What a chill week! Second grade went on a trip to Jeju Island so the school was quiet and I had few classes. Yesterday I joined first years on a trip to the E World amusement park where I enjoyed the good weather and some roller coasters with coworkers. Today is the start of a four day weekend! I’m currently on the subway, heading to meet a friend at a car rental shop for a little road trip to the southern coast of Korea! Life is good. Updates on the trip later :)
It’s Teacher’s Day (스승의 날) here in Korea which is a great little holiday! Students prepare cards, flowers, cakes, and gifts for their homeroom teachers, hand out treats to their other subject teachers, and at my school they even performed for us. Not every school goes all out like mine did this year (apparently this is my school’s first year making a whole day of it), but I’ll tell you about my day.
Upon arriving to school a group of teachers hand out chocolate bars to the students with little messages printed on them (something about “it’s not about how much is in your brain but what’s in your heart”…). During the regular morning homeroom meeting time students decorated their boards and gave cakes and cards to their homeroom teachers. There was a lot of singing the “Teacher’s Day Song” by excited groups of girls.
The whole school filed into the auditorium and the teachers were seating in the front rows. First, the principal spoke and a few students were honored with awards for good behavior by the education department. Then lines of students assembled in front of our rows and fasted carnation boutonnieres to each teacher’s clothes. Because every ceremonial thing I participate in here in Korea has to be awkward, naturally the boy pinning mine on struggled for about 5 years to get the pin through my blazer. Woe is me. This was followed by 3 girls’ homeroom classes performing adorable and hilarious group dances on stage and the entire student body singing the Teacher’s Day Song.
The entire high school then went for a walk around the lake next to our campus. It was a perfect day for the hour long “hike” and everyone was in such good spirits! I really enjoyed it; chatting with coteachers, answering students’ silly questions, and listening to one homeroom sing every part of “Fantastic Baby”. After the walk we enjoyed a specially prepared lunch in the cafeteria and then got to go home early!
It was nice to see so many students expressing their regard for their teachers today. I came home with a nice little hauls of cakes and interesting Korean sweets. I think there is probably a “teacher’s day” on the calendar in the states but it’s a shame we don’t really do anything for it!
The decision by the school to make today a “day off” for celebrating and enjoying the good weather (with no mention of studies) was surprising and really great. I honestly don’t think I’ve seen so many of my students this happy… ever. Definitely never so carefree!
At lunch two of the older male teachers that I don’t really know asked my coteacher and I to sit with them; they wanted to chat in English. Turns out they speak GREAT English and had a couple of jokes to share. After lunch my coteacher told me that one is known as the “elder” because he is the oldest teacher in school and that he and the other members of the religion department were going to ask me to dinner that same night (she was giving me a much appreciated heads up). Sure enough, a little while late my older male co-teacher who rarely speaks to me came to my desk to ask if I would join him and the other 3 religion teachers for dinner and of course I accepted.
I was a bit nervous going into it, to be honest. My coteachter was referring to them all as “elder teachers” (all four are older males) and to be honest I wasn’t too sure what to expect from an invitation from the religion department. I work at a “private-public” Christian mission high school. I am not a religious person and I don’t have any interest in becoming one, which was a bit of a hurdle when I first arrived and the Vice Principle often invited me (via my coteacher) to the school’s church services with ever mounting pressure. Luckily my co-t had my back and reminded him each time that no, I don’t have a religion and no, I’m not interested.
So I was a bit apprehensive, worrying that this dinner might be a new attempt at bringing me into the church and of course worrying that I wouldn’t have anything to talk about with this crowd. I was only partially right. It was a really nice evening! We went to a traditional Korean restaurant on the side of Palgong Mountain and enjoyed really nice conversation about their families, my experience in Korea, and school life. They all worried I wasn’t enjoying the food (which I was!!) because I guess I didn’t eat enough, but in my defense I was desk warming all day and did very little to build up an appetite. After we went to a local coffee shop and chatted some more.
