Tagged: teaching

Semester wrap up reviews

School is wrapping up and it is near the end of the school year. I’m reviving my blog now because I found learned what was required to update my wordpress installation. My host is security conscious to the point that updating anything was a chore. So I’ve been wanting to do a review on my teaching experience in South Korea.

Compared to the first semester this second semester has been much more successful. Challenges in the first and second semester summed up to mis-planning, mistrust, and miscommunication. Ultimately I was caught in between the miscommunication between my native coworker and my Korean coworkers. Looking back on it now I think that some things could have been handled a lot better but because of the cultures and personalities involved there was not much that could be fixed.

Looking back at these two semesters I am pleased with the results that we received. I think that the students had many opportunities to practice their speaking and writing. They had many chances to interact and learn about Western culture and for the most part have enjoyed the experience. I wish that I could have been able to interact more with my co-teachers and plan lessons together but due to their limited time schedules it was never feasible. They did provide some commentary after lessons finished but were not able to be part of the planning stage. We could teach anything that we would have liked but having a book might have brought some stability to the lessons that we planned.

The students have always been good and I’ve rarely had any discipline problems. I find it difficult to be hard on some of these students. Sleeping in class is the worst that tends to happen and for the most part I just feel sorry how tired these students are. Some areas where I would have liked to explore learning might have involved using some computer based lessons but coordinating anything is very difficult. Everything is planned at the last minute and making a plan is fruitless.

I have enjoyed my time here in South Korea, specifically, Suncheon. However, I am ready to move on to other endeavors. I would like to use my Masters’ of Arts in Library Information Science for some other purposes. I think that user experience, interaction design, and traditional librarianship are areas that I would be comfortable working with.

Fall has begun in South Korea

Well I have certainly put this blog post off for far too long. It has been 5 months since I have committed a blog post to this website. In our modern times it is just easier to be active on a social network and making minimal posts than the typical gargantuan meandering posts I would tend to post here.

The Fall semester has begun! A month in and a writing test is already completed. Soon we’ll prepare for our speaking test at the Girls’ High School. Last semester was a mess in several ways. The coteachers were new, the native speakers were new, and the format was new for students. So it was quite a struggle to adapt to each other and complete our tests in a fair and just way. So some mistakes were made and we spent extra time making sure that everyone had a fair grade and fair chance.

You may not be aware if you’re not in South Korea but high school is an extremely stressful time for students. Being accepted into a good university is essential and a small grade percentage can have a huge affect on a students future. This weekend I traveled with my girlfriend to the buddhist temple and saw many people praying for their children to do well on the national University entrance exam or Korean SAT.

For the most part my inclination to write has been tamped because there are quite a bit of Western teachers in Korea. It’s not such a unique position to be in and writing about how unique my situation is is a little difficult. There are many other better blogs that explain what living in South Korea is like. It’s a nice place and I am enjoying my time. If I am going to write about anything especially here it is going to be about my experience and not about retreading the same topics.

Overall I am glad to be teaching and I feel like it is a good experience for me and my future career. My masters’ degree is in Library Information Sciences and a big part of that is instruction. Librarians or information professionals have to be instructors at times and teaching information literacy or any other topic is not a simple task. This trial by fire in teaching is pushing me to adapt my skills and abilities to a varied audience. Hopefully I can incorporate that into a path in the future.

Suncheon is a good place to be and the food is enjoyable. It is a small town though compared to Coalinga it has more entertainment and shopping to offer. Nature is close by and hiking is a favorite activity for many people.

I’m trying to learn Korean but it is quite hard. Until I can find a someone to tutor me it is going to be slow going teaching myself. However, I am quite interested in learning and the little I do know helps me greatly in this town. In the next blog post there will be more pictures.