, the purpose of our stay in Korea - and the reason we were flown out and are now housed for free - is to teach! This has been a transition period for us not only culturally, but also into a new school, and in Tony's case, a new profession.

The KC staff is wonderful!!! We went on a training retreat to a resort in the mountains.

Our school is a private school called Kids' College. It's a small school with four classrooms, a kitchen, and an after-school nursery on the first level, and four classrooms on the second level as well as a "gym" (open space), and teachers' offices.

Morning time is for kindergarten, or kindy, as it's called here. The children are 5-7 years old Korean age (Korean age is +1; in Korea I am 25, but in the States I'm 24... you're considered 1 year old when you're born). My students are 5 years old, so really they're the same age as my nephew, who hasn't started formal schooling yet! Tony's kids are 7, so they're the most advanced kindy class. Mine is the newest... and rowdiest. The classes are rather small: I have 5 kids, and Tony has 6.



Me and my kindies on a field trip at the post office!

We report to the school by 9 (Tony and I like to arrive around 8:30-8:45 to prep), and the first kindy class begins at 9:30. From there, we teach 40-minute periods with 10-minute breaks between - and a lunch - until 2:00. It's five classes total: some arrangement of phonics, math, science, language arts, gym, music, story time, theme activities, and so on. Truthfully, the schedules are very complex - it's a lot to remember!

After a break between kindy and elementary, we begin teaching again at 2:30. All elementary students go to a different school during the day, and come to Kids' College for after-school programming. This is called "hagwon" in Korea, and it's very common. Many of our students are only 7, 8, 9 years old, but they report to various after-school activities, and it's not just soccer practice or girl scouts. They have piano lessons, martial arts, math school, or a variety of others, along with their English studies at KC. It's a lot of pressure - and homework! The kids often hint at how little free time they have day in and day out. We try to help them have a good time so that they see English as fun learning, not a chore.

Elementary students are aged 7-13, depending on the class. My classes are rather advanced, but Tony's are still pretty basic. In fact, he often tells me that his kindy kids know more than his elementary students! The class sizes are bigger after school as well, but still not as big as I'm used to in the States. The maximum students in a class is 14. In elementary classes, we focus on vocabulary, reading, speech or debate, and sciences.



Cute but evil >:)

Each day, we have a key sentence and 2-3 key words to teach the students at the beginning of class; these are used in their daily homework. Each student shares what's going on or how they're feeling, and then we sing a song and practice speeches. Then we get on to the lesson and activities.

The most demanding part of the job is certainly lesson planning. Our kindy lesson plans are due a week and a half in advance, each Tuesday. Elementary lessons are due Thursday. Between all the students' levels, the school subjects, the routines, and the textbooks, it's hard to keep it all straight, but after three weeks, we're finally starting to get into the swing of it.

Most of this has been quite technical, and I'll surely get into the day-to-day details of what it's like to work as an English teacher in Korea soon. If you have any specific questions, please ask in the comments! I'd love to share more with you.



Have you ever thought about teaching abroad? What do you think about the school system here?

Kindy craft - we made squid!