Getting to know about where you teach


English language teachers travel and like strangers in a strange land, try to learn about their new “home”. It is important to learn about the culture and history of the people you’ll teach. Language is about and in turn, wrapped up with culture and identity.

I’ve lived now 5 years in Korea and will be indelibly tied and connected to this amazing peninsula. Along the way, I’ve tried to understand my students and the people among who I’ve lived. You’ll find a lot of the articles / essays / videos / audio I’ve collected in our Korea resources area  Find HERE, all the videos we have about Korea and/or teaching in Korea.

Here are a few more items I highly recommend about Korea. Helpful especially to the flood of new teachers that will be arriving or have arrived for the new semester. Wherever you are, why not post up in our resources, some videos or readings that are pertinent to the country you are from or where you teach presently? Or maybe do so in one of our World Classrooms?

The video above, “Tiger Spirit”, is a beautiful rumination on the torn nation of Korea. On the surface it tells the stories of families ripped apart for decades but deeper, it deals with issues of identity and what is important in life. In our fractured, mobile, modern world – identity is a topic that will be more and more important – especially regarding language acquisition and learning. A must watch.

Korea – America is a video made by a teacher as a technology professional development project during a summer training program. She did a wonderful job using Windows Movie Maker and highlighting the divide between generations in Korea and in America.



Find more videos like this on EFL CLASSROOM 2.0
 

Photographer Rich Smolan tells an amazing story about an Amerasian (Korean/American) girl and it is so thought bending. Really challenges traditional notions of “who we are” and “what we should be”.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

ddeubel

Teacher trainer, technology specialist, educational thinker...creator of EFL Classroom 2.0, a social networking site for thousands of EFL / ESL teachers and students around the world.

You may also like...

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *