Teaching Overseas, the Aclipse Blog

Interested in learning Korean? Get a discount on lessons!

Is it important to know some Korean before you travel there? We think so! That's why we just launched Language Vine, the new sister company of Aclipse! Read on to see how you can enter Language Vine's travel photo contest on Facebook to win an iPad, what Language Vine has to offer, and how to get a discount on our Travel Korean Language program!

Language Vine is an online language learning service. Subscribers can mold the program to fit their own personal learning style, while having fun at the same time! We feature things like games, 3D flashcards, and MP3s to make learning not only entertaining and interactive, but effective. To help you learn even more, we offer one-on-one tutoring and small group instruction through web conference.

Our Korean language courses will be available July 2, but here is a special offer to our blog readers and the Aclipse Facebook community: Use the SAVE15 discount code to take 15% off your order of a one-month or three-month subscription and sign up before July 1 to receive an extra 5% off your subscription. That's a 20% savings! But hurry, this code is only valid until July 16! To browse all of our program options and sign-up, click here!

Learn how you can enter our Travel Photo Contest to win a free iPad from Language Vine right here on our Facebook page!

Follow Language Vine on Facebook to receive free Korea travel tips, language lessons, and more. As we continue to grow, announcements about new language programs will be available on Facebook. Happy learning and safe travels!

 

 

Does Thailand have the best cuisine in Asia?

By Sara Day, Marketing Assistant for Aclipse 

Let's face it, this is one of my favorite topics: food. In particular, Thai food. Many people I work with have lived and traveled through Thailand. They were kind enough to share with me some of their favorite foods from the area. I could write a 200 page essay on Asian cuisine but I'll spare you! Instead I chose Thai food because many expert chefs consider it the best cuisine in Asia. The reason their food is so unique and highly-praised is because Thai cooks are experts at blending the 3 major components of taste: sweet, sour and salty. Yum. Let's take a look at some of their famous dishes and delicacies!   

Som tam is a spicy salad made from shredded papaya mixed with ingredients like chilies, garlic, lime, and fish sauce. Sometimes seafood is also added. Restaurant-goers can customize this dish to their own tastes.

Moo yang is a traditional dish consisting of grilled or roast pork that has been marinated in Thai herbs, often served with rice. Speaking of rice, koh pad is Thai fried rice, and here's a great recipe for koh pad moo, or fried rice with pork.

Thailand is famous for the many kinds of unique, fresh fruit available there. The most curious looking of these is the rambutan, of which Thailand is the largest global producer. The fruit is covered in "hair" or spikes. For more information on rambutans and how to eat them (I've heard there are many strategies) click here.

Another interesting fruit is the jackfruit, the largest tree-borne fruit in the world. These can reach up to 80 pounds, and each year a certain number of people are killed by the falling fruit! But don't let that scare you away, these fruit are delicious! Tasting something like a tart banana, the fruit is dried to make chips or mixed with coconut milk for a sweet dessert. However, you may want to avoid the stinky durian fruit. Although many Thai people love it, I saw Andrew Zimmerman, host of the food channel's Bizzarre Foods taken down by this seemingly harmless fruit with the foul odor - and this is a man who ate live octopus (and parts of a cow I can't even mention) without blinking.

The mangosteen has a very unique look, also. With purple flesh and a bright green stem, it is sweet and tangy with a peach-like texture. To learn how to peel and enjoy "the queen of fruit," click here!

Of course there are plenty of other things to enjoy in Thailand apart from fruit. Now, until I make it to Thailand myself, I'm on the hunt for authentic Thai restaurants in Boston.

And check out this great position we have available to teach in Thailand and experience all these foods up close and personal!

What's your favorite Thai food or dish? Tell us!

What do you want to know about Korean culture?

In the next few weeks, I'll be sitting down to speak with the articulate and lovely, Sarah Julian. Sarah got her teaching position at ChungDahm Learning through Aclipse last summer, and she currently teaches for ChungDahm Mokdong, in the southwest portion of Seoul, South Korea. Sarah always has interesting insights about Korean culture from a ex-pat's perspective, which you can read in her blog! I'll record my Skype convo with Sarah and post it on the Aclipse website soon. I'll make sure to update everyone on Facebook once the video's posted!

