Category: teaching in Korea

On Academic Ecologies, Career Planning, and Worldbuilding,

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At my goodbye party last week, we were talking about the future collapse of the TEFL industry when brute-force autotranslation gets good enough that most people will only study foreign languages the way that some people still do math by hand. (I mean without a calculator–that is, out of academic requirements, a sense of old-fashionedness, or rare personal impetus to do so.) I commented that I think now is a pretty good time to distance oneself from TEFL altogether, and certainly a good time to get out of depending on jobs where one is directly teaching English.  (Unless one is …

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The Suwon Revelation

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After spending seven of the past eleven years in the Yeokgok district of Bucheon City, not living there has been full of surprises. Even though I tried to resist it, I developed a habit of mind wherein I conflated Yeokgok with Korea generally, just as I conflate Seoul Subway Line 1 with the whole system. Well, like riding Line 6 for a while, staying in Suwon for a week has been a revelation. For one thing, people don’t look us up and down, or scowl nastily at us the way the used to in Yeokgok, or on Line 1. They …

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Smooth? Are You Kidding?

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Okay, okay, I’m foolish. Fine. I was hoping out last couple of weeks on campus would be smooth sailing. Today, while in Seoul sorting out some paperwork, I encountered a really nice guy–a cabbie who was in his seventies, who was a real character. He was a cabbie who seemed to also fancy himself a comedian, with photos of all kinds in his cab. Some he used to communicate, some for comedic effect. I swear, he put on glasses with a fake nose just to make me laugh. He wasn’t that funny but his effort and friendliness were endearing. His last …

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Eleven Years…

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By the way, it’s been eleven years since I landed in Korea. Okay, really, I arrived on 30 December. It’s still 30 December in a lot of the world, so I’ll just ignore the fact I’m a few hours late on Korean time. Yeah, it’s been eleven years since I flew across the Pacific Ocean for the first time, arrived in Incheon International Airport, and took a bus down to Jeonju Iksan, to be met by someone I’d never met–but whom I’d heard about through my friend Joleen. Eleven years is a long, long time, considering that when I first …

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On that Stack of Essays I Got Through a Few Weeks Ago…

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Out of a small stack of essays, I gleaned the following interesting insight that I’d never thought of myself: It’s possible to argue that the main difference in the conception of the uncontrollable in Greek Mythology and Bible stories is that, for the Greeks, human problems were often a result of the gods and their machinations, while for the ancient Hebrews, humans were just as often responsible for getting themselves into a heap of trouble, out of which God would sometimes bail them, if they were good. That’s it. Hours of grading, and precisely one idea I’ve never seen before. …

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