Published by the Gwangju International Center since 2001
The main purpose of Practical Life Education in the Montessori classroom environment is to assist the children to control their body movement, teach them how to focus on their work, and help them to be more independent. Through all of these processes, students can build their own life skills and positive habits for their long journey.
“Many expat teachers in Korea today got their start in English teaching at one of the many private English institutes that populate the streets of every population center in the nation. I did not begin my days in Korea working at a language institute (aka hagwon) – nor did any expat in Korea at the time. It was against the law. “English fever” and “English hell” are not such recent phenomena. During the Park Chung Hee administration, only a very few hagwon were granted business licenses, and those that were so lucky were limited to teaching content directly related to standardized exams such as the college entrance examination, and hiring non-Koreans to teach English was also against the law. “
Before moving to Gwangju, I was a teacher in China. Naively, I figured that given the two countries were not that far apart geographically speaking, then there would be many similarities between the neighbours. I could not have been more wrong. In this article, I have written about some of the differences and similarities about my time in each country.
When we think of teaching lessons in English in Korea, we immediately think of teaching English as a foreign language (EFL) and, most often, of the instructor being an expat, native speaker of English. However, what has been trending in recent years, especially at the tertiary level, is teaching content courses (e.g., engineering, history, mathematics) in English. To understand better this aspect of teaching, we have sought out Phillip Schrank, a university professor in our Gwangju community, for this interview.
If you are a language teacher in the Gwangju area or a member of Korea TESOL (KOTESOL), the nationwide teachers’ association, you have quite likely heard of Lindsay Herron. She has spent well over a decade teaching in Korea and almost as long involved in KOTESOL. Lindsay is presently the president of the Gwangju-Jeonnam Chapter of KOTESOL, a past national president of KOTESOL, and the chair of this spring’s KOTESOL International Conference. Lindsay graciously agreed to the following interview to talk about teaching, the local KOTESOL chapter, the upcoming conference, and a bit about herself.
Before the revision in North Korea, English or Russian were the only languages taught in cities in 2003, but in 2013, English education was expanded nationwide. In the revised curriculum, foreign language subjects were unified into English, and the Russian language course was abruptly ended. As a result, the number of hours spent by students in English classes has been greatly expanded (Cho et al., 2015).
“Trust yourself, your abilities, your newfound passion, and mostly trust the process.”
My involvement with the “Lost” column began this month back in 2018, and as much as I’d like to have a single, significant topic to cover, this fourth anniversary has fallen during a creative slump. As per tradition, whenever this happens, I’m left to cobble together a few half-baked ideas with little rhyme or reason to them. And so, here it is – an underwhelming medley of odds and (dead) ends that have been crowding my workspace these past few months.
