What’s better: One year, one country or one year, many countries? I definitely agree on the latter, which is why we put together this list to help English teachers in Korea decide how best to use their vacation days while living abroad. Asia is huge, beautiful, and exploding with must-see destinations.
It’s hard to believe it’s already been a full week since I left Asia for the land of cheeseburgers, bald eagles, and freedom. Transitioning from the crowded, bustling streets of Taiwan to the white paved pedestrian sidewalks in America has been no easy feat.
It’s one thing to talk about establishing clear rules right from the start of class, but it’s another thing to implement them effectively. It’s crucial for classroom management, to have a simple set of rules that you enforce consistently and fairly.
Talk to just about anyone involved in South Korean education, and you quickly learn that the pupils of this rising Asian nation are tired. Not only because of the daily school grind, the fatigue also comes from the invasion of continued academics into what little break they have.
As an ESL teacher, there is a good chance that you’ll find yourself teaching a class of total beginners. This doesn’t just mean that they will struggle with basic sentence patterns or pronunciation – it means that when you step into the classroom and say “Hello, what’s your name?” you’ll be greeted by blank stares and the sound of crickets chirping.
Do your students greet the words “Take out your journals” with a collective, resounding groan? For most students, expressing their ideas on paper is a challenge even in their native language, let alone doing so with creativity, style, and decent grammar. Throw a foreign language into the mix, and writing can seem utterly daunting.
The learning curve for a new ESL teacher can be pretty steep. But don’t get discouraged. Here are five things that every new ESL teacher should know. Master these basic concepts and ideas, and you’ll be well on your way to teaching like a pro and feeling totally comfortable every time you step into the classroom.
It’s difficult to take control back from a class that is used to acting out and behaving badly, but it’s not impossible. What it takes is patience, persistence, commitment, and a long-term strategy. Follow these guidelines for taking back control from a difficult class, and you’ll find things starting to turn around before you know it.