TOPIK II Korean Exam The Korean proficiency exam, called TOPIK, is broken up into two tests. TOPIK I is the beginner one and you can score a level 1 or level 2. TOPIK II is the intermediate/advanced exam and you can score a level 3-6. I took TOPIK I in January of last year…
Story Time: My Korean Hospital Experience This is the story of the time I found myself waking up to a nurse telling me that I was having an allergic reaction in the middle of a procedure I was supposed to have slept through. In Korea. At the time it was just as horrifying as…
Continue reading ➞ Story Time: My Korean Hospital Experience
It's not your fault. As teachers I know it's easy to think that is, but it's not. Well some things are, of course. We are responsible for ourselves and responsible to always try to make the best lessons we can and do right by our students. But for anyone teaching in a public school,…
August Update: Summer Break August was a very transitional month. We finished English camp, I got my eight days of summer vacation which I spent relaxing at home, and we started the second semester back up at school. Everyone seems to finally be falling back into their regular routines and as we do the…
Why I Love Living in Daejeon, Korea (And why I'm glad I DON'T live in Seoul.) I officially got my Daejeon placement from EPIK on December 14, 2016. My immediate reaction was to start frantically searching for cool cafe's and restaurants and try to figure out where in the city I was hoping to…
Dear New EPIK Teachers, I think a lot of you will be walking into your schools to work for the first time on Monday. It wasn't all that long ago that I did the same exact thing and to be perfectly honest I'll be walking into school again on Monday with my own set or…
Jeju Day 3: The Sunny Day We woke up that morning to grey misty skies still unsure if we'd be able to get the beach day that we were hoping for. Where we were staying, directly in Seoguipo, it pretty much rained the entire day but as we made our way out towards Hyeopjae…
Jeju Day 2: The Rainy Day Our second day on Jeju Island was the rainy one. We woke up to light misty rain that pretty much kept up throughout the entire day. For breakfast we went to a cafe that I looked in pictures to be the "bagel cafe of dreams" (for a bagel…
Jeju Day 1: Travel and Vadada Cafe Known to many as the "Hawaii of Korea" Jeju is a volcanic island of the southern coast of the Korean peninsula and many people's go-to vacation spot due to its beautiful scenery and relative ease of access. I recently had three days off of work while my kids…
What Korean Middle School Students Are Worried About (Or: What my kids wanted to tell me when they had 2 minutes of my undivided attention.) I'm just about finished with all of the speaking tests for this semester and as always it's been the most fun I've had with my students so far this…
Continue reading ➞ What Korean Middle School Students Are Worried About
Hours and Miles 