KOTESOL REVIEW # 2

Marc Helgeson always gives a great lecture and his main subject is happiness. This one began with his defense for wasting time on happiness.

He started by comparing educational psychology with 'positive psychology' -how and why people feel happy. Students who are having fun are more engaged and are more likely to remember things.

Alright, how can we use positive psychology in class? If you ask students to give compliments in class, look at the event chain. Students think about the English they need, give the compliment, then it is heard and remembered. It goes through the minds of the students at least four times.

He also gave attendees a 'happiness journal' for students. I expect to use it with my third year classes next year.

The material in this lecture was meant as a supplement or as directions to keep in mind during class and curriculum planning.

To learn more, go to his website.

KOTESOLed Out!

Just got in the door. I'm going to crash soon but thought I'd relax with a beer first. I will post again, later, in more detail about various presentations.

The big-name speakers were not as interesting as in previous years but There were three presentations that I will be thinking about and researching further before next semester's classes. I also sat in three presentations about Masters programs in TESOL.

I think I spent more time with friends than at previous conferences. You couldn't walk down a hallway without tripping over a blogger - that seemed to be true for all of Seoul.

At the conference, I saw the EFL Geek, JoeSeoulman, Chris in South Korea, the Chosun Bimbo. There were even more bloggers but I got the impression that they weren't blogging anymore (John in Kwangju, what is your blog, anyway?).

While walking down the street by city hall, I saw a foreigner and asked him if Bando and Luni's bookstore was nearby. He swiftly responded, "Are you Gangwon Notes?" It was nice to bump, completely randomly, into ZenKimchi. He didn't know where the bookstore was, but may soon have a book published to be placed in such a store. Congrats on his recent wedding.

Gangwon KOTESOL meeting: March 14

I received this by email with the suggestion that I could print it out and give it to anyone interested. I suppose posting on this blog is similar.

Gangwon KOTESOL
presents
“Speaking of Speech:
A Conversation Teacher’s Toolbox”
Tory S. Thorkelson
(Hanyang University, KOTESOL National President)
Saturday, March 14th
3:00 p.m.
Sokcho-Yang Yang Office of Education, 3rd Floor

There is little question that teaching conversation is the mainstay of most of the jobs
and programs where Native English speakers work in Korea. While CBI (Content
Based Instruction) and ESP (English for Specific Purposes) may have made inroads
into the EFL classroom, many people still lack a real understanding of how hard it is
to implement, assess, and help students see their own progress and feel they have
input into what and how they learn to speak English. This presentation will highlight
and elaborate on some of the tips and tricks that have helped the presenter succeed as
a conversation teacher for Freshmen university classes and institute classes over a
12+ year career in Korea and 3 years as a middle school teacher in Okinawa, Japan
for the JET program. Whatever level you may teach, Elementary, High School, or
beyond, this presentation will certainly give you something to put in your own
toolbox!

For directions to the Sokcho-Yang Yang Office of Education or further information,
please contact Michael Free (m_d_free [at] hotmail [dot] com)
{Or click to find a map}
*All are welcome*
*Refreshments will be served*
*Please join us for dinner and drinks after the presentation*

Kotesol pics

I hope to have a substantive post on the conference up soon but Wednesday is the first day I am really free to write. I had a good time at the conference but few presentations rose to the quality level I expected.

One great part of the weekend was meeting fellow bloggers, particularly two I had never met in the flesh: The beautiful Lao-Ocean Girl and the, uh, not unattractive EFL Geek (he looks just like his avatar).

Before the conference, I did some shopping and found this sign (and, in fact, some good shirrrts) near city hall.

One of the presenters at KOTESOL discussed using art and clay in class. Her presentation was way overbooked but I saw two remarkable things at the far end of the hall; Lao-Ocean Girl and an empty seat. I sat down and introduced myself - she even recognized me! The funny thing is, I'm pretty sure we worked in Gangneung at the same time for a few years, but had never met. Reardon, did you tell her I was creepy? I will certainly seem so after this post.

Anyway, we made this gargoyle together.


I also met JoeSeoulMan, another blogger but one I had met before, on my turf. He visited Naksan Temple a few years ago and I made his acquaintance. From his office, I took this picture of the Sookmyoung University buildings where the conference was going on. Kevin, if you read this, I saw the sign for Cordon Bleu cooking and thought, I am walking where the big hominid walked.Anyway, in discussing my food shopping plans before departure, Joe ofered to help by driving me to Costco. Eventually he left me at a subway station with the two bags I'd started with and two others all hanging off me. Joe, I managed to organise everything down to two big bags and a small one.

