teaching English

RTBC Day Six: Teaching Mentors

Wed, 10/15/2014 - 23:02 - magyarn

Reflective Teaching Blog Challenge – Day Six: What does a good mentor do? Explain.

Regardless of what field you’re working in, everyone should have a mentor. And it doesn’t matter where you are in the span of your work life either. Whether you’re at the beginning or the end of your career, you’re never too old to benefit from the wisdom and experience of someone else!

RTBC Day Five: Welcome to my classroom!

Tue, 10/14/2014 - 22:28 - magyarn

Reflective Teaching Blog Challenge – Day Five: Post a picture of your classroom. Describe what you see, and what you don’t see that you’d like to.

2014 Jinju Lantern Festival

Mon, 10/13/2014 - 22:00 - magyarn

Located in the south central part of Korea, Jinju is a small city of just 300,000 people. But for ten days a year, nighttime traffic is bumper-to-bumper and walking the streets means shuffling, wading and weaving through crowds of people. Why? The Jinju Namgang Yudeong (Lantern) Festival.

RTBC Day Four: What I love about teaching

Mon, 10/13/2014 - 21:07 - magyarn

Reflective Teaching Blog Challenge – Day Four: What do you love about teaching?

In the classroom, the teacher has to be able to roll with the punches of the day, and should always be open to responding to the students and circumstances in front of them. By taking advantage of an impromptu teaching moment, however small, new connections with the material can be made where previously there were none.

RTBC Day Three: Room for Improvement

Sun, 10/12/2014 - 15:40 - magyarn

Reflective Teaching Blog Challenge – Day Three: Discuss one “observation” area you would like to improve on.

At the end of most of my lessons, I’ve noticed there usually isn’t enough time to properly go over the day’s content. Somewhere during the phases when students are practicing and producing the language for themselves, I lose the last 5 minutes of class that I originally intended to use as review time. When I notice this happening, I usually choose to forgo the review and just allow students to finish the production activity. If I did move onto the review, I feel like I’d be cutting them off early or stunting their absorption of the material.

Which Disney princess would make the best co-teacher?

Sun, 10/12/2014 - 11:29 - magyarn

Snow White – Her childlike innocence makes her perfect for working with elementary school kids. She gets them to whistle-while-they-work during even the most mundane of tasks, like tidying up the room or studying grammar. And if she can wrangle 7 dwarfs, you know she’s got to have mad classroom management skills. Just don’t let the kids try to give her any apples.

RTBC Day Two: Video Games in the Classroom

Sat, 10/11/2014 - 19:43 - magyarn

Reflective Teaching Blog Challenge – Day Two: Write about one piece of technology you would like to try this year, and why. What are you hoping to see of this edtech integration?

Mario Kart. League of Legends. Grand Theft Auto 3 and FIFA 3 Online. I polled my middle and high school Korean students a few weeks ago and these are their top favorite video games. This year I would like to use all of them in the classroom in some capacity.

RTBC Day One: Teaching Goals

Fri, 10/10/2014 - 22:58 - magyarn

Reflective Teaching Blog Challenge – Day One: Write your goals for the school year. Be as specific or abstract as you’d like to be!

In no particular order:

The 30-Day Reflective Blogging Challenge for Teachers

Fri, 10/10/2014 - 16:37 - magyarn

Today I stumbled across this fantastic website: teachthought.com. While it only offers a few articles specific to ESL teachers, the rest of the content is still very applicable in some way or another!

EPIK Interview Questions

Mon, 10/06/2014 - 20:00 - magyarn

The Skype interview is a critical step in the EPIK application process. Below is a list of questions, provided to me by my preliminary recruiting agency, Gone2Korea, that could’ve come up during the call. I’ve also taken the liberty of adding some supporting questions/suggestions to help further prompt any future EPIK teachers who are preparing for their interviews! My actual interview only lasted 25 minutes and I was barely asked half of these questions, but it never hurts to be too prepared!

In addition to basic questions that verify your identity and prying inquiries about your medical history, during your EPIK interview you might be asked:

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