Why Are Koreans So White

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences This essay examines English education in South Korea and its socio-cultural problems. The discussion draws on my personal beliefs and experiences. First, the history of Korean education is laid out by illustrating the cultural background of Korean society. Following that, it traces the problems of learners of the English language in Korea and tips on how to improve their learning. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Nayoung H. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. For a long time, Korea has been a country that’s been highly education-obsessed. Entry to a top university has led to prestigious, well-paying, and secure jobs; it has...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Destinations Alumni Experiences Korean learners of the English language face numerous challenges in acquiring the language on a proficient level, although English is introduced to children at an early age. English is incorporated into the primary school curriculum from the age of four, yet only a small minority master the language on a proficient conversational level. Unfortunately, the reasons seem to stem from cultural and social differences, the significant differences between the two languages; Korean and English, and the Korean Educational System is also a contributing factor. This post was written by our ITTT graduate Beatrix N. To begin with, cultural differences seem to be a central reason why Koreans...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Before starting my TEFL course to gain a more professional basis, I worked as an English teacher in South Korea for about one year. In this short essay, I will explain some of the most prominent difficulties South Korean students seem to face when learning English. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Laura M. First and foremost, the educational structure in South Korea is quite different from those of Europe or the United States. Korean kids usually start studying English from the age of three. However, the average class size of about 40 students is way too big for such young students, making any interaction between teacher and student impossible. Later on, most Korean students become...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Many students of English as a Second Language (ESL) find that, of the many struggles they have with the language, pronunciation is the most difficult to master. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Sophie M. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Pronunciation is an extremely important ability to have to sound more fluent in English. By gaining the knowledge and skill of proper pronunciation, an ESL student can come across at a much higher level of English ability and intelligence. However, this is easier said than done. In South Korea, for example, certain sounds aren’t used in their language but are used in English. Because these...  [Read more]

  South Korea is a small but incredibly beautiful country, and during the 4 week TEFL you will have fantastic opportunities to experience the rich culture and history. Not only will you have the chance for local excursions, but based in Incheon, you will be less than an hour away from the lively city of Seoul on the express train. The first week of your program includes in-depth cultural orientations, ensuring you deeply understand the Korean way of life and culture. This includes a welcome dinner, tour of the local neighbourhood and the “Grand” Palace (Gyeongbok Palace), taekwondo class and learning South Korean cookery and language. Incheon is home to Korea’s only official Chinatown, where you can try jajangmyun (noodles with black bean sauce) at the Gongwachun restaurant and...  [Read more]

Federico Riva Destinations TEFL Information Hi and welcome to another live session from ITTT. My name is Linda and I'm here today to talk about teaching English in South Korea. Let me just show you today's topic so that everybody who's joining knows what's happening today. Today we're talking about teaching English in South Korea and I'm so excited about this topic and it's actually been a super requested topic every time I do a live session. I've been living in Korea for almost six years and I have been teaching a few different classes. I have done summer camps and winter camps and teaching kids and teaching adults, teaching business English, teaching conversation, teaching full-time at a kindergarten and elementary school...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Learning a second language can prove to have a variety of obstacles. Between age, time available for study, access to resources, and more, the desire to master another language must be given a strong priority to succeed. Just as individual learners will face their issues in the learning process, there are often similarities between language learners from a specific country or region. For English language learners from South Korea, where the standard college entrance exam contains sufficient English components (Kim, 2012), the necessity to learn is as high as the obstacles. Based on grammar differences, pronunciation, and a general fear of speaking English, English language learners in South Korea face issues...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Lately, I have been hearing the question “Can a non- native English speaker teach English?” and my answer to this is “YES” but in certain conditions. My answer is based on my experience as a non-native English teacher that is why I chose this topic. I would like to tell my story of being a non-native English teacher. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Maricor B. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Way back in the Philippines, there was no hard time for me to apply to schools and companies because, in our country, almost all of the English teachers are Filipinos. I grew up learning English through my Filipino- English...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore Destinations There are many great places to teach English abroad and one place that comes up a lot when researching the topic is South Korea. It's true that thousands of new teachers head to South Korea each year to pursue a career in teaching English as a foreign language for good reasons! Here are 5 reasons why you should teach English in South Korea. South Korea is one of the most prosperous countries in Asia and the world. Due to its booming economy with several Fortune 500 companies, like Samsung, Hyundai, and Kia, English language skills are now more important than ever in the East Asian nation. The English education industry of South Korea is a million dollar business and the importance of English language skills is deeply...  [Read more]