Coming up, Saturday at Kotesol...

My Kotesol Buddy's wedding

My friend, Graham, had planned to get (or at least told me he was getting) married later in the month, but I happened by today and there they were.
I mean, it's obviously Graham, who else has a beard like that? Ah, his fiance, LYN, normally has a smoother face, but, well, weddings are stressful; some skin problems are common on the big day.
Congratulations to the lucky couple from KwandongAlex and I.

Kotesol Annual International Conference

Its been several days since I attended the conference but I've been a little busy. I've wanted to write about the conference but I guess I'm not as energetic as Nathan who posted his impressions each night (Saturday, Sunday).

In general, I can't say that I learned a lot of new information. However, many half-baked ideas that I had considered but not thought through had been thought through by others. As loyal readers have not doubt noticed, I am interested in using video and other web-based sources and materials in my classes. Colin Skeates, working in Japan, gave a great seminar on the subject as did Russel Huber, also working in Japan, and I'll go into more detail below.

Many of the seminars were more edutainment than educational. My own teaching techniques lean heavily toward entertaining my students but that is because my class is not an elective and many students are not internally motivated; I have to make the material interesting. Attendees to this conference had personally paid to be there and, in my case, had travelled for several hours. I feel we were eager for information and what we got was sometimes diluted.
Perhaps I am being crotchety. I certainly enjoyed the seminars and laughed heartily many times. Even the legendary Dr. Jack Richards gave a lecture full of humor.

First, I attended a seminar by Lee Jolie, who discussed Communicative Language Teaching. I am still not completely sure what CLT means but I'm interested in researching more myself.

Next, a terrible lecture by Lee Hyun-joo on the subject of Cultural Imperialism in ESL Textbooks. She made a good point that local cultural images and information, in English, should be used to some extent in class. As a counter image, she described a book from a well-known publishing company in which every chapter started with American-based example. The book had information on international subjects but any time there was a datum from outside of the US, it came after an American datum. She thought there was something wrong with this but I feel most ESL students specifically want cultural information from English-speaking countries.

Then, I attended the Seoul Hero's lecture on common errors made by Korean learners of English. It was interesting to see the catalog but I've been here a while, there wasn't anything new for me. The catalog would be of value to new teachers here and can be found here.

Jack Richards talked about listening to English in class requires two skill sets: listening for information and listening to learn English - these are two overlapping but different sets of goals.

I've spent several years here but still don't have TEFL qualifications. My teaching qualifications are real but for a different subject. This year, its time to decide how to improve myself as a teacher so I went to the University of Birmingham Distance MA programmes seminar. Since that time, I have also learned of a program called DELTA which also appears to be of value. We'll see.

Tim Thompson have a useful and amusing talk entitled, "Examining Korean University Students Expectations of Native Speaker English Teachers". The three most important things his subjects want in their NS teachers are: "Speaks to students in a friendly manner", "Plans every minute of class" and "Explains things clearly". The three things they cared least about were: "Wears a suit/dress", "Is handsome/pretty", and "doesn't hesitate or say 'ummm'". The last bothered Mr Thompson so he wanted to compare his own experiences with his student's. Students also wanted "an expert in his/her field" but ranked "Has a masters degree" and "Has a Ph.D" very low in the list. Thompson and his standing-room-only audience discusses this and suggested that perhaps 'Native Speaker' equals "expert" to the students.
Smile and look organised, don't worry about the suit or the Masters - I need to talk to my employer about the last two points.

I had dinner with the Gangwon Kotesol group at 'Oktoberfest', near Jonggak. I've always been a fan of dark beer and the microbrewed Duenkel was fantastic.

On Sunday, Skeates talked about video journaling. He has spent three years requiring the journals as homework and has worked out how to organise the projects to get valuable learning without going crazy. In his first year, he had seventy students each make 15 one-minute videos and exhausted himself commenting on them. By the third year, he required only eight videos per student but expected them to be of increasing length.

I attended a few other seminars and enjoyed the whole thing but I am tired so I'll finish by saying I missed my family and knew Kwandongwife would be exhausted after working all week and taking care of Kwandongson so I went home early.

Gangwon English Teachers in the news.

Two Gangwon English Teachers are in the newspapers this week.

