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.…
Continue reading ➞ 5 Types of Classes You’ll Have as an EPIK Teacher
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 weight of being a "foreigner" in Korea comes and goes. Some days it's heavier than others. Some days the term 외국인 feels like jab. Like when a co-worker who I'm close to calls me 원어민 쌤 instead of my name. Some days it can start to feel like all I am is my "foreign-ness."…
Being the single non-Korean person in an entirely homogenous workplace is quite a unique experience. In some ways I feel like I benefit greatly from it, and in other ways it's quite difficult. So today I'd like to talk about the relationship between the Guest English Teacher/Native English Teacher/Foreign Teacher however you like to call…
For anyone thinking of coming to Korea to teach, you may be feeling a little overwhelmed by sheer number of options that exist. There are hagwons where you can teach adults at night, or kindergarten during the day, or businessmen early in the morning. There are public schools where your classes will probably have at…
Continue reading ➞ The Virtues of EPIK: English Program in Korea
April 12th marked two months in Korea for me. Teaching is unpredictable by its very nature and so even after 9 weeks of it, I still don’t feel like I know what to expect from any given day. What I have learned, however, are which classes to be excited about and which classes to…
Continue reading ➞ Korea Month Two: Spring, Co-Teaching, and a Weekend in Seoul
Anyone who has a TESOL certificate knows the amazing feeling of being able to leave the country and theoretically find a job anywhere in the word. It's like your professional passport. But of course that's only the beginning. I am going to Korea in February to start teaching but I had originally planned to start…
Continue reading ➞ The Struggles of Finding a English Teaching Job Online
I made my official decision to move to Korea during Thanksgiving break of last year. This came at the end of a long internal battle between the side of me that felt like I'd be cheating on my first true love, South America, and the other side of me that increasingly knew that Korea was…
Continue reading ➞ How People Respond When I Say I’m Moving to Korea
Nothing is certain but death and taxes, and I think maybe saying goodbye to the people you love. Every time you meet someone new, one of two things happens. You either meet and your lives intersect for a moment, maybe a bit longer than a moment, but eventually you continue in your own directions. Other people…
As graduation draws nearer and nearer so the questions about what we will all be doing post-college grow more and more frequent. It's salt on the wounds of those people who don't know exactly what the next few years hold, it's the moment that years of work for the people who can give a solid…
Hours and Miles 