Religion did come up, but they did ask first and seemed to accept my answer. However, over coffee the pressure was building a bit with two of the teachers. One asking the pastor (also one of the teachers) to pray for me and repeatedly inviting me to church and another asking me if I liked a Josh Groban song that was playing and when I politely answered that it was nice told me that means I’m practically Christian, haha. Some how we got on the topic of Whitney Houston’s recent death and he used that as a segway to tell me he will be praying that I find a good life partner so I don’t suffer like she did. It was all really sweet and well-intentioned and it was actually the pastor who was trying to stop their suggestions from getting too uncomfortable. In the end they wanted to tell me that the four of them are “family” and that they all promise to protect me like fathers since I’m so far from home. I was really touched.
It was a nice evening and they’ve invited me to join them again which I will most definitely do. This was my second experience being out with teachers without any of my younger female co-teachers there to ease language and cultural barriers, and the first time without any young teachers at all. It really solidified the feeling of welcome I get from my school and reminded me how lucky I am with my work environment here in Korea.
I’ve waited a week since my camp ended to write about it because I didn’t want to let it become some sappy “I’m so sad it’s over” post… but even a week later I think about camp and think I’M SO SAD IT’S OVER.
My winter camp was about 5 weeks long, 2 hours every afternoon with a small group of students. I couldn’t have been happier with or more proud of the students in my class. They were first and second graders all at different levels of English conversation, but were all extremely enthusiastic and hard working. For me, the best part of camp was finally having the opportunity to get to know my students. During the semester my classes average about 35 students and I teach 24 classes so learning names is sort of out of the question. Getting to know these 10 students over winter break was so rewarding.
Because out camp was unbelievably long I worked with a few different themes. The first week was general lessons and activities to test their abilities, then we moved on to an “around the world theme” with lessons on talking about Korea and then world travel, and finally a 2 week Hollywood theme ending with a short film project. The lessons were very speaking-heavy with lots of presentations, conversations, and interviews. There was a pretty wide range of levels with this class but they all worked together and helped each other out and after spending so much time together students stopped being embarrassed and didn’t hesitate to try asking questions and having conversations in English.
The final project was 2 short films the students wrote and produced together. One was a “drama” called Style Exile about a boy with terrible fashion sense who is made over by some benevolent stylists and in the end wins the girl (who in this case was a boy wearing a scarf). The second film was a talk show on the ill effects of smoking… maybe a little less entertaining but SO WELL written by a particularly impressive first grade (now 2nd) student.
Our last day was a “film screening” and a party :). I told the kids I would bring popcorn and they could bring snacks if they liked… they ended up covering an entire table with food that they in turn devoured in an hour. Beasts! It was a really relaxed and fun way to end our camp but it was also so sad! I left the day open to whatever they wanted and they chose to play and relive pretty much every game we’ve played together. I enjoyed every minute with these students and am gutted that the majority of them are now third grade test-crammers now and will no longer be my students. It warmed my hear to see how disappointed they were on the last day as well. One student looked at the clock anxiously every 10 minutes or so and noted that “teacher… only 30 more minutes” while another usually rambunctious student was oddly silent and sulky the closer we got the 5:50.
Having such enthusiastic students gave me a lot of freedom with this camp. Because they always followed directions when they were given I didn’t have to worry about keeping them on task with a strict structure so we always had a fun warm up game and a lot of days ended with lessons on American/Californian slang or random, fun class conversations. Every day students would show up early and stay in the room during the break period to chat about school, music, whatever and I think this camp really built their confidence in speaking English conversationally. Building confidence speaking was my main objective and to have that goal fulfilled along with a bunch of great memories is more than I could have hoped for. What initially looked like a crazy, difficult winter camp turned into my greatest memory teaching in Korea.
My winter camp is ending tomorrow and I plan to do a little reflecting on here soon, but I thought it would be best to give an explanation for anyone not familiar with the system here in Korea.
Basically, the school year here runs from roughly early March to late December/early January. This means Korean schools take their long recess in the winter during the months of January and February. Although this is called “vacation”, many teachers still report to work and many students come back for supplementary classes. For high school (at least at mine) the term “vacation” really shouldn’t be used at all… it’s such a tease. Students take a full load of supplementary classes during the “vacation”, coming to school every day like normal but being let out around 6:00pm instead of 9 or 11pm.
