My first year at the language school was a bit of a blur. I enjoyed it and had a lot of learning in and out of the classroom. There are quite a few “brain tenants” from this era, for sure. Today’s comes from a moment in a lesson on an early morning in late 2000.
I think part of the reason that first year was a blur was because of my poor sleep schedule. The language school I worked at had a split shift which meant that I would teach (mostly) businesspeople in the mornings, children in the early afternoons and then students of all ages in the evenings. The morning classes were quite sparsely attended and the moment that lives in my brain occurred when it was just me and Mr. Park (not his real name), a kind and religious gentleman who worked at a bank and was struggling with his confidence and fluency in English.
At that point, I’d never heard of Dogme but it seemed a bit silly to work through the textbook and do grammar drills with just two people in the room. I asked him what was going on with his life and he said recently he “took his mother to a hospital.” Rather than respond as a human, I corrected him and said that we would say “the hospital.” He quite reasonably asked why. He backed up his question with a hard-earned example like “this is the pen that I bought yesterday.” He was not challenging me. He genuinely wanted to know why. In response, I mumbled a bunch of gibberish about how, even though it was not a specific hospital, we all know what hospitals are like. He was visibly dissatisfied with the response.
Another detail I remember from this early morning class is that I had a blinding hangover and almost certainly smelled like a soju distillery. That certainly didn’t help, but I couldn’t have answered his question confidently even on my best day back then.
What lingers with me is the disappointment in myself. It felt like stealing. This guy paid money to be there and really wanted to learn, but was faced with a smelly and immature kid who didn’t know how to explain grammar rules (or how to deploy delayed correction). I also didn’t know enough about language variation or that “a hospital” would be perfectly acceptable in many contexts.
Surely Mr. Park deserved better. I cannot say that every single lesson I have delivered in 26 years since has been stellar but I can say that I’ve never walked away feeling I owed a student their money back.
GSNU Hospital, Chilam-dong, Jinju. A hospital near the language school where this lesson took place. Source
In very late June of 2000 I arrived in Jinju, South Korea after a long series of flights and was greeted at Sacheon airport by a staff member of the language school I was to work at. I was tired but excited. People were nice. The owner of the language school, let’s call him Mr. Kim (his real name), even came out to meet me. He was pleasant and I had nothing but positive feelings. The first stop was the school. After a quick tour and meeting more of my friendly new colleagues, we agreed on a 9 AM pickup the next day for “orientation.” I headed to my new apartment and fell into a deep, jet-lag-induced sleep.
I was pumped for my first day of training and I was surprised when the person I was supposed to meet was not there at the appointed time. A glance outside showed that there was nothing going on in the entire apartment complex. I had a bit of a spiral. I’d read bad things on Web 1.0 (probably Dave’s ESL Cafe) about some language schools in Korea. Perhaps I fell prey to a scam? What was going on?
Turns out, the Land of the Morning Calm was simply having a calm morning and jet lag caused me to wake up much earlier than I expected and my clock (yep, no cell phone) was wrong. I allowed myself to think the worst for pretty much no reason at all.
Looking back now, I have to chuckle at my fears. What nefarious schemes did I think I’d fallen into? Why would they go through a multiple-month hiring process to get me there just to steal my passport? Did I think they were going to take my kidney? Gosh, what was I so worried about?
It is entry one of the series and I am already breaking the rules by writing about something that happened a few weeks before I even started teaching. In this first post on 26 things that live rent-free in my brain (AKA “brain tenants”) accumulated from 26 years in the field, I will sharea “brain tenant” related to a conversation just before I left for my first teaching job in Korea.
Highly inaccurate AI image of my arrival to Korea
I graduated from university in May of 2000 and flew to Jinju, South Korea in late June of that year to start my teaching journey at a small language school. Before I left, during a walk in the woods of Maine, my father made sure I knew that if things didn’t go well or I wasn’t treated fairly, I could always just come home. He made it very clear I could borrow money for a plane ticket if I needed to. I realize now how incredibly lucky I was, even if I didn’t fully appreciate it at the time. Coming from a supportive middle-class background meant that if everything went wrong, I had somewhere to go and people who could help me get there. When I started teaching in Korea, it was surely an adventure. Sure, there were risks, but they were mitigated. I have thought about the offer from my father many times over the last 26 years. I think that without that cushion and safety net, teaching abroad would have been more precarious. This memory also made me realize that many teachers begin the same journey without anyone at home saying, “If it doesn’t work out, you can just come back.”
I am thrilled to share my interview with TEFLtastic’s Alex Case below. I have been a fan for a long time. Teachers, like me, who have ever been up late at night planning lessons will be familiar with his work, including on Usingenglish.com. This site was a lifesaver for me so many times. Back in 2020, Sandy Millin said he is “probably the most prolific ELT blogger on the internet, constantly sharing new resources. His blog is a goldmine of resources covering every area of teaching you can possibly imagine.” I fully agree. I am honored to have him here. See our interview below!