In an article that could be titled: English Teachers - whiners or victims? Sara Avrams, a teacher in Youngwol, I believe, and an occasional speaker at the Gangwon KOTESOL meetings, is interviewed. She states that most of the time, the teacher involved didn't research the position well enough.

Teachers often hear horror stories about how the Korean legal system appears unwilling to get involved. Avrams points out that once they do get involved, the teacher is likely to be out of a job so nobody wins.

Avrams says the official channels will sometimes soft-pedal the gravity of the issue. Rather than rushing to court, they will often encourage the teacher to try to reach an agreement with the school.

"They are not trying to protect the employer, I think. They are aware that if they have to enforce a rule on behalf of the employee, the employee will likely be fired."

By offering advice to teachers rather than getting formally involved, the authorities are indeed helping. It's a reasonable point and I feel my POV broadening yet again.

Avrams worked as a legal educational advocate before coming to Korea so I expect her opinions to be based on fact. I can only describe my personal experiences. Here they are, should you care. (Below are my comments on an article by a second Gangwon English teacher.)

I certainly didn't do enough research before first coming to Korea but was apparently lucky. At my first hagwon, I learned of the loophole in the contract that all hagwons seem to love. Having a contracted set number of hours per month means they can work you into the ground in February. With Lunar New Year in a short month, 130 hours means almost ten hours a day.

I didn't get a year end bonus at that place because the roof leaked in a typhoon during my eleventh month there, closing the school. They did treat me well and I have no complaints with management.

I went home for a year before returning to Korea and working in Seoul. I knew better what questions to ask but had a strange interview. I asked many questions, eventually including a repeated, "Do you have any questions for me?" The interviewer explained that by asking smart questions, I had already displayed good knowledge of teaching and hagwon life. I was happy working at BCM. Some found the split shift exhausting - me, too, but I can sleep during the day.
In my second year, I was the foreign teacher liaison or coordinator. When I gave info to propective employees, I was positive about my experience but listed every problem we had had. Teachers I hired had their eyes wide open. There were fewer problems later that way.

Next, I worked at Baegam, Kyounggi-do. A nightmare job. I worked for ETC- this is where my blogging email address came from (brianetcetera (at) hotmail...) As always, great students but here is where I first saw creative accounting and other trickery. Oh, ETC changed it's name and a new company may now use the name elsewhere - any current ETC is not the one I am badmouthing.

I am now at Kwandong University. Almost any university position is superior to to any hagwon position and in my opinion, Kwandong takes good care of it's teachers. In general, you get better working conditions but students of a wider range of motivation at universities. It's easier for a teacher to be enthused at universities because there is more available prep time. The biggest negative for university work is, again, the range in motivation in the classes. Each class is fairly homogeneous in motivation but one class (best examples are medicine and education) is likely to be much more motivated than another (least motivated classes are typically piano, Phys Ed and Engineering). A few individuals will buck the trend, naturally.
Fro researchers on this university, there were posts on a blacklist website a few years ago. While there are problems at any jobsite, I don't think Kwandong belongs on any current blacklist.


The Herald closes it's archives to non-subscribers after a week -SO HURRY if you want to read it. They will be part two next week.


Rick Ruffin writes an interesting article about over- or conspicuous- consumption here on the peninsula. The article sort of reads like an interview with Jack who has no last name. On the whole, I agree with Jack's opinion about reducing consumption but he picks a strange opening example. He says,

"...the Korean government wants to build more dams. I understand that the recent floods were a terrible setback for hundreds of families living in the river valleys, but this response is only too typical for a world that can’t think outside the boundaries of ‘more.’ "

His other examples are all reasonable but he really doesn't give any alternatives to dam building. I can agree with drinking smaller amounts of coffee or using an air conditioner judiciously but these are not life and property-threatening choices.

I actually have a tiny bit of knowledge about dams in Korea thanks to a wonderful speaker who gave a lecture at Minjok Sagwan when I was working there. This speaker must remain even more anonymous than 'Jack' as I can't remember her name. Let me paraphrase what she told us:
Korea ranks very highly in total number of dams built and I believe is first in dams per capita. Dams are only stopgap repairs: They eventually silt up so they lose value in preventing floods or storing water for agriculture. Korea has been building dams for fifty years and still has flooding problems so they are clearly not a perfect solution.

Perhaps dams are not a longterm solution but they do mitigate the damage caused by flooding. A more appropriate opening example or alternative solution would have been nice.