As an American we can stay in Korea for up to 90 days with no visa, which is awesome if all you are doing is traveling. If you are coming to Korea to teach as an English teacher you will most likely be on an E-2 visa for work after receiving your work contract and NOA (notice of appointment). Once you come to Korea you will go with your co-teacher and apply at your local…
A year ago today I boarded a plane at JFK Airport and met new EPIK friends in San Francisco before boarding our plane to Incheon International Airport in South Korea. Thinking back on the past year it is interesting to see how far I have come and how much my life has changed. A year ago, I went through orientation and upon completion was ushered by bus to a city in my province. I remember…
For those of you who haven’t seen Disney’s new animated movie, Frozen, you are lucky. Personally while the story was cute there was way too much singing for me. Unfortunately, if you are an English teacher in Korea this movie and its songs are pretty popular. My co-teacher wanted to do a lesson on the song, “Let it go,” lucky for us most of the students didn’t show up to school because of snow on…
I like to challenge my students. I like to make them think outside the box. When I teach alone this definitely fails on me. However, when I am able to teach with my co-teacher the meaning isn’t lost in context and I can talk about interesting subjects. I think the students can get to know more about me through these types of lessons.
It is Christmas cookie season!!!! I love making Christmas cookies! I think they are a wonderful thing to eat and they go straight to your hips. But they are worth it! I will be the first to admit this was a huge undertaking here in South Korea. At first, I thought I would bake the cookies alone and then I decided to make them with a friend. Now transportation took two trips because moving everything…
To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much from students when I decide to leave. I received two lovely posters from my Grade 4 class. ( I will upload photos of it later once I remember where I tucked it away.) But nothing left an impression on me thus far like the letters I received from my Grade 6 Class 2 students. They all wrote me letters, most of them in Korean. I am so thankful…
Our school does a lot of community service. Now most of the time I’m not aware of the community service as it happens on days or hours I am at another school. Which is a shame because I like participating with my students.
My school wanted to have a garden bbq party. My principal bought wine for the occasion and we were going to grill fish and eat cows hearts (쇠염통).
The perks of being a teacher is trying to find interesting lessons for your uninterested students. One morning my co-teacher says to me, can you think of something to do for our first class? I had a mini panic attack and went flicking away through facebook snatching photos of family members and making a mini power point where I explained relationships and how my family looks like.