The reason we are here...

As promised, I will explain a little about our teaching experience so far.  I will explain it from my point-of-view.  Zach's experience will probably be slightly different than mine, but probably pretty much the same.

We are English teachers at a hagwon (pronounced hogwon) (an after-school school) called International in Iksan, South Korea.  Here is a picture of the outside of the building.

We are located on the 3rd floor of the building.  The first floor (basement) is a small grocery store.  The second is another hagwon.  Our windows are the white ones below the neon sign.  Depending on traffic lights, it takes about 10 minutes to walk to the school from our apartment.

Since we are an after-school program, we start later in the day after the kids get out of public school (usually around 3:30pm).  Except right now, the kids have about a month-long break from public school and go to camp for a couple hours per day.  So, for the month of January, we start a little after 1pm and get off earlier.

Each class we teach, we have a Korean teacher counterpart.  Every class is about 45 minutes long.  In the lower-level classes, our Korean counterpart has the class for 25 minutes and I have them for 20 minutes.  Some classes I see everyday (the lower-level classes).  Others, I see Mondays/Wednesdays or Tuesdays/Thursdays.  We are really lucky at this hagwon because we have books; some hagwons don't have books.

I start out my day with a phonics class.  These 4 kids barely know any English!  They just spent 4-5 weeks reading one book, The Lion and the Mouse.  It goes like this.....

     Part 1.  Little mouse.  Big lion.  Big, big trouble.  Let me go begs mouse.  Someday I will help you?  You help me says lion.  Ha ha ha!  But lion opens his paw.  He sets mouse free.  Part 2.  Big lion.  Big net.  Big big trouble.  Roar!  Mouse sits up.  He follows that roar.  Help me begs lion.  Mouse starts to chew.  He chews and chews.  He sets lion free.  Lion does not laugh at mouse now.  Now he knows.  Even the littlest mouse can help the biggest lion.  Always help others.

I do spelling tests with them once per week and the and go over pronunciation, etc. the rest of the week.  It's kind of difficult when they have questions for me because they know so little English.  I am really excited because next week we are starting a new book!  It's a Cat in the Hat book!

My next class is also a lower-level class, but they can definitely understand a lot more than my phonics class.  They can read and comprehend a lot of English.  They are learning things like... "Who's he?  He's my father." and "Where are you from?  I'm from France."  They are also learning adjectives and prepositions.  However, we don't use those "English terms" with them.  The next class I have is just a step up from them.  And the class after that is even another step up.  They are all pretty basic classes though.

Then, I have some "advanced" classes.  These classes are 1 1/2 hours.  They have two books.  One has a story (Some are really interesting.  I learned some things about Queen Elizabeth that I didn't know).  They then have about 4 pages of reading comprehension.  I check the pages as they finish and we go over it as a class.  The other book encourages more talking in class.

Finally, I have a middle school class.  They are concerned about passing their TOEFL test (the most widely respected English-language test in the world).  They listen to a CD and fill in the dictation into a workbook.  Zach has 3 middle school classes.


I teach about 6 classes per day.  In all of my classes, I have to remind the students that they can only speak English in my classroom.  It is a constant battle!


Well, I know this wasn't the most exciting post, but some of you wanted to hear about my teaching experience so far.  I really like what I do!  The kids are great....usually!!!  It's fun to watch them learn.


That's all for now!  Thanks for reading!