Reflections for Week 5: Teacher Development: “Going through the motions” only takes you so far.

 I want to focus on how I’m developing as a teacher. When I first came to Korea almost six years ago at the tender man-child age of 25, I didn’t know the first thing about teaching. I was good with kids and that was it. I have a B.A in English Literature, but I’m not sure why that’s so prized here, as that major had nothing to do with education or English proficiency (I think employers focus on the “English” part and probably don’t fully understand what the “literature” part entails, because I’m not dissecting Vonnegut novels in class). I had had no formal training and didn’t know anything about ELT techniques (and I would later find out to my chagrin, basic grammar).  My first year working at a hagwon (hakwon? I don’t have hangul on this keyboard) was a breeze and nothing I took very seriously. Like most long-termers I never expected my duration in Korea to last so long. I was taking a job as an ESL teacher in Korea almost as a lark and a way to get out of my house back home.

             Not to say I was indifferent or feckless during my first year, just woefully inexperienced. I brought energy to the classroom and dialogic exchanges came naturally to me, even though at the time I had no idea what those were. I was teaching kids from a textbook and not really developing, except in my ability to control kids. The real shock came when I was hired at a University for my second year. I want to first say I was incredibly lucky and I’m kind of baffled as to why I was hired (in fact, the first three or four months there I would consider myself a bad hire and I’ll elaborate shortly).  I only had my B.A, one year experience at a hagwon and basically zero real teaching experience. I can only speculate that I got the job when the job-market was less competitive and the effects of the US recession and Eurozone hadn’t driven every 20-something (and some a lot more experienced than me) to Korea. My first shock was when students started challenging me in class and I received a terrible (and much deserved) poor first evaluation. I asked advice from my peers and started to study more about the components of English proficiency and how to properly teach and/or utilize them in my classroom. I also prepared more as a teacher, putting aside at least a couple hours each morning so I wouldn’t be caught off-guard in the classroom. I considered different angles to approach the subject-material and crafted my own supplements. This was in contrast to my first month or so at the University when I approached the classes with a hagwon mindset, doing exercises straight from the book with little forethought and preparation outside the classroom and not enough teacher-to-student interaction, scaffolding or practical application activities inside the classroom. Furthermore I had a bad habit of cutting off students with corrective feedback that would erode the student’s confidence, willingness to self-express and enthusiasm.

             Naturally, as time progressed, I became more aware of what students responded to, both in my personal interactions with the students (as I talked about in the blog question about ‘authority vs solidarity’) and my academic instruction. By the time I left my University after four years (a seriously misguided and hubristic decision as I’ve lamented countless times) my student evaluation averages were in the mid 90’s. However, I still acutely felt the deficits in my teaching; whenever I had trouble delivering a point or was confronted with an EFL term I was unfamiliar with, it would remind me that I still had no formal training in teaching. I think this TESOL course is the greatest leap I’ve taken so far in committing seriously to a future as an EFL teacher (or ESL teacher in the states). As far as my limitations go, being a visual or demonstrative learner as opposed to an auditory one, I absorb techniques much more than I do the terms describing those techniques (which is why I always fear the dreaded pop-quiz). Sometimes when I want to teach I dive into trying to explain grammar that I know innately, but have trouble verbalizing in a concise manner. This is one deficit I’d seriously like to improve by studying more seriously, even if I can’t completely correct it. I hope I continue to develop as a teacher and progress towards that forbidden, unattainable “perfection” that Barcelos talks about in Chapter 5 of our Johnston reading.