Learning English Is Not Something to Enjoy

This week one activity that I gave my students in the first week of a two-week unit on "Learning the English Language and Tips to Make it Easier" was to brainstorm any and all words that they thought about when they saw/heard the word English. After the first 4 classes, I noticed a pattern. Most…

Why You Shouldn’t Bother Lesson Planning

Lesson Planning (LP) is every educator's favorite pastime. Hours at home, in front of the computer with papers and books spread out in front of you, deciding when to do something, how to prepare students to do it, adjusting for holidays and fitting in exams. Oh, the joy of it all! The Best is Yet…

Connected Educator: Getting Started With Twitter

With the advent of the 21st Century came a whole new way of teaching...and not just inside the classroom. Educators are moving to the online forum to connect with other educators. I first heard about this while taking a technology in the classroom ("EdTech" was the word thrown around during the course for it) course for…

Basic English Writing Structure | Lesson Tip

Writing is an expression of our thoughts, and our thoughts are highly influenced by our culture. Naturally, my Korean university students have been deeply entrenched in Korean culture and think in a very different way than I have been accustomed to. This makes teaching writing a little more difficult. All kids growing up in America…

Basic English Punctuation| Lesson Tip

My Korean ELLs are familiar with periods and exclamation and question marks because they are used in Korean as well, but I do not know if they were ever really explicitly taught how to use punctuation or the importance of it in English, both written and spoken. In the same vein, although it is used…

Icebreaker Idea for a New Semester

With the beginning of the semester exactly two weeks away, gears are shifting away from summer vacation back into teaching mode. I plan to attack teaching conversational English in a very different way this fall. My guiding philosophies regarding language teaching have been influenced by all the things I have learned in my personal learning…

Basic English Sentence Structure | Lesson Tip

  One of the biggest difficulties for Korean learners of English is sentence structure. My linguistic training wants me to tell you a dozen or so reasons why it is especially difficult for them, but the one I want to focus on here is English sentence structure. English is a subject-verb-object (SVO) language (i.e. Johnny…

Work Smart, Not Hard | For Students

Work Smarter, Not Harder: School Edition SecretLifeOfaBioNerd has uploaded a video giving some tips to students just in time for the beginning of the school year. I stumbled upon this video in my YouTube video and I wanted to share these great tips with everyone. They are also useful for 21st-century kids to always be…

A Call for a New Kind of Educational Reform

After reading an article yesterday, I was overwhelmed with a distinct feeling of sadness. This form of discriminatory racism is something I face nearly every time I leave my house or try to do something in my daily life. People stare at my face, employees take one look at me and try to run away,…

Getting Ready for a New Semester

This summer I dedicated to my (online) professional development. It has been a lot of reading, sharing information, and reflection. As the Korean university summer vacation is winding down and August 31st draws ever closer, I am starting to shift my focus from reflection to action (and more reflect, of course). This semester I have…