There's a lot of stuff I want to know about Korean culture! But here's what I've outlined so far:

• Honesty and directness in Korea.
• The Korean mind set towards foreigners.
• How Koreans interact with their boss or Manager.
• Korean family dynamics.
• How Koreans treat their elders in society.
• Eating meals in Korea.
• What's considered rude in Korea.
• What to do when you meet someone for the first time in Korea.
• The concept of "bali, bali" (hurry, hurry).

And then there are some really simple tasks that you have to undertake as an ex-pat moving to Korea, which are probably influenced by their culture:

• Setting up a bank account.
• Getting a cell phone.
• Furnishing/decorating your apartment.

What am I missing? What do you want to know about? Or what did you want to more about before you moved to Korea? Please feel free to leave comments for me!

 

 

Watch our Overseas Teacher Interview!

You had questions and now we have answers. ChungDahm Learning/April English teacher Dustin Wilshire sat down with me last week to answer your burning questions about what it's like to work for ChungDahm and live in Korea as an ex-pat. Click here to watch our two part interview!

During our interview Dustin shares with us some of his favorite Asia travel memories! Here's another one.

"This is the crocodile tree at Ta Prom, one of the many temples of Angkor in Cambodia. It's actually growing on top of the ancient temple, and other trees are growing up through it in different sections. Parts of Tomb Raider were filmed here. It feels very Indiana Jones. Definitely not something I could see at home."

 

Do you have questions for a CHUNG DAHM Learning teacher?

If you're thinking about applying to teach English in South Korea with Aclipse, you probably have questions you'd love to ask one of our teachers. You're in luck. We decided to record a podcast later on this week with a "real live" teacher in South Korea, who we recruited last year. Dustin Wilshire works for our parent company in Seoul, one of the largest private language institutes in South Korea, CHUNG DAHM Learning. He's had challenges and adventures along the way, which he depicts in his blog! Now he'll sit down for a one on one interview with me, which we'll post on our website in the coming weeks. But here's what I want to know: What questions would YOU ask Dustin?

Here's what we've come up with so far:

1. How would you describe the social scene/community for native English speakers in South Korea? 
2. Please describe a day in the life of a CHUNG DAHM Learning teacher!
3. What is your work/vacation schedule like?
4. What do you like to do in your spare time that's unique to being an ex-pat living in South Korea?
5. What do you miss most about home?
6. Why do you think this is a rewarding experience? 
7. Why do you think this can be a challenging experience?
8. What is your favorite Asia related travel memory?
9. How would you describe your students?
10. How do you plan on applying your experience teaching in South Korea to your future career? 

 

 

Exploring Korea: motorcycles, nightlife, and travel, oh my!

Korea is full of surprises. For example, when it comes to motorcycling epicenters of the world, I don't automatically think of South Korea. But one of Korea's major cities, Daejeon, is apparently a burgeoning hog heaven. We're talking big bikes. How did we discover this surprising trend popping up in East Asia? Well, Koreabridge.net put together an awesome webcast, Exploring Korea, which aired throughout the month of March. I know, I know. We're a little behind. Luckily, they archived all the webisodes. Some of the topics include: nightlife in Seoul, nightlife in Busan and traveling across Gyeongsangnam-do, (southeastern Korea). You can check out the archives here!

 

Want to know more about motorcycling Korea-style? Check out Daejeon Riders on Facebook! You can also join YouTube celebrity and Canadian ex-pat Jeff Martin, who I believe spearheaded the Exploring Korea series, in his daily adventures living in Daegu, South Korea. Watch Jeff on YouTube. Inspired to learn more about teaching and living in South Korea? Read through our current job opportunities in Korea!

