"Management Training"

On Friday the English department at the university had its annual MT, or "management training" retreat.

The MT is, in theory, a time for the fourth-year English majors to co-mingle with all of the incoming freshmen, and to inculcate in them the honorable traditions passed down to them throughout generations.

In reality, it's the night where freshmen students learn how to get really drunk. And not just with their senior counterparts, but also with...wait for it...their professors.

The afternoon started out quite tamely. The students had rented a "pension" (Konglish for a rental house that sleeps a dozen or more) out in the middle of nowhere and carted in a busload of booze, meat, and, well, fresh meat. There were six foreign professors in attendance. While the seniors grilled up stacks of sliced pork, we taught a few of the freshmen how to throw a frisbee and taught them an impromptu game we made up that involved large cardboard tubes, a frisbee, and drinking.

Later we played some games that the freshman organizers planned, such as:

• "Contest Line of Eating Foods that Should Not be Eaten by Themselves, Like Onions, Garlic, and Hot Peppers,"
• "Rolling Dice and Moving Pieces of Tape on a Large Circular Piece of Paper,"
• "Drinking Random Cups of Liquid,"and
• "Blowing Up Balloons and Drawing Faces on Them" (I don't think this last one was a game but rather just a waste of balloons.)

We also played a team game in which the organizer would yell out a word or name ("Elephant!" "King Kong!" "Super Junior!"), and all eight blindfolded team members would pose. More people doing the same pose meant more points.

I'm not sure what the winner got, which means there must have been some less-than-forthright-judging methods, because I - of course - performed spectacularly.

The night also included much karaoke, cake, dancing, and this guy:

He and his friend sang this song anytime someone was forced to drink in any game they were playing. Which was pretty much every turn of every game.

Free TESOL Training Course

EFLClassroom has put up a Free self-guided TESOL Training course developed by the US Department of Education and the University of Oregon. 

It's an open-source course featuring videos from classrooms all over the world. Unfortunately it's not accredited, but if you're just looking for some work-related self-improvement, then it's a great resource (did I mention FREE?) for you.

Check out the course here.

FBI Background check for Korean visa

The Waygook Effect has an excellent step-by-step guide (for Americans) to getting an FBI background check (with a Department of State Federal Apostille) for renewing an E-2 visa to teach English in Korea.

Check it out here.

Get a University Job in Korea (and...shhh...without an MA!)

The EFL business has been booming in Korea for the last ten years, and it isn't letting up. EPIK has been increasing recruits, new private academies are opening every day, and foreign teachers are still arriving by the planeload.

But with the global economy in a recession, teaching English abroad has suddenly become much more attractive. The market is competitive - two years ago getting a teaching job in Korea was as simple as applying. Now stories of EPIK or private academy applicants being turned away are increasingly common.

Which makes scoring a university gig - among the most coveted of positions in the EFL world -  seem like a pipe dream. Particularly if you don't have a Master's degree.

But there's hope. You don't need an MA, or even an English degree, to get a job teaching in a Korean university. Perhaps it's a sad reality, but often the only thing required is a foreign face and a university degree.

You Can Get a University Job in Korea 

Without a Master's Degree!

It helps if you have one or more of the following:

1. Friends

There are LOTS of universities in Korea, and many of them do not post job openings online. Some of them don't even have websites. Many small universities in Korea don't have the staff or time to spend filing through a long list of applicants. They want to hire someone quickly, and without much ado. Knowing someone who already works in a university is the easiest way to get your name on the top of the hiring list.

Which brings me to number 2.

2. Persistence

If you don't know someone who works in a university, find someone. Visit the English department at a university and introduce yourself to someone - Korean or foreign - and let them know who you are.

A friend of mine got a university job at a uni on a certain Korean island by looking up an email list of professors and firing off a couple of messages to let professors know that he would be visiting and wanted to sit down for a chat. Although the university wasn't hiring at the time, he kept in touch with his contacts there and when a position did open up, he was already in the loop. The professors knew him, and could put a face to his name.

3. Experience

There are 4 kinds of experience that matter:

- Teaching English
- Teaching in Korea
- Teaching adults (high school or older)
- Teaching in a public school

I'll be honest - you probably won't be able to get a university job without at least a year of prior teaching experience. If you don't have a Master's degree, don't expect to move to Korea with a university job. You'll probably need a year or two of experience here before they'll consider you.



3. Luck

Call it what you will - fortune, timing, destiny - sometimes getting the job has nothing to do with qualifications. It is all about being in the right place in the right time. Every Korean university operates a little differently - and hiring decisions are up to the specific department head. So cross your fingers, throw your chips in the pot, and hope for the best.

(A little bribery never hurt anyone, either ;) )

Marco Polo In the Classroom, or, "Oh my God there's so much blood!"

