Outsourcing in the TEFL industry
It's not just for blond-haired blue-eyed wonders anymore.
no one bitches and moans like foreign English teachers. Especially the foreign English teachers with blond hair and blue eyes. Especially the foreign English teachers who have been spoiled over the last three plus decades with free airline tickets to and from home and rent-free apartments
Teaching the Chinese in Thailand
experiences of teaching an international program
I came back to Thailand from Korea because I far prefer working with Thai students, or because my experiences here were so much nicer. To my surprise,upon my arrival, the university announced it was launching an international program in which there were many students from the south of China. So I'm in Thailand teaching Chinese students. Go figure!
The perfect storm
Dopey foreigners and mentally deficient Koreans part one
So Korea, go ahead and continue to hire unqualified native English teachers. You know exactly what you're doing. You're hardly walking and talking testaments to your own good judgement. A plague on all your houses!
Did you plan it?
Getting to grips with student compositions
To say that it is sometimes difficult to fix a student's written work is somewhat of an understatement; it would be truer to say that it is an excruciating process, one that is often impossible unless you have the author on hand to provide a bit of interpretation.
Agreeing with Alison Empey
The downsides of teaching in Korea
What exactly is it that I don’t like about Korea, or that made me finally spit the dummy? In as objective tone as I can muster, and in no partcular order, here’s the nature of my gripes.
TEFL's number one enemy
Losers to the right of me, morons to my left
There are many successful teachers here in Korea and elsewhere. I have been lucky enough to work with many great teachers. But they are a rare breed, indeed. Successful teachers don't allow the system to beat them down. They rise up to answer the call again and again.
Phrasebook learning
Is phrasebook learning letting Korean students down?
One of the true beauties of learning another language is the curiosity value of seeing how other peoples string together the concepts the words of their language embody to give meaning to the world in ways we never thought of.
The dog and pony show
Demonstration lessons in the Korean public education system
I like the principle of putting on a demonstration lesson and having teachers watch. In my time teaching, one thing I have been short of is the opportunity to see other teachers teach. And you can always learn from other teachers.
Levisiting the plobrems
Problems with pronuncing R and L
Perfect pronunciation in my experience is pretty much the last aspect of a second language to properly fall into place. However there are good reasons why Thai and Korean students should be shown very clearly exactly what they have to do to come up with an unambiguous ‘r’ and ‘l’, and the sort of problems that are going to stand in their way.
Teacher as leader
An article in the Korea Times
Far too many native English teachers come to Korea with neither plans nor goals in dramatically raising the English language ability of their students. Having failed, they then blame the Korean education system for being uninspiring and unprogressive.