Hello and welcome, Alex! Thank you so much for joining me here. Can I get you a drink? What are you having?
Thanks for inviting me and for the lovely introduction. I think you summarized what I’d love to achieve even better yourself with my all time favorite comment on my blog: “I am not kidding. Right now I am setting my alarm back to the original time because I don’t need to spend an extra hour on this in the morning.”
If you can recommend a beer that tastes exactly like Xmas pudding, that would be literally perfect.
Wow, I don’t remember that blog comment but I do remember the feeling of being saved many times. Formal and Informal Email Games/Worksheets FTW. I think a fictional beer delivered online is the absolute least I can do. Drink coming right up, I suppose!
What are you up to these days? What is new?
Nothing new for years and years, still writing for TEFL.net, Englishclub.com, and Usingenglish.com and teaching more or less full time for two schools in Tokyo. Less biz/ ESP than I used to do because I’m resisting online lessons, and I lost my Cambridge exam classes during COVID, so more cover days and teaching IELTS.
I see. I note that you remain prolific online! How do you find the time for everything?
Get my exercise out of the way early in the morning, only one kid who is increasingly independent, no social life, most of my days are cover days so I don’t know what’s coming up and can’t spend the hours planning that I would otherwise, really really going for it when I’m in the mood so I can slack off when I’m not, perfectly organizing my laptop hard disk while listening to podcasts etc, knowing the best times of day to do each thing, thinking best on the page so turning everything into a document, and having absolutely no interest in the appearance of me or my materials.
Thank you. I think there is plenty of wisdom in there for anyone hoping to create a bit more. Sticking with advice, do you have any advice or warnings for young people looking to get into writing and ELT?
Don’t get married in a country you hate (as I have escaped, but I’ve seen some teachers fall into).
That sounds like a good one to get into over an Xmas pudding-flavored beer someday. What about advice for your younger self?
Nothing I can think of. Through sheer luck and with literally no planning, seems to have worked out quite well. Did Europe when UK still in the EU and I was young enough to live off the crappy wages, got management and teacher training out of the way so I could just teach and write without thinking I was missing anything, and ended up in a very livable country that suits me.
Nice. Whether it was luck or not, I am glad things seem to have worked out well. I like this idea of sort of getting something out of the way and not feeling like you missed something. It seems that you were able to focus more on writing as a result. What is on your mind these days?
I wrote about this in a jokey way on my blog and LinkedIn last year, but I really am wondering how long I can still make enough money out of what I’m doing to sustain myself and my family. Not exactly worried as I’ve had a good run, my daughter is the Saffy from AbFab/ Lisa Simpson of the family, I have very cheap tastes, and shelf stacking or something would be a nice change (if such jobs still exist). Still, think it might be just a matter of years.
I am sure you are not the only person in ELT wondering about that. I remember that LinkedIn post well. I was thinking about it just a few days ago and this actually gave me the idea to invite you for the interview. Here it is:
Shifting gears here between the near future and the distant past, do you remember the first time we were ever in touch?
Seems like a long time ago and a different TEFL and TEFL blogging world, but I’m guessing I left a comment on your blog during my initial blogging world blitz?? I was convinced you wrote a book review for TEFL.net, but if so I can’t find any evidence of it…
Reasonable guesses, all! I very well might have written a book review for TEFL.net but could not find it either. On my side, I know that Usingenglish.com was a huge help for me when I was teaching a range of students in Korea in 2009. I think the first time we were in touch was when you wrote a piece for KOTESOL’s The English Connection. Does it sound familiar?
Seem to remember writing something on Japan in the Korean classroom and maybe one more, but hadn’t remembered that was the start of it. I wonder if I ever put together that it was the same M Griffin as the blog, as back in the day I commented on a friend’s girlfriend’s blog for about 6 months before I realized it was the same person…
Haha. And, yup, it was me. The piece was indeed about Japan in the Korean Classroom (published in Autumn 2011). My first message to you was 15 years ago to the month! Just for fun, here is the first contact:
I suppose that I should mention that I didn’t really start blogging until late 2011.
In that case, I almost certainly need to apologize for not remembering when we started communicating again via your blog. These are the great social skills that give me so much time for all things TEFL…
No apology needed. I think the TEFL world should perhaps be grateful for these social skills. By the way, it has been great seeing and interacting with you on LinkedIn lately.
Ditto. LinkedIn as a TEFLer has been a mixed experience, but ruminations from classic TEFL bloggers like yourself are definitely highlights.
I have enjoyed this talk immensely even if it made me feel quite old. Classic blogger. Times and platforms have surely changed but it is fun to keep up with what people are doing. Anything you’d like to plug?
Thanks, been really fun. Have finished writing a big book of functional language photocopiables and almost finished a similar one on grammar for business, just need to follow the advice of the results of my latest poll on LinkedIn and pay for a domain I can sell them on.
I‘m afraid Idon’t have any great advice. But, here is the poll and maybe readers can weigh in.
I wish you the best of luck with this. It has been great talking to you. Thank you again for taking the time. I will look forward to checking out those books and seeing you online!