For native English teachers this can mean a couple of things. The best case scenario (which is EXTREMELY RARE but I DO know of it happening) is that your school realizes how silly it is for you to have to come in to an empty school every day and lets you take the time off. The worst case scenario is that your school has you come in for your regular hours every day to do nothing but keep you desk nice and warm. For some people they are literally the only ones in their school aside from the caretaker… talk about being useless. This happens because the school is sticking super close to the contract (we are here on visas, after all, to be working in schools).
However, what usually happens is something a little less extreme: a few weeks of winter camp. “Camp” is a way of making English conversation supplementary classes sound more interesting. I’m not sure if they do this for our or the students’ sake, but it’s another terrible bit of word choice. Most teachers end up teaching one or two weeks of winter camp and then desk warm the rest of “vacation”. Winter camp can be really refreshing for teachers who feel like they never get a chance to know any of the students. It’s usually a smaller group and is often voluntary on the part of the students so you end up with kids who actually want to be there.
What happened to me was somewhere between the norm and the “worst case”. My students take a full load of supplementary classes so I was expected to teach my camp in the evening during what is otherwise self-study time and after I usually go home. On top of that, my school wanted me to still come in at my normal time… meaning I would desk warm for 8 hours and THEN teach a two hour camp. Luckily the pity of my fellow teachers and the gossip that came from it put a bit of pressure on admin and I was told I could start coming in after lunch (pretty fair, considering my camp ended at 6pm).
Furthermore… instead of the regular 1-2 weeks of camp I was expected to teach camp throughout the entire vacation. Take away the days I was actually on vacation and that amounted to about 5 weeks of camp. I don’t know ANYONE else who had a situation like mine. Granted, most of my friends teach elementary or middle school, but that still only had somewhere between 2 days - 2 weeks of camp. Two of my friends who DO teach high school didn’t have camp at all.. but it’s important not to let other peoples’ situations make you jealous! (EVEN IF YOU ARE SUPER JEALOUS)
IN THE END…. my camp ended up being a lot of fun. Tomorrow is the last day, so it’s time for me to edit my students’ videos (more on that later) and prepare for our little fest =]
I received this note from a student who couldn’t come to my last class before vacation because she had academy. I swear, these students in my winter camp are the sweetest!
*I don’t know why the second image keeps uploading sideways, it isn’t saved like that.
If I’ve learned anything this first semester teaching in Korea is that sometimes too much planning can really lead to disappointment. Basically, things change here at the very last minute… all of the time. My first winter camp is coming up and leading up to the vacation I was becoming more and more frustrated with the lack of information I had on the format of camp itself, so I’ve been hesitant to prepare too much too far in advance.
What I did know (or I thought I knew): In total I would be teaching 23 days of winter camp over January and February. These camps would be happening for two hours in the afternoon from 3:40-5:50p (after 8 hours of desk warming). My coteacher estimated 40 students would sign up and the plan was to have all 40 in class the first 3 days and assess their levels, then split them up into 2 classes of 20 I saw every other day. In that case, I would only have to plan 13 two hour lessons.
However… students weren’t told about camp or allowed to sign up until the second to last day of the semester. Going into this I realized it was likely things wouldn’t work out like I was told and I didn’t plan too much beyond the first week of lessons. It’s a good thing I didn’t. A few days ago I text to the co-t to see what the final number was… turns out ONLY EIGHT. I’m not surprised; it’s vacation and they are being given the option of taking an extra 2 hour class for 23 days? And given only 2 days notice? So this week I’ve completely started over with the camp plans because clearly I will being having one class instead of 2.
How to entertain 8 HIGH SCHOOL students for 56 hours? I have no idea. Tomorrow’s the first day which I have all planned and ready but I am quite nervous about this whole thing. I’ve planned for the first week but I am going to wait until I meet the students (IDK anything about their grade, level, gender… anything) before I plan too much beyond week one. Plus, I go on vacation for 2 weeks after the first week so week one is going to be a sort of stand alone introduction week.
Nervous. If anyone out there with more experience has any advice… I would really love to hear it.
I’m not going to claim to be any kind of expert on the EPIK hiring process, but now that I am here and have met tons of other EPIK teachers there are a few things I can definitely recommend.
