The TEFL Blog

Its been a little while since my last blog entry. In this edition I am going to be looking at some common myths about teaching English. The goal of this entry is to help new TEFL teachers prepare for what it is really like to teach English as a Foreign Language. Myth #1: I am a native English speaker, so teaching English will be easy! I have to admit I thought this before I headed to Korea to teach English. Even though I had taught in high schools for a couple years before going to Korea, I was definitely not prepared to teach English. Just because you can speak, listen, read and write in English, does not mean that you will be able to teach these skills effectively . Firstly, native English speakers do not learn the language like second language learners. English comes naturally to us, without every having to study complex grammatical structures like adverbial clauses or reported speech. Teaching any facet of the English language takes in-depth study of the language and a spec...

I've been waiting to publish an entry on teaching English in Korea, because I didn't want everyone to know how biased I am about teaching there, as opposed to other countries...but I can wait no longer. As you will know if you read previous entries, I taught English in Korea for 3 years. During those years I taught children, adults at a private academy and university students. In the following entry I'll talk about some things you should know about before choosing to go to Korea to teach English. South Korea South Korea is a highly-developed nation which takes pride in it's well-educated people, vibrant pop culture and art scene, and of course exporting cutting-edge technology like the latest smartphones to the rest of the world. Its beautifully  landscapes, long history, and small size make the country a great place for ESL teachers to be immersed a new culture and see the country easily. It’s a great place to live, meet other TEFL teachers, and get to know ...