Korean Job Discussion Forums

[agoodmouse]

What professional development have you done lately?

I've jumped through some hoops in the public school system here in Korea and managed to get some professional development done. I want to do more -- I need to know what, where, and how you've gone about this in Korea or elsewhere.

-Made two 50- to 60 page conversation dialogue workbooks with target language foci for Grade 1 and Grade 2 at my high school, and the workbooks have been well received. With this year's renewal, I've started fresh with solid workbooks and higher expectations.



-Picked up the phone more to talk with other native English teachers to see what, and how, they're teaching. Extending help to local native English teachers in my area.

-Reading a couple TEFL journals, the ones with more practical based teaching methods. I've found a couple good ones that I'll subscribe to. A good way to stay focused on teaching skills refreshment.

-Did the CELTA in Seoul two months ago. Understandably not practically free as with my prior online TEFL course, but indeed very edifying. Last year, I did the online KEI-TEFL course.

-Went to a couple KOTESOL conferences.

-Brushed, and brushing up, on my Korean for my benefit and as a way to understand my Korean students' L1 language and how it intersects, albeit jaggedly at times, with English.

(Background: I've been in Korea since the beginning of January 2007. I work at a public school. I haven't even begun to touch the iceberg of everything I can do in the way of developing my teaching skills. I'm sure everyone can chip in and give me and everyone else good advice. There are a great many first-year public school teachers out there, especially in the SMOE, GEPIK, and ETIS programs.)

[spliff]

Use your brain, it's always worked for me. Teaching English isn't that difficult so I only use about a quarter brain when thinking of an activity.

[Dome Vans]

I came to Korea with a CELTA so I had a fairly good base to start teaching. It helped me start with structured lesson planning and gave me a lot of ideas about different methods used to teach.

*One thing I've found with professional development is to be very aware of your students and their learning. I teach 500 different kids in one week so tailoring lessons and help can be a little tricky at first. Learning to have empathy is so important to me. All my groups are of a low level but really fun to teach. I have no difficult children, and as someone pointed out here yesterday the ones you'd think are 'difficult' just need a little more help, sit down and talk things through with them it helps a great deal.

So #1 is experience, it seems to be helping my development the most, being able to learn and adjust to me is the most important.

*I'm half way through reading 'Teaching and Learning English' By ML Tickoo. A book that is all about teaching English in Asia. I've found it very very interesting and useful. It has chapters on teaching reading, writing, grammar etc. With useful insights, that help me to think more about what I teach. Things with reading include that children who are good at reading in their native tongue will also be good at reading in a foreign language, because they have the ability to scan and fill in the blanks as they read. Also that reading aloud is not real reading, it's at a very artificial pace so doesn't really aid learning.

*Like agoodmouse said, talking with other teachers (who do proper teaching, not the 'game' teachers). Support and help is such a little thing to do, and sharing ideas, because the students in our small city are very similar in ability, so similar experiences help greatly.

[bassexpander]

I've got an idea...


Let's all form a great big circle and sing Kum-ba-ya as we pat ourselves on the back and mastrubate while fixing our gaze on a big CELTA logo.

Does that sound like fun?

[Dome Vans]

[Cohiba]

I've been working hard. I can now mix wine, beer and whiskey
in a single sitting and not do the old technicolour yawn.

EDUCATION ADLES THE MIND

[agoodmouse]

bassexpander, how old are you?

That's vulgar and stupid, completely arbitrary to any discussion. You've said numerous times professional development is a waste of time, and that you won't bother with any, because you have other plans and will only going to be in Korea for only 3 to 5 more years. Fine, okay. But that's incredible.

From what you've written about job applicants to your university, one can imagine your complexes run deep and are so unsophisticated that you're unwilling to deign speaking to, much less working with, someone who has more than a bachelors degree (e.g. MA-TESOL or CELTA, TEFL, etc). You seem to despise anyone who has any of such credentials, and think such professional development is entirely useless.

[spliff]

I agree w/ BE...they should give tefler credentials honorary. I've been teaching English for 15 yrs+, doing one of these cert courses would be purely for show. Why bother?

[DrunkenMaster]

Who cares, really, that Bassexpander gets more for less?

[Unposter]

Mine is bigger than yours

[Whistleblower]

[bassexpander]

[Chicoloco]

"Let's elevate our English conversation skills."

"That's an excellent goal!"

Is this a joke??

[aarontendo]

[Yu_Bum_suk]

Being aware of certain theories can be really helpful, even if it's just in confirming your hunches. To be as effective as possible you have to understand how learners of different ages acquire language knowledge and abilities.

At any rate, I love attending conferences where I can hear from people who have experience in the public school trenches *in Korea*. You can read about or attend CELTA courses where you can get overloaded as much as you want from people who have expertise teaching adult learners in an L2 immersion environment and it will hardly give you a basis for working in a Korean public school. Similarly, you can listen to all the self-congratulatory bullshit you want to from Korean government initiation seminars and it won't equate to a fifteen-minute conversation with someone who's done exactly what you'll be doing.

For the record, one of the most useful hours of preperation I ever had for my current job was over a mocha at Starbucks with BE.