Federico Riva TEFL Information Alumni Experiences Hello everyone, how are you doing? Linda from ITTT, back again with another live session. I’m super excited to be here today to talk about this exciting topic, teaching English abroad and how it enhances your career prospects. I'm just going to wait for a couple more people to join, you know how it usually works. Once we are a good sized group of people we can start diving into this topic. If you can hear me and if you can see me please leave a comment. We are live on Facebook and on YouTube at the same time, so wherever you're watching from just leave a quick hi or hello in the comment section and also let me know where you are watching from. I am in South Korea about an hour...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences Lately, I have been hearing the question “Can a non-native English speaker teach English?” and my answer to this is “YES” but in certain conditions. My answer is based on my experience as a non-native English teacher that is why I chose this topic. I would like to tell my story of being a non-native English teacher. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Maricor B. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. Way back in the Philippines, there was no hard time for me to apply to schools and companies because, in our country, almost all of the English teachers are Filipinos. I grew up learning English through my Filipino- English...  [Read more]

Federico Riva Budget and Salary TEFL Information Teaching Ideas Hi guys, Linda here from ITTT with another live session. Super excited to be here again, thanks so much for tuning in today and if you're listening to this as a podcast episode thanks so much for the download, we really appreciated it. We turn all of our live sessions into podcast episodes and you can find them on all major podcast platforms like iTunes, Google Podcasts, and Spotify. Just search for the TEFL and TESOL Podcast by ITTT and you will find all our episodes there. Hi Tiana, thanks so much for tuning in today. How are you? I'm so excited to be here again and I think today's topic is going to be really interesting for people who want to...  [Read more]

Federico Riva TEFL Information Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas English to me and I'll answer them to the best of my ability. We have a first time watcher Sebastian watching from Cameroon and it is 2:00 a.m. there, wow thanks so much for staying up and watching our live stream, that's awesome. We are actually streaming live on Facebook and also on YouTube at the same time, so wherever you're watching from you can throw your questions at me at any time and if you don't want to miss out on any of our live streams don't forget to like and subscribe so that you always get notifications. I go live every Friday morning my time, depending on where you're watching it might still be Thursday, and then my colleague...  [Read more]

Federico Riva Destinations Alumni Experiences Welcome to another live session this week and we're on at a different time this week. Usually we're a little bit earlier, but we have a special guest today, and that's because she's based in Germany. So we had to change the time a little bit. I’m Linda from ITT, you've probably seen me before, if you've watched us live and I’m here with Brit today. Hi Brit! Hi, thanks for having me, and painting your time to meet my schedule, and thank you so much for getting up early.I know it's early in Germany right now. just have my coffee and I’m good to go.That's awesome,where in Germany are you exactly? so I’m based near Trier, which is along the border with Luxembourg. So very close...  [Read more]

Federico Riva TEFL Information Hi, I am back for another live session this week. My name is Linda from ITTT. I took a break last week, I was traveling a little bit in Korea, not too far but I got to enjoy the cherry blossoms. That's why there was no live session from me last week. But I'm back this week and I'm super excited. Today we're going to have a Q&A session, so you guys can ask me questions about TEFL and TESOL, teaching abroad, teaching online, whatever you want to know about. So something a bit more casual, let's have a chat. I would like to get to know you guys better and you can get to know me, ITTT and TEFL. If you can see me and hear me please drop a hi or something into the comment box so that I know that everything is working...  [Read more]

Federico Riva TEFL Information Alumni Experiences Hi and welcome to another live session. My name is Linda from ITTT and I'm back again this week, who would have thought? No, we're actually pretty consistent with our live events. So we are going live twice a week. Me once and then my colleague Liza once. I’m so happy to be here today guys, let me know if you can see me and if you can hear me, and also where you're watching from. Just drop hi I’m watching from so and so into the comment section, that would be really great. I'm super excited to be here again today. Normally I go live on Fridays, well Friday mornings in South Korea. But today I'm going live on Thursday because we are actually going into the Lunar New Year...  [Read more]