It started innocently enough. I just wanted to plan a simple classroom game that got the students to move but required them to use English to play.

If you never played "Marco Polo" in the swimming pool when you were younger, well, you probably didn't grow up in America. Marco Polo is a blind-man tag game based on hearing only. In the game, one kid - eyes closed - is "It". Whenever he yells "Marco!" the rest of the players must yell "Polo!", unless they are underwater. When "It" finds and tags another player, that kid becomes "It" and the game continues until Mom is ready to go home or someone wants to play a better game like "Sharks and Minnows".
 

Cartoon used by special permission
off the mark / one-a-day calendars

I thought this was a great set-up for an English-speaking game in the classroom. In "Classroom Marco Polo", one kid is "It". Everyone moves around in a designated space until "It" yells "Stop!" Then "It" must ask a practiced question like "What's your name?" or "What's your favorite food?" The other players must answer as many times as the question is asked.

"It" can take one giant step in any direction to try to tag another player. The other players can move their bodies to avoid being touched, but if they move their feet they become "It".

In the cut-throat version of the game, whenever a student is tagged, he becomes "It" but then must leave the game after tagging another player. The last player left without being tagged is the winner.

Unfortunately, whenever you let repressed, over-disciplined high school students - especially boys - loose in a game that involves blindness and physical contact, accidents are bound to happen. Glasses will get knocked across the room; kids will fall down; and one boy will swing his hand around wildly until he punches another boy in the mouth and splits his lip, which erupts into a crimson geyser across tables, chairs, and the floor. Seriously. So much blood.

I slowed down the bleeding with a wad of toilet paper and took the boy to the teacher's office, where they called his mom. All I really understood from the rushed conversation was "waygook shigan", or "foreigner time", so I had to fill in the rest of the conversation for myself. It went something like

"Hi, this is I-dong High School. Your son was in class with our foreigner-in-residence and now he's bleeding to death. Please come pick him up."

Personally, I didn't think the cut looked that bad. It just bled a lot. But I saw him the next day, after his visit to the hospital, and his lip was bandaged up so heavily he could barely speak.

Classroom Marco Polo Rule #1: No punching.

Alliteration is Awesome!

Today I introduced a new lesson plan called "Alliteration is Awesome!" And it was. Once, at least.

Over the last two weeks the classes have been learning and playing "Scattergories," one of my favorite word games ever. If you don't know about it, go play it now. It's up there with Boggle and Scrabble.

In the classroom, all of my students have loved it - even the lowest level boys go screaming-wild crazy over defending their answers, or attacking the answers of the other teams.

Today, after playing Scattegories for the last two classes, I taught my highest-level freshmen girls' class a new activity called "Alliteration is Awesome." It was one of the most memorable classes that I've ever taught. The girls were as creative, energetic, and enthusiastic as I've ever seen them. Of course, it was a high level class, and they were girls, and they usually have quite good energy anyway. We'll see how it plays out in the other 19 classes I teach. For now, though, I'm enjoying the momentary high.

The point of sharing this with you, though, was not to talk about me and my brilliant new lesson plan. I wanted to share the two-sentence stories that the girls came up with in the activity, to show you just how creative and funny they can be. I gave them points for the number of M's used, creativity, and grammatical correctness. People often say that Korean students have trouble thinking outside the box. I think they just haven't gotten the opportunity.

Here are their stories, to illustrate alliteration with the letter "M" (with only minor edits by yours truly):

Team 1

Mickey Mouse and my model mother ordered more and more medium steak and mustard sauce by mobile phone in the metro on Monday.

Team 2

Miss A and Mighty Mouse met in the membership club to show their music on Monday. Marc Jacobs made marble macaroni and took the metro at midnight. He gave the marble macaroni to male mammoths.

Team 3

Many monsters’ mothers and Magneto’s model mom made a party called “Merry X-Mas in Mexico.” At midnight Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse met a mini monkey’s mama who was eating miracle meat with mushrooms, which was the main menu in Mary’s mild room until next morning.

Team 4

My mother’s monkey, the monkey’s mom, Mickey Mouse and the main male model Mike made a milk shake and a meal in the mountain on Monday morning. The monster and Minnie Mouse met many members of Mickey Mouse’s friends in Mexico City, Mexico on a Monday in March.

Team 5

Mandy Moore and Mary met in the Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse Garden while they were making Monkey Magic bags on Monday morning. Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse marry in the Mama & Papa nightlclub in Pohang in the morning.

Team 6

Many monkeys and their moms meet other mother monkeys and father monkeys at the museum during Merry Christmas season. Min’s mom met Mike at the music shop to go see a musical and enjoy the moment. They went to see the movie “Mission Impossible” in which appear muscle boys.