A Letter Home from EPIK Teacher Dave Harris

Today's blog entry isn't about what's going on at the Aclipse office or the virtues of international health insurance. Instead, I'm brazenly going to plagiarize (well, copy and paste) a letter from our recent EPIK hire, and Aclipser, Dave Harris, describing in humourous detail and honesty, his first few weeks teaching English in South Korea (please note, he gave us permission to share this-so it's OK)! If you enjoy reading it as much as we did, let us know with your comments and maybe that will convince him to blog for us! :)

Dear Family and Friends:

So I'm all settled in and have been teaching for a couple of weeks now, after introducing myself to every class and dazzling them with my hi-tech PowerPoint presentation, I seemed to only get asked the same five or six baffling questions, in order to combat this I added new material to my presentations and changed to wording in order to help them understand. ... Yet still weeks later the inevitable six questions always seem to follow.

"How old are you?"
"What's your blood type?"
"Do you like Kimchi?"
"How tall are you?"
"What do you eat?"

I originally put this down to the fact that kids are generally curious and thought nothing more of it, only when after class my colleagues started to ask me the same questions did I become really confused.

I asked my newly made Korean friend Yujin why on earth Koreans cared what blood type I was or if I liked Kimchi (pickled cabbage, eaten with every meal - I'm not joking) , Yujin began to shed some light on the situation and helped me to decipher this unusual questions. . . .

How old are you, literally means "How should I address you?", the Korean language is very honorific and often each phrase or sentence has to be adjusted according to who you are addressing. As a 26 year old (remember the crazy age system) I am addressed by all my students respectfully.

My blood type is apparently like my zodiac sign (completely irrelevant in my books) it symbolizes what type of personality I have and is gives vital information on potential bonding and relationships.

Whether I enjoy Kimchi or not determines whether we can become good friends, meal times are very special in Korea and very group orientated. If I did not enjoy eating what others around me ate I would not be accepted into this special daily "bonding" event.

I'm assuming "What do you eat?" is just a derivative of the previous question however my vice-principle at school is genuinely fascinated that I eat rice back in England and cannot understand why I can use chopsticks - Maybe they actually do think all we eat is burgers and sandwiches?!

I still haven't been able to coax and answer from anyone as to why my height is important yet everyone still seems to ask me every day! - Watch this space.

School life is actually really great; now that kids know I'm taller and older than them they all bow down to me in the corridors and move out of my way and let me go the front of the queue at lunch times. Now that everyone knows that "I love Kimchi" (read I can tolerate it) they all want to be my friend and eat lunch with me. In fact everyone is really friendly and seems to genuinely like me and show an interest (maybe because I have type A blood?!).

The only person who doesn't seem to enjoy my company is the teacher/torturer who stands by the lunch room door with a 4ft foot bamboo cane ready to belt anyone who tries to get in even a second too early. I haven't seen him use it yet but the other teachers quite openly tell me that he regularly unleashes on some poor unsuspecting hungry student.

When I'm not teaching I sit at my desk marking kid's attempts to spell the word 'Elephant' and quietly chuckling to myself, I was doing this today when suddenly four young girls came in and started tidying my office and sweeping the floors. I was a little unnerved until my co-teacher SeungHee reassured me that this is normal in schools and that there were no cleaners or janitors. The children are put on a rota and take it in turns to clean/sweep the school - even clean the toilets (remember they are squats not western toilets), despite this the girls seemed quite content and even did a good job!

It's been a busy few weeks that's for sure but in between teaching, navigating the new town and making new friends I've even managed to master the Korean written language (Hangul). I kid you not; I can now read and write Korean. This however isn't as impressive as it seems, Hangul is actually one of the simplest written languages to learn and even though I can read it fluently I have no idea what I am saying or what it actually means. Unfortunately my writing of the language is restricted to the very Korean words that I know! All that aside the kids still love it when I write my name on the board in Korean for them and they always give me a loud "Waaaaaah" (Wow) for my efforts.

The only slightly bad news to report is that my two favourite teachers at my second school have both been called up for national service and will be joining the army at the end of the week! Rather them than me, that's all that I can say!

Until next time,

Dave

Interested in applying to teach for a public school in Korea? Apply here!

