Observation time is coming again. In a few days my teaching style will be on display and up for critique. I suppose I'm more confident than I should be, but my student evaluations last semester (my first at SMU-TESOL) were almost oo good to be true.
Well it feels great to work hard and see that your efforts are appreciated. But it also probably makes me a little too confident and the past 3 weeks I'm not sure I've been doing my best at being critical of myself in order to get better.
Hopefully, I'll snap myself out of dreamland. I don't want the observer from the University of Maryland to do it for me.
Here are links to what I did for my friend from New York when he cam to Seoul recently.
Day 1: Kyungbok Palace, Namdaemun, JJ Mahoney's
Day 2: Bongeunsa & Coex mall in Seoul, Korea
Day 3: The National Museum of Korea
Day 4: War Memorial of Korea and Hongdae
Day 5: Han Ok Gol Village, Waffle House, shopping
Day 6: National Assembly Building in Yeouido, Seoul Arts Center
Day 7: DMZ, Insadong, Chungyechun, City Hall, drunkeness, Seoul taxis
Day 8: Seodaemun Prison & Shinchon
Day 9: Shabu Shabu, Acupuncture, Dak Galbi, Noribang
Day 10: Black Rubber Shoes, Zibe, Su Norebang in Hongdae
In Robert Cialdini's Infleunce: Science and Practice, Cialdini writes that cooperative activities create more friendship and reduce prejudice in classes. However, he also warns that competition has its place and that the issues involved are too complex for a simple solution. See page 158-159.
I recently saw The Sleeping Dictionary, a love movie in which the main characters meet when the native is assigned to teach the British colonialist the local language. However, a teaching methodology with as little theoretical support as grammar translation dictates that the teacher should have sex with the pupil (luckily we're talking about private tutoring here - no large classes).
I was in the mood to complain about my heavy workload until I read this article about Chinese employers abusing foreign English teachers. This reminded me of my first job teaching English in Korea, at terrible school in Chinju (Jinju) named English House.
None of us ended up dead at English House as one man did in China recently), but we did experience a number of scary incidents that really just can't happen in America.
I guess my point is that if you're taking a job in China, Korea, or anywhere else really do some research. You should be able to do some networking and then find a place that recommended by someone you know and trust. If not, make sure you can escape if you need to.