The Road to Korea

This morning at the bright and early hour of 2.10am I had my EPIK interview.

It went OK, but I am a little bit disappointed! I'm not entirely sure I managed to a lot of my points across, and I think I rambled a little bit which is probably very very bad since my hiring depends on my ability to clearly express myself in English. D'oh

It's not that I didn't have any answers; simply that I could have been more concise with them.

I was quite tired since I didn't sleep and had had a busy day. (Christening, followed by a friend's BBQ), so that is my defence, nevertheless I still think I could have sensibly prepared myself a bit more beforehand. I've obviously researched so much and am dedicated to the job and moving to SK, however it's how well I showed that on the spot, in an interview at 2am that I found difficult!

My interviewer did however praise my lesson plan and application, so hopefully they will go easy on me & give me a placement!

Fingers crossed, I'll find out in a few days whether I've got it.

Finally completed my application for working in Seoul (the state government has an additional application procedure).

I had to send them a lesson plan! I decided to to the topic on the environment, drawing heavily on this website: Postcards From The Future.

I thought it'd combine pictures of London, with practice of the future tense and topical vocab on the environment! Hope they like it and hope that the environment & climate change aren't taboo subjects... eek! (You never know!)

Anyway, fingers crossed I get an interview!

Over & out!

After frantically getting together my references and devising my own "teaching philosophy" (necessary for the final stage of the EPIK application) I've submitted the first bits and pieces to try and secure an interview! All very exciting. Not sure how long it'll take to hear back about whether I get an interview but hopefully it'll be sooner rather than later, though secretly I'd rather it was after the bulk of my exams! (So this time in 2/3 weeks).

I bought my first proper camera yesterday: a Nikon D3100! It's a fab little beginner's DSLR. 

Since I'm planning on the adventure of a lifetime I figured I should make sure I'm able to document it properly!

There's the first, admittedly rather naff, picture I've taken on it! It's really simple to use which is the main reason I bought it - it has a great 'Guide' mode that takes you though all the settings. I've not even had it 24 hours and I'm already feeling really confident when I use it! Will be sure to upload more practice pics when I get a chance to properly use it, after revision.

In other news, I had a good ol chat with EPIK people this morning. Feeling really excited and a lot more confident about how I'll bear up in Korea, over 1000 TEFL people will be beginning August, and they ensure you all get to know one-another, especially during two week orientation period meaning the teachers get a great support network. Hopefully I'll get a job with them!

Three hundred languages are spoken in London, and someone out there is probably willing to teach you it.

But for a fee, obviously.

And despite finding relatively cheap courses at SOAS, and even some that are free, the fact I'd missed the deadline for applying to both, and the fact that SOAS's easter course clashes with my final year exams I decided to look elsewhere.

And there is no shortage of people willing to teach Korean, it's just really, really expensive. The average price is just under £60 per hour, with minimum lesson times of 90 mins. A full course would cost just over a grand! 

It is obviously a niche, and I'm not bitching at them for charging the going rate, it's just a bit disappointing! 

So I set off to SOAS and bought myself a "Teach Yourself Complete Korean", for significantly less than what one professional lesson would cost me!

Having learnt German for seven years I'm realistic at the standard one can get to over a summer - this was one of the reasons I decided against forking out for professional lessons. I decided I should get as much self study done as possible before paying for any proper lessons, if I can get through the tedious basics myself then I can actually gain some ground with a professional rather than repeating the mundane. Before setting off I'll hopefully have learnt the Korean alphabet and a few key conversational phrases and can then perhaps get a few lessons to help improve my pronunciation and confidence. 

I would however sound a bit of a warned with Teach Yourself books, let's just say they're not exactly a visual treat, and their website really doesn't enrich your learning, despite purporting to. I've found myself taking the content from the book and making my own learning resources - if you want to learn from them, the content is faultless, but be prepared to be creative yourself.

Rigorous, but somewhat uninspiring - and not as well presented as they could be. Still, I think you get out as much as you put in from self-study books like Teach Yourself.

In other exciting news, it was my birthday a few days ago. I still haven't had the proper do yet, but I had most of my family over for it on the actual day. Talk inevitably turned to what I was doing after uni, and that talk was obviously about Korea! Everyone was universally positive which was great. Mum also put a really lovely quote in my birthday card:

Fulfil your dreams, then you will never look back and say "if only", all the love in the world, Mum & Dad

Which was really lovely of them, and a pretty subtle endorsement for everything which makes me feel great about the whole thing!

One of the best things about this is seeing everyone's responses when I tell them I'm planning to go to Korea for a year... my old house-mate Cecilia was by far the best response - a blank, bemused stare! Really made me laugh.

However, I'm still yet to tell most of my closest friends. I'll probably be telling them on Monday when I have the other half of my 21st birthday celebrations!

And the last but not least update for now is that I applied for my first job this morning! It was with eslstarter and was advertised on TEFL.com's Facebook page. I applied right away, the impression I get is that it's a scheme that places graduates all over South Korea. I'll obviously be rooting for Seoul, but I'm sure I can try and swing it that way if I get through the first round or so. Anyway, we've all got to start searching somewhere & I'm sure it won't be the first job application I have to send off!

Yesterday, I completed the second day of my two-day TEFL weekend course.

On the whole it was, again, a really good experience. Everybody from the previous day was in attendance. We re-capped the previous day's key points and then set upon organising our second lesson plan. My lesson went a lot better than the previous day's and I think myself and the South African lady did a great job! (We were working in pairs again).

We had been asked to bring in some material to use (e.g., a newspaper article). I took in a heavy piece from the Economist on Britain and France's action in Libya, being a politics student and all! However, I decided my partner's advert for a play at the Southbank centre was far more appropiate.

We set about organising some questions from the piece, as it was a comprehension exercise; teased out the key vocabulary the hypothetical pupils would find most difficult and then devised a lead in activity.

Overall I was a lot more confident than the previous day.

Other activities included learning techniques to teach pronunciation and how to do a 'needs' assessment, in other words, how we could check a pupil's level of proficiency; among other general classroom techniques.

I'm really excited now! I think teaching really will be a subject I'd love. I'm not sure if I would want to do it as a career, but who knows? 

My parents seem to be reluctantly supportive of me at the moment but my brother is taking the idea of me moving away pretty badly, which is disappointing. I don't want to upset them, but hopefully he'll get over it. I guess we are a close family, however I have just got to do what I want with my life really!