Federico Riva TEFL Information Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas Hello everybody and welcome. We're actually also going live on Instagram today, so I'm going to check that out as well as the usual Facebook and YouTube. Hopefully everything will work fine. I hope everybody can hear me well and can see me. This is the first time that we're actually live on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube at the same time, so I have a lot of screens here in front of me. Hello there, I see somebody tuned in on Instagram and we have a few people here on Facebook and YouTube already. I hope everything is going well today. Unfortunately, if you're watching on Instagram you won't be able to see the screen and maybe some of the...  [Read more]

Federico Riva TEFL Information Hi everybody, thanks so much for tuning in. It’s Linda here from ITTT with my morning coffee, because if you've watched me before in one of our live sessions you will know that I am in South Korea and it's currently 10:00 a.m. on Friday morning. So I'm having my morning coffee and I'm going to have a chat with you guys. If you can see me and hear me, please drop a hi or something into the comment box, I would really appreciate it. As you may or may not know, at ITTT we go live twice every week, me on Fridays or maybe Thursdays depending on where you're watching from, and my colleague Liza she goes live every Tuesday. Actually Liza went live on Tuesday and also on Saturday last week because she had a really...  [Read more]

Federico Riva Destinations TEFL Information oday’s exciting topic is the top hiring seasons for teaching English abroad. We're going to go over different countries on different continents and what their hiring seasons are, so when's the best time to go job hunting. Also there will be some tips for job hunting in those places as sometimes you need to get hired in advance when you're still in your home country and you can do online interviews, but in some countries you need to apply in person. So we're going to talk about that as well. Thanks so much for tuning in and as always please don't forget to like and subscribe so that you never miss a live session. We go live twice a week, one time with me on Fridays, or Thursday...  [Read more]

Federico Riva Destinations TEFL Information Teaching English in 2021. A few people have told me about their teaching journey already, so keep letting me know what your plans are in terms of teaching English abroad or teaching English online. Somebody said they're interested in teaching online, so that's really cool. Someone new has just joined us from Laos, hi there. We have Margaret who is also teaching online, very cool. I’m going to talk a little bit about teaching English online in this presentation. Juliana says hi, I think you've watched before as I recognize your picture, thanks for tuning in again. It's really good to see new faces and old faces in our TEFL family today. I have prepared some visuals that I'm going to...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Teaching Ideas Change is coming to the way that English is taught in Japanese public schools. The changes to the curriculum by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT) increase the teaching of English at all levels of schooling. The goal of this change is, in the words of Ikuko Tsuboya-Newel, founder and chair of Tokyo International School, “The government has decided that beginning in 2020 all high school graduates must achieve a level of English equivalent to B1” (“Why do Japanese have trouble learning English?”, The Japan Times, October 29, 2017). To achieve that goal, high school entrance exams are expected to include more testing of productive skills in English. Therefore, junior...  [Read more]

Federico Riva TEFL Information Alumni Experiences Teaching Ideas Welcome, my name is Linda nice to see you. I’m a TEFL and TESOL professional at ITTT and I’ve been living and working in Asia since 2012-ish and I live in South Korea and I’ve been here for five and a half years. I also taught English in China and here in Korea as well and I also work for ITTT and we have a guest so to speak but also from ITTT but joining us for the first time my colleague Lisa. My name is Liza. I’m a TEFL and TESOL expert at ITTT as Linda and I’m also a former ESL teacher. I’ve been teaching online this year but before I worked in China as a lead teacher in a kindergarten so that was quite fun and I'll share my...  [Read more]

Federico Riva Destinations TEFL Information Alumni Experiences Hi guys, my name is Linda from ITTT, nice to see you again. If you can see me and hear me just say hi in the comment section, it would be really nice. Yeah, back this week with another exciting topic, how much money can you really make teaching English? Very interesting topic as we all need to know how much money we can make if we want to go and teach English abroad. I'm also going to cover how much money you can make when you teach online, so very important topics that we are covering today. If you are listening to this as a podcast episode, thank you so much for the download. As you might know we always turn our live sessions into podcast...  [Read more]

