How do I teach English to a bunch of South Korean 4th graders?
Be prepared for any situation ranging from one of the rare progressive public schools that actually puts some resources into their ESL program (it happens, but it’s rare), to being the replacement for a diligent teacher who is leaving behind some good resources like flash-cards, posters, and games (it happens, but it’s rare), to being totally thrown into the deep-end and expected to come up with your own syllabi (harder than actually teaching) and materials (near impossible). That’s the most frustrating thing about teaching in Korea — you just won’t know until you get here. My own two pieces of advice — 1) The perfect is the enemy of the good, meaning you should be setting up lesson plans based around the kids speaking, or trying to speak, as much as possible. Feel free to correct them as much as you want, but make sure the focus is on them using their English skills, no matter how limited. 2) Don’t be afraid of repetition. I came from teaching college courses, where it was a mad das