1. How to apply: there are a number of way to apply to work for EPIK and a good breakdown can be found on the EPIK homepage www.epik.go.kr. Basically you can apply directly to the program, through your local embassy, or through a recruiting agency. I myself chose to go through a recruiter and I feel most comfortable recommending this path. Korvia recruiting is one of the most reputable among the agencies permitted to place EPIK teachers and overall I had a good experience with them. I chose to go with a recruiter instead of applying directly on my own because I found it really helpful to have a middleman there to make sure everything was going smoothly and that my application was compiled with all of the correct documents. Having problems with you application can cause lengthy delays and ultimately hurt your chances of getting a job.
2. Get started ASAP! There are a LOT of documents you need to put together and having a completed application submitted early is always the best option. I’m American and can only attest to documents we are required to submit. So, to all you Americans: request the FBI Criminal Records Check NOW! This can take FOREVER and it is nearly impossible to contact the FBI about the status of your application. The sooner to apply the sooner it will ultimately appear. After you get this you will still need to get the Apostille. The rules for this seem to change often, and this is one of the ways my recruiter was most helpful. You will need to determine if you can sent a notarized FBI check to your state government for Apostille or if you need to send it to DC. Moral of the story: start early, do your homework. The same can all be said for getting your official degree copy certified.
3. Be flexible. The sad truth is that over the next few years there are going to be fewer and fewer positions available. From what I have heard recently Seoul is flat out going to stop hiring native English teachers and has already started taking them out of high schools. I’m in Daegu, a smaller city about 2 hours away from Seoul, and I am really enjoying my time here. You should be prepared to not get your first place location and if that is an issue, you may not want to suffer through the long application process. Korea has so much to offer outside of Seoul and I am really happy with the opportunities to explore and learn about different parts of Korean culture that living in Daegu has given me.
4. Get certified. Again, things have been changing within EPIK a lot and one of the rumors I have heard is that TEFL/CELTA cerificates are going to become requirements. They have always been requirements for SMOE and I believe Busan has already made this a requirement as well. Your best bet is to just get certified and this can be done easily through some relatively cheap online schools. Information on where I got my certificate can be found here.
5. Experience. If you are thinking about applying to EPIK in the future there are a lot of ways to beef up your resume. First and foremost is through teaching experience. Most people I have met here have some tutoring or classroom experience which is something I believe EPIK values. If you are currently in university I recommend looking into English tutoring programs; during my last two years of university I was a conversation tutor for international students and scholars and this was something my interviewer was really interested in discussing. Tutoring in general is a good experience point, even if it isn’t English. Particularly if your tutoring experience has been with students in the age group you are applying to teach in Korea.
Living abroad or travel experience is also valuable. My interviewer was really interested in learning about how I handled living abroad as a student back in 2009 as well as my past travel experience. EPIK teachers are big investments in Korea and its in their best interest to hire people who wont be overwhelmed by culture shock or the stress of living abroad.
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So, like I said, I am not expert but from my experience these are the 5 most important points when applying to EPIK. If you are looking at applying to EPIK further down the road, try to gain some valuable experiences between now and then. If you are looking to apply during this upcoming hiring period, I highly recommend getting on top of your application ASAP and not leaving anything to the last minute. Be flexible and be prepared for some hiccups along the way! If you come to Korea you will learn really fast how the dissemination of information tends to be extremely last minute and burdensome… be prepared to get frustrated at some points but just know that it isn’t the end of the world.
Good luck potential EPIK teachers! Let me know how things go, I hope to see you all in Korea!
Natalie (22)
Daegu, South Korea
I'm a high school English teacher working for the Korean government program EPIK. This blog will be following my adventures in Korea and Asia, and hopefully it will continue to document more travels in my future! For those who are specifically interested in EPIK or teaching abroad, click the EPIK link above for posts related to my experience working in Korea. Otherwise, expect to see everything from classroom stories to travel diaries and photos!
The name of my blog was inspired by a quote by H.C. Andersen, "at rejse er at leve", meaning "to travel is to live".
For posts about my previous travels follow the links at the top of the page. They will redirect you to my other blog.
Copenhagen 2009: posts from my study abroad experience in Denmark and the travel I did throughout Europe during that time; Iceland, Germany, Czech Republic, England, Sweden, Norway, and Finland. June-December 2009.
Eurotrip 2011: photos and posts from my 2011 trip to England, France, The Netherlands, and Denmark. June 2011.
I follow and reply with the username natalietenaya, my main account.
