education

Encouraging creativity in your students

Thu, 05/31/2012 - 21:24 — surprises aplenty

I recently gave a talk at the 2012 KOTESOL National Conference entitled “Creativity in the classroom”. My presentation slides are here and Jeff leBow at Koreabridge recorded the talk.

I think I gave an excellent 80 minute speech: it is a shame I gave it in 50 minutes. Indeed, my voice is high-pitched enough you might think I just spoke that much faster.

Flashlight Workshops BUSAN: Off Camera Flash

Thu, 05/24/2012 - 11:32 — jt

These days I have been hearing a lot of talk about workshops for photographers in Korea. No doubt they exist but are probably hard to come by in English. Fortunately, Flashlight Expeditions is running regular workshops around the country to meet the needs of aspiring photographers.

Busan Workshop

On June 16th, Dylan Goldby will be in the bright lights of Busan, to make it even brighter by showing us how to use off camera flash. This is one of the trickiest things to master with photography in some senses, but a working knowledge will payoff in the long run. Dylan will cover wide range of topics directly related to you, the photographer who wants to learn about off camera flash in Korea. Here is what the course will entail (excerpt from www.flashlightexpeditions.com):

Branksome Hall Asia

Wed, 05/09/2012 - 12:39 — Branksome Hall Asia

Website:

http://about.me/branksomehallasia

Branksome Hall, the pre-eminent girls independent school in North America, and a leading IB World School, has been invited by the South Korean government to establish a full partner school on the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Jeju Island. Branksome Hall Asia is Branksome Hall in Asia. One school, two campuses. Branksome Hall Asia will open its doors to 1200 students from around the world on 15 October 2012. The school will be co-educational from Junior Kindergarten to Grade 3 and girls only from Grades 4 - 12. Branksome Hall Asia will attract the world’s best IB educators from North America, Asia Pacific, Europe and around the globe. For additional information, please visit http://www.korea4expats.com/service-Branksome-Hall-Asia-English-Internat... Or go to our website

Int'l School Admissions Information Session

Tue, 05/08/2012 - 10:50 — Branksome Hall Asia

Date:

Saturday, May 26, 2012 - 10:30

Branksome Hall Asia is the first overseas campus of the premier all-girls independent IB school Branksome Hall based in Toronto, Canada. The school will be holding an information session for prospective students and parents for the 2012-2013 school year starting later this fall. Join us on May 26 (Saturday) 10:30 am at the Grand Intercontinental Parnas Hotel (Rose Hall in floor B1). Please RSVP by calling 02-8402/8408 or emailing events@branksome.asia http://www.branksome.asia

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Repeats

I have a job.

Mon, 04/09/2012 - 23:25 — conor_o_reilly

One thing I don’t talk too much about here is work. The reasons why are because it’s work, and work is work, and there are plenty of people out there who are more suited to talking about my line of work than I am, and more importantly, I don’t want to talk about work.

I talk with co-workers about work all day in work. It’s work talk. The same work talk that everyone else talks about in work, which usually involves complaining/marvelling over something irrelevant to the rest of the immediate world. It’s not very exciting and the less I have of it the better. Sometimes I talk with Herself about work, and she politely grunts and changes the subject, which I’m grateful for. I do enough talking about work and you don’t deserve, need, or really want to hear me go on about work.

What obscene acts is this journalist doing to keep his job?

Wed, 04/04/2012 - 22:48 — surprises aplenty

Jake Nho has an article up at the Korea Times and it is a doozy, even for the Times.

Here is part of his bio: He has written numerous articles on various environmental issues for over 20 years.

It appears the article is one of a series (currently up to 16) on “Earth in Danger”. Now I see I need to read more of these articles – for entertainment value if nothing else.

Now, lets look at a few excerpts from the article with my commentary added. I have quoted Nho in Orange and my research in blue. I hope it is not too garish and felt the variety of color would better differentiate the different voices.

His article is titled: “Does the Earth really need our protection?” and he starts by discussing the alarm over damage to the ozone layer:

My Students

Sun, 04/01/2012 - 09:55 — smudger81299

I have taught in Korea for approximately two and a half years now, and have taught at three different schools; two academies and I am currently teaching at an all boys High School. The students are generally fantastic, they are respectful, obedient, and hard working (if you know what buttons to push), but what I like most of all is their character. With all the study they have to do, you can't help but feel for the poor little mites. For example, in my high school (ages 16-18) they start their day at 8am and finish at 10-11pm at night, a fourteen hour plus day at school! In middle and elementary schools the day is not so long, but parents make up for this by sending their children to private after school academies called 'Hagwons'. Most students study at least a couple of hours every day after school in these academies with homework on top of this as well. Some students, however, can go to up to four different academies after school, and may possibly do Taekwondo or Hapkido also

Thought Experiment: Far East Native Teachers in the West?

Sun, 03/11/2012 - 15:11 — smudger81299

As an interesting thought experiment, in my last blog, I introduced the idea of having a Far East Native teacher programme in our own Western countries. I have no illusions that it will actually happen and there would be some changes to make to the programme, for sure, but I think it could run in roughly the same way. I think this would be of great value to our students in the west and might just give our rather stagnant education system a little shot in the arm. It would be a refreshing, interesting, open-minded, and important change, but there would be some unique problems for Far East teachers, that westerners do not have when they go to Asia to teach.

