5 Types of Classes You’ll Have as an EPIK Teacher

5 Types of Classes You'll Have as an EPIK Teacher   Every class I teach has a distinct personality which is the puzzling combination of all 30 something personalities in the room. And despite the fact that often those personalities are each perfectly pleasant on their own they can sometimes combine into something truly bizarre.…

Korea Month 9: Feeling Good

  9 months in Korea. That's dangerously close to both double digits and also unbelievably close to a year that I've been here. The leaves have changed and in the past few days the weather has taken a turn for the "absolutely freezing" so I've been trying to navigate that as best I can. This…

Teaching Middle School with EPIK

With EPIK placements for the Spring 2018 intake coming up I know that many of your are in the horrible in-between waiting period. With nothing much to do other than think about packing and study Korean, I know that I spent a lot of time just desperately trying to envision what my life was going…

The Oscars Lesson: Part 2

I made a post a few weeks ago about a lesson that I did that went surprisingly well. It was called The Oscars lesson. The activity is essentially just "write a dialog" but disguised as "we're all going to the Oscars next week and you have to present a script." And it worked shockingly well.…

Korea Month 6: Calm Before the Storm

This has felt like the longest month I've had in my time here. Because I haven't had to teach any regular classes this entire month, the days have been very slowly, but happily, and peacefully passing by. It's incredible how the constant stress and tension of the regular semester schedule makes the weeks fly by.…

Reflecting on Semester One

February 12th I landed in Incheon airport with my entire life stuffed into two oversized suitcases. Now those suitcases sit pushed into a corner in my utility room holding my no longer wearable winter clothes. The past five months have been both the fastest and the longest of my life. I still remember landing in…

Korea Month 5: Rainy Season

Welcome to another update post. Since my last update we have started (and by the looks of it just about finished) the rainy season in Korea. It started very abruptly, like some flood gates had been opened two Sunday's ago and it rained for about four days straight without letting up. Since then it's been on…

The Moment of Truth: After School English Class

It wasn't until about 5 minutes after class had already started, as I was standing in front of the classroom greeting everyone, that I finally decided what we were going to do that day. It was Friday afternoon, I was completely exhausted, and the idea of going into my afterschool class and trying to force…