Elizaveta Pachina Alumni Experiences English is causing many problems in Asian countries which can be seen just by the high demand for English teachers - including ESL teachers. One of the countries is Japan, a country with a good economy and a society well known for their kindness and politeness, but unfortunately also for the low number of English speakers. There are many reasons why English is likely to pose problems in Japan but there are many possibilities to improve the English lessons to offer lessons that help Japanese students to achieve a higher English level. This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate Eileen Cathrin B. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT. So why...  [Read more]

Federico Riva TEFL Information Teaching Ideas Today, we are talking about setting realistic goals, basically having a realistic timeline for how long it takes from actually taking a TEFL course to going on to teaching English either online or abroad. If your goal is to teach English in 2021, what do you need to do? What are the steps? Okay, let me add this little graphic here, so that's what I've prepared for you guys. Setting realistic goals for teaching English in 2021 and as always please leave your comments at any time. There's also going to be a Q&A section at the end of the session so there will be plenty of time to ask questions and for me to answer them. I am working this whole live situation by myself so I might...  [Read more]

Jon ITTT Alumni Experiences Looking back at my teaching life, I’m very proud of the teaching experiences I’ve had. Even though my teaching experiences are limited to one culture, Korea, still they are all very special and unique in their own ways. I started my journey as an EFL teacher a couple of years ago, thinking that I could learn other languages myself. I thought that I would move from place to place, possibly different countries, and learn different languages and get various teaching experiences in different settings. However, it turned out to be Korea only. I could soak up Korean culture and learn the language more easily because of my origin. The more time I spent teaching, the more I got to love teaching children and feeling...  [Read more]

Mark Crocker Destinations One of the many benefits of teaching English abroad is that you can combine your new career with your own hobbies and passions in countries all over the world. If sampling new and exciting cuisine is your thing, then you will have plenty of great food loving destinations to choose from. Here is our pick of the best destinations where teaching jobs and great food options are both in abundance. Spain has historically had one of the biggest markets in Europe for ESL teachers and it is also home to some of the best cuisine on the continent. Spanish food is generally divided into three distinct areas: The Mediterranean region which is famed for its seafood, gazpacho soup and paella; the Inner region where you can indulge in...  [Read more]

Federico Riva Teaching Ideas Hello everybody and welcome to the ITTT weekly live stream. It's Liza here and I'm super excited that this stream happens every week and we can talk about teaching and TEFL and stuff like that. So welcome and thank you for joining me. Today, we are going to talk about online ESL game design. Last week I started showing you the game I was designing, it was Monopoly. Today I'm going to show you the outcome of the game and also tell you a little bit more about online game design. Thanks a lot for letting me know that you are watching and right now please let me know at what stage of your ESL career you are at. As for me, I'm an online ESL teacher currently. I used to teach in a real classroom several years ago, but then...  [Read more]

Linda Dunsmore TEFL Information Teaching Ideas All right, looks like we're live! Awesome! This is great. So thanks so much for tuning in today for our actually very first Facebook live and I'm super happy to be here with Jessica today from GoOverseas. We're gonna talk today about all things teaching English abroad, online, and everything in between. All things TEFL and TESOL and all that good stuff and I'm actually tuning in live from South Korea where it's 9 00 am Friday and I think Jessica is in Southern California. Right, yep it's 5 p.m here so just starting to get dark. I've actually just realized I'm probably going to need the light before the session is over so i'm going to run and do that now while Linda just explains...  [Read more]

Federico Riva Destinations TEFL Information Alumni Experiences Hi everybody wherever you are right now. I'm in South Korea and it's 10 a.m. Friday, so good morning. I'm back here again today, my name is Linda from ITTT if you've been here before hi and if this is your first time watching thanks so much for tuning in and taking the time, we really appreciate it. If at any time during this live session you have any questions, feel free to drop your comments in the comment section from whichever platform you're watching from. We are streaming live on Facebook and on YouTube at the same time. If you can see me and hear me just leave a hi in the comment box, that would be highly appreciated so that I know that...  [Read more]