How and Why I got here…

My reasons for being here in Jeonju South Korea, teaching at the Gimje Middle School started last year when I was involved in student teaching for the fall semester at Deer River High School in Deer River Minnesota. This is a small town in northern Minnesota, where I got the chance to start to develop the craft of teaching (social studies in this case) under the tutelage of Matt Carlstrom (my mentor and head of the social studies department at Deer River High School). Among the many things I learned from him, perhaps the idea that had the most power for me was the idea of trying to integrate the various areas of study, of integrating all of the 7th grade teachers (as an example) to maximize their efforts.

While teaching a variety of classes, I started to see that there was a need to help students develop much better reading comprehension. As a prospective social studies teacher I realized that so much of any social studies curriculum is based on a growing mastery of the art of reading.

So, the thought I might need to look deeper into English curricula, and through some internet research I came across the prospect of teaching English as a foreign language. There are many opportunities to teach English overseas. Once again, as a social studies teacher, this looked almost too good to be true, I could spend a year overseas living in a different culture while honing my teaching chops as well as working to develop skills in teaching English. It seemed (and still does) to be a no-brainer for me.

Many of these decisions and conclusions took place for me in the late spring of 2008. I took an online TEFL course (of some value…), and by the end of July I applied to the Footprints Placement service (based in Vancouver B.C.). I interviewed with them over the telephone and they ultimately connected me with the Woosuk University in Jeonju South Korea. I had a job offer in hand by the first week of August and started into the due diligence it takes to secure a work visa.

Getting a work visa turned out to be much more complicated than I originally expected, but I finally had the visa in hand by the middle of September. Within two hours of receiving this document I had a flight booked and I was off to Korea.

There are many kinds of teaching jobs in Korea, which is probably the world center of teaching English to non-native speakers. Korea hires the most teachers and pays the best. Most of the jobs available are in the area of after school academies (Hagwans), there are also jobs working for various local school districts. These jobs are during regular school hours but class sizes are a bit larger than at the Hagwans. In my case I got a job from a local University, which works as a procurer for the Federal Government to provide teachers for local schools. I teach middle school English and I know of another American expatriate who does approximately the same job while working for the Gimje School District. This is only the top of the iceberg regarding the bureaucratic maze that my job entails. Luckily for me the vast majority of these endless documents are not something I deal with very often.

This job has a one year contract; I started teaching on September 23rd 2008 and will be teaching until about the third week of September 2009. After I return to the USA I hope to use this experience to help me as a teacher (I hope that this may help in getting a job too… we’ll see…).