5 Tips for New English Teachers in Korea

Comic by Luke Martin of ROKetship
(I love his comics on being an expat in Korean culture! Check it out and have a laugh!)

So the new troops are rolling in! Yes, a new batch of EPIKers just arrived in Daegu this Thursday to fill the district’s request to have at least one Native English speaker (NET) in each school starting this semester.  It’s all a part of the Korean Ministry of Education‘s  eager plan to boost the country’s appetite and  mastery of English.

To fellow EPIKer’s of my generation:
Woo hoo! We made it to the six month mark! Through good times and bad, we rocked through it to this far and to the question of… will we re-sign our contract for another year? …

Word to Newbie NET’s & expats:
A big ANNYEONGHASEYO! Welcome to the expat family and to the crazy Korean EFL lifestyle! Like a marriage, you’re wearing a ring newly-sized for a year-long (or more) journey with Korea. Expect to struggle in places, stumble in others;  overall, this journey will be as rewarding, as it is awesome, not so great, frank, crazy, cool, boring and fun.

My 5 tips for new NET’s & expats in Korea:

1. Only one person will make or break your experience here- You.
They say the role of your co-teacher can make or break your experience in Korea. Personally, having a lazy co-teacher who wasn’t very welcoming or helpful from the start, this felt true. That is, until I met friends with worse apartment and/or job situations, and who helped me leverage my bad experiences with my co-teacher with gratitude for the other blessings I do have.

My advice? While you can’t change your situation or environment, you have a choice to affect it both, positively or negatively. It all depends on you.

Children are susceptible to the vibe we bring to our work. Vibes are viral and contagious. Despite the fact, I was struggling with a growing resentment for co-teacher I couldn’t change; I forced myself into an attitude adjustment. I changed myself, instead!  For every ounce of frustration I experienced, I’d triple-inject the joy, love and enthusiasm for my work and my students!  “How will I inspire my students to love English, today?” is what surfaces in my mind each day as I pop alive, as I enter the school yard. Thinking this way has had a positive side-effect on my environment, the people around me and most of all, myself.

2. Be open-minded and flexible.
These may look like cliche adjectives on a “How To Write Resumes” word list, but there’s real warning (uh…I mean, meaning) behind them. In Korea, you have to be able to roll with the punches. You’re in a new culture, experiencing different foods and people and adapting to an unpredictable work environment. It’s safe to say, you will experience the overwhelm of everything all at once; and those punches can occasionally feel like whallops.  All part of the experience and the beauty of the challenge of living and working abroad.

Open.  Stretch that mind wide open and go with the adage: What doesn’t kill you, just makes you stronger! It’s a nice panacea to apply to bruises and aches.

3. Become a firm believer that Change is Good.
The Korean work system is infamous for its unpredictable and last-minute changes. They don’t call it Dynamic Korea for nothing! You’re going along your day with an easy flow, then bam! … a last-minute change (that you didn’t see coming), followed by some explanation in gibberish… confusion and overwhelm…resulting in frustration and a bitch session with your friends over your new workload and very last-minute deadline! The Korean rug will feel pulled out from under you.

Don’t worry, Koreans have to deal with this too; and ironically, sometimes they seem even less conditioned to handle it than you may be, yourself.  You’d think they were fragile people. Sometimes though, their job can be a tad worse. Korea is very bureaucratic and lots of paperwork is involved. “Public documents” (forms,  documentation, reports, etc…on everything from classes and summer camps to reasons why you left school early) plague the workload of Korean teachers; in many cases, can take importance over teaching. Or in cases such as my main co-teacher, it could just be sheer laziness and the avoidance of wanting to take on extra work outside school hours. On the bright side:  1) You’ll hone your abilities to adapt at a moment’s notice and 2) you’ll thank God you don’t know how to write in Hangul.

4. Become a weed.

Weeds are the most resilient plant forms. Despite extreme weather or terrain, a weed can survive anything. Likewise, despite how good or bad it gets, you’re much more resilient than you think. Korea isn’t a communist country, is an ultra safe country to live in, it even possesses some of the most state-of-the-art modern conveniences that you won’t see in the west. The major difference? It’s foreign soil. My advice? Become a weed.

5. Make the most of your time: travel, experience, explore.

When you’re in the thick of trying to make your life in Korea work, can’t understand why you experience spells of inexplicable loneliness, are struggling with language and cultural barriers AND wondering why you traded the comfort of your home for this… challenge, take time to remember why you’re here. Adventure. Travel. Exploration. Change and difference. You wished for it; now you’ve got it, so make the most of it! Take language classes at the YMCA, explore photography, festivals or foods of different regions. Make it your quest to try every jjimjilbang in your city or take a city bus tour.

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Lastly, I leave you with this YouTube video created by another expat. Others have posted it on their blog or Facebook profiles over the summer, but I swear I only just watched it and it had me in stitches. It echoes the manifold sentiments of EPIKers.