Video Introductions-Wave of the Future for CDL Applicants

Technology allows our perspective overseas employers to learn more about us, given that you usually can't meet your prospective school director beforehand. As such, Chung Dahm Learning has the Video Introduction as part of the hiring process. It may seem complicated, but it's actually quite simple. The idea behind the concept is to create a 60 to 90 second video uploaded directly to YouTube that introduces the CDL Branch and Campus School Directors to you!

Things they are evaluating:

1. Professional appearance
2. Clarity of voice and articulation
3. Reasons stated as to why you are going to be a great English teacher
4. Learning more about you as a person (i.e. interests & hobbies)

This is the only way for your future employer to "meet" you. So be smiley, energetic and enthusiastic. As long as you've got that, you're golden!

Criteria for the Video:

1. State your full name and what you prefer to be called
2. Wear what you would wear to a professional job interview
3. Provide some details on what you do in your free time & your interests
4. Insight into any teaching experience or working with kids
5. Why you think you'd be a valuable teacher
6. What excites you about working for CDL/living in Korea

How to do it:

1. Create a YouTube account, if you haven't already
2. Click the "upload" button on the top right corner of your home page
3. You may choose to upload a file already on your computer, directly upload your video to YouTube using a Webcam (we've found the direct upload to YouTube on Webcam to be more reliable for this) or upload a video from Mobile
4. Make sure your video is public (not private) and then send the link to your intro directly to your Recruiter who will let you know once you can take it down!

You may be wondering, if I've passed the Aclipse evaluation and it seems like I'm already on my way to a job offer with CDL, what's the point? Well, this handy little video allows the placement team in corporate CDL headquarters in Korea to introduce you to CDL Branches & Campuses throughout the country. So make Aclipse and CDL want to hire you! Remember this video makes you more than just a piece of paper and a picture.

We've received loads of wonderful videos thus far. At the bottom of this blog entry is a great example you should review before making your video. If you have any questions on making your video, please make sure to ask your Recruiter!

Thanks everyone!

Example Video

The Bank, the Phone, the Books. The Basics: Moving to South Korea!

I sat down with former EFL teacher Colleen Hartley (now an overseas recruiter with Aclipse) who taught in South Korea for 2 years. In our interview, she answers some common questions about moving to South Korea. You can also watch and learn more about Colleen's experiences in South Korea here!

How difficult is it to set up a bank account in Korea as a foreigner? Well, the first thing you need to know is that the school will help you set it up, so don't stress over it. You can create a remittance account that connects to your bank account here in the US. All you need is your account number and your international routing number, which you can obtain from your bank here (it's different than the routing number on your checks). There are some minor fees involved but it’s really simple to do a quick banking transfer in-person or you can even do it online. And your ATM will work over there; most major banks will accept your ATM card, such as Bank of America, but of course there are fees. By the second week you’re there, you’ll have a bank account. Bring 200-400 dollars in won (or you can exchange it there). To bring won with you, make sure you order it from the bank 2-3 weeks before your departure date. You can also exchange USD for Won at any major airport. I recommend taking out one lump sum and putting it into your newly created Korean bank account and then you’ll be able to stop taking money out and just pay a one time fee-the ATM transaction fee and exchange rate fee. That will get you going in Korea and pretty soon you'll be getting paid by your school and they should be able to deposit that directly into your Korean bank account.

What about setting up a phone in Korea? Korean phone service companies can be very skeptical about setting up a plan for foreigners. You’ll probably have trouble finding a Korean friend to co-sign on an account. So here's what I think is the best and easiest way to go about it. Buy a used or new phone and get a pay as you go phone, which means you can add minutes as you use them. That can get to be expensive but texting is a much cheaper option. Usually, you'll text your friends in Korea more than you call them anyway and you can use Skype to talk to your friends and family back home. Otherwise, the KEB, Korean Exchange Bank, has an international phone plan for foreigners. You can call home at a much cheaper rate without phone cards. If you go to www.KEB.co.kr/English you might find out more information about bank accounts in Korea, as well as international phone plans.

Where can you buy English language books in Korea? Buying English books is really easy if you know the right places to shop. There’s a famous store in Seoul called What the Book? And if you don’t live in Seoul, you can order it online from them (shipping from Seoul to another city in Korea is a lot cheaper than ordering off Amazