Tag: teaching abroad

The education system in South Korea is changing, and the thing about change is that it takes time to perfect. I learned this the hard way and it’s greatly impacted my year as an English teacher in The Land of The Morning Calm in many positive (and sometimes not so positive) ways.

As scary as it was though when I moved to Taiwan, I didn’t know a single person in the country. A couple years later, I had a group of some of the closest friends I’d ever met in my life. I don’t regret for an instant deciding to teach abroad alone.

Because classroom management is such a complicated balancing act between being fun and nice, and being strict enough to give kids the structure they need, many teachers find that it’s one of the hardest aspects of teaching to master.

We all know those teachers who are absolutely loved by everyone. As soon as they walk into class, the kids light up. Other teachers regularly turn to them for advice. Their students always seem to be ahead of the curve, and they just seem happy to step into the classroom every day. What exactly is it that they’re doing that works so well?

Teaching abroad is a fun and enriching experience for both you the teacher and the students, there is such a huge amount to be gained from the experience in aspects of teaching and being in your host country. However, there seems to be a lot of bad information out there as to the reality of teaching English abroad. Slogans such as “Teach English abroad, it’s a fun and easy way to travel” are misguiding.

Just about everyone is shy sometimes. Especially in a new classroom, with a new teacher, a lot of kids need time to break the ice and get comfortable speaking up.

When I first made the decision to move to Korea as an English teacher, fear hadn’t dawned on me yet. It wasn’t until I started telling my friends and family about my upcoming adventure that I began feeling the sting of anxiety. I realized that almost every person I knew had asked me in one way or another, “Aren’t you scared?” At first I kept thinking, “Of course not!” Then, I started to wonder, “Should I be?”

Grammar probably ranked pretty high on your list of least favorite subjects as a student. As a teacher, it can seem just as boring. When it comes to teaching ESL, though, you’re going to be spending a lot of time getting very familiar with the minute points of grammar, and then figuring out how to communicate those to your students.