I recently had a coffee and a chat with an old friend that I knew back in Korea. He’s started a new job here in Vietnam, and he wanted to run a few things by me. That is, he wanted to get my opinion on some things that seemed odd to him and he wondered if I’d see these things as red flags or just part of working in Vietnam. I got a free coffee and an interesting tale (as well as permission to write about it if I didn’t get too deep into the specifics*) out of it.
So my friend, let’s call him Eddie, has been in Vietnam for around 2.5 years. He has an MATESOL and worked at the university level in Korea for many years. My recent post discussing the “EFL scene” in Korea and Vietnam prompted him to get in touch with his story.
Eddie has been working at an educational institution in Vietnam for around a month, and just a few weeks into his probationary period, he’s already seeing things that make him nervous. Eddie wasn’t sure whether these were broad cultural issues, early warning signs, growing pains at a new educational institution, or something more specific to his new workplace and its culture.
He started the position on a Monday in early January and was asked to cover a colleague’s class that Thursday.
Since the institution purports to be a university, he thought it was more than a bit odd to be dropped into someone else’s MA-level course for a day. He was surprised they didn’t simply reschedule. They needed a sub because his new colleague had to miss class due to an “administrative mix-up” regarding their visa.
Even though he thought it was a bit “Mickey Mouse” and not really befitting a proper educational institution, Eddie worked hard to prepare for the sessions he was to substitute for. It turns out that he was responsible for covering hundreds of pages of text in a 3-hour session. He was given slides but they were mostly just summaries of the textbook. He dove in and tried to make sense of the material and make it digestible, interesting and meaningful to a group of students he didn’t know much about. As he is on a probationary contract he thought it best to just go with the flow and do what was asked of him.
The colleague he was replacing for a day said to him, “Don’t make me look bad” in a half-joking way. I suspect Eddie was more worried about wasting students’ time or making himself look bad. I think he is not the type to get nervous but he told me he was surely “amped up” and “on edge.”
He felt he did well under the circumstances. He had made some nice connections with the students (presumably students he will teach in his own class in the future). One of the students was a woman who was around his age and invited him to be a guest speaker at her training center (or similar business) in the future. He said that he was flattered and would have to check to make sure it was acceptable with his contract. At the time, it struck him as a casual, offhand conversation with a student he developed a connection with.
Regarding the whole experience of subbing in on an MA class, he said his thinking at the time was something like, “that was a pretty weird experience but it was not so bad and it was nice to get a feel for the types of classes I might teach in the future.”
A few days later he was hauled into his boss’s office and was told that he’d need official permission from the educational institution if he ever wanted to do any presentations. He felt the tone was overly accusatory and aggressive. Eddie pieced together that word must have gotten out about his conversation with the student who’d invited him to speak. He felt the boss was just delivering vague warnings and flexing administrative might rather than actually talking about a concrete policy or providing any sort of guidance or leadership.
I know that Eddie likes presenting (and maybe the sound of his own voice) and I know that he values autonomy. He didn’t take this missive from the boss very well. He wanted specifics. What exactly was being prohibited? All talks/workshops/presentations? All presentations that came from people he met at the educational institution? It seems his boss was not able to provide specifics but rather just a warning to not cause trouble or any undue attention to the fledgling institution.
His boss was able to say that this is Vietnam and they are working for a new institution, a startup, and just being on a stage could invite unneeded suspicion. What if another speaker at a symposium said something the Vietnamese government didn’t like? The boss suggested this was an unneeded risk and that speaking engagements needed to be vetted and approved. It sounds like the boss played the “This is Vietnam” card but couldn’t fully explain it.
Eddie, like me, is a believer in the “better to ask for forgiveness than permission” school of thought (probably learned in Korea) and said that he would not use the institution’s name when presenting. He had no intention of asking for permission to present. He considered the matter closed, even if he was annoyed at the situation and lost trust and respect for the bosses.
He found it even more annoying when he had a meeting with the HR team to discuss the matter and learned that it was completely fine for him to present for the student and her company and it was considered good publicity for the institution. After mentioning that the HR meeting took much longer than the conversation with the student (I guess he couldn’t resist), he said that he’d have to think about it but decided (perhaps vowed) that he’d never use the institution’s name as his professional affiliation when presenting.
He thought that I could give him some level-headed advice about this as someone with distance from the situation and more experience. I honestly said it sounded like there are quite a few red flags and advised him to be careful and to keep his eyes and options open. It’s not like any particular thing was drastic or catastrophic but the whole thing was pretty odd. I didn’t say, “run” but I did say “make sure you know where your running shoes are.”
Questions for Readers:
Do you agree there are some red flags here? If so, how many can you identify?
What advice would you give Eddie?
Would you like to hear more of Eddie’s recent stories?
*My vast team of lawyers instructs me to say the above should be taken as a fictional account from an unverified source. We could even say, “This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, or actual events or companies is purely coincidental.”
ELT Rants, Reviews, and Reflections