Problems for Far East Teachers in the West (I will use England and Korea as an examples)

1. Discipline of Students

Native English Teacher in Korea Part 3 Ignorance and Racism

Sun, 03/04/2012 - 15:14 — smudger81299

I guess you could briefly summarise my feeling of the worth of a Native English teacher in Korea, as someone that should be an inspiration to the students, and someone who is prepared to be inspired by the students themselves and the Korean people they meet everyday, during their stay. On making this statement I am aware that I maybe guilty on two charges; that of being overly dramatic, and that of being arrogant in thinking that I can be inspirational to them. I am not one to be dramatic, so I am going to defend myself on this charge by asking a question; if you are doing something (a job), which you go to almost everyday, and spend more time doing than possibly seeing your best friends, what's the point unless you can enjoy it and in a way that enriches your life? Not everyone can be a doctor, or a marine biologist (my ideal profession), so why not find a way to enjoy and learn the most that you can from your work?

Update

Sun, 03/04/2012 - 11:27 — sublunari

The other day I found myself running through the streets of Gyeongju in search of a bathroom, after consuming two cups of coffee and about a liter’s worth of water over the course of an hour. I burst into my wife’s parents’ house through the unlocked door, said hello politely, and then asked where the bathroom was far too politely, shifting to a higher register reserved only for old people or customers—but there was pleading desperation in my voice, and my calmly-surprised mother-in-law consented at once.

I whipped off my shoes, dashed inside the bathroom, and pissed for far longer than I usually shit.

When I emerged my brother-in-law cracked some kind of a joke, and the Korean woman I was teaching at the time, a friend of the family, refused to translate.

A week later I asked him what he had said, through my wife.

“You broke the toilet!” he replied.

Native English Teachers in South Korea (part 2)

Mon, 02/27/2012 - 12:57 — smudger81299

In my last post, I identified the reasons why Native English teachers essentially do not help in achieving higher test results for Korean students, but are valuable in other senses. When I first saw the figures from Seoul, for the lack of improvement in English since the introduction of the Native teacher programme, I thought deeply about the usefulness of my own position in my school. I think despite the fact that English teachers get paid well here in Korea, the schools themselves can make the foreign teacher feel fairly surplus to requirements sometimes. The figures from Seoul and this fact made me question the meaning of my existence in my position at the school. I could give many examples of the lack of importance I feel sometimes, but I shall just give one particularly irksome example from last year;

Native English Teachers in Korea (Part 1).

Fri, 02/24/2012 - 09:40 — smudger81299

I am currently working in South Korea as an English teacher, and enjoying the culture change very much. I am employed to teach high school students English, and invariably about western culture. The governments in South Korea, Japan, and China, feel that it is very important for children to learn English, and although they have many English teachers of their own, teachers that are good at speaking are in short supply. On top of this there is a slight attitude of fear and distrust among far-eastern countries of people from English speaking nations, and the western world in general. With this in mind, they see the need to employ native English speakers, to improve English so that people from these countries are ready for business in a globalised economy.

three laws of future employment

Thu, 02/09/2012 - 17:02 — surprises aplenty

Daniel Jelski at Newgeography discusses his three laws of future employment. What I got from the article was ‘more of the Red Queen problem’. Everyone is running faster so you have to run as fast as you can just to stay in the same place.

Let’s start with the three Laws of Future Employment. Law #1: People will get jobs doing things that computers can’t do. Law #2: A global market place will result in lower pay and fewer opportunities for many careers. (But also in cheaper and better products and a higher standard of living for American consumers.) Law #3: Professional people will more likely be freelancers and less likely to have a steady job.

He goes on to discuss how STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) fields are not good bets for the future.

Teacher’s pay

Tue, 02/07/2012 - 13:55 — surprises aplenty

One of my aunts has long been a critic of teacher’s pay. Well, we haven’t discussed the subject in years, so let’s say she was a critic. She felt that Canadian school teachers only work a few hours a day and have all summer off plus large breaks during the year.

There are rebuttals, chiefly that school teachers often have homework to mark through their evenings and professional development during their summers. There are many extra tasks that come with teaching that add to the total workload, so their salaries amy not be so high per hour as my aunt suggests.

This does not apply to me so much. I work a university professor’s schedule but am not threatened by ‘publish-or-perish’ or research expectations that teachers with many initials after their names are.

Translators And Calculators

Sun, 12/18/2011 - 17:26 — sublunari

Several other professors and I have had to endure the bizarre phenomenon of random college students coming up to us with their final papers and asking, with the purest innocence, for us to check their grammar. This is a bit of a controversial request to make because there is some risk of the professor writing the paper for the student, and my superiors advocate an approach that is more along the lines of circling problems, rather than fixing them, and answering specific questions, rather than looking at the entire paper. But because writing English is impossibly difficult for many native speakers, and because I can untangle most linguistic knots in a matter of minutes, I usually veer off the deep end with the students who have clearly written their own papers (or at least gotten their friends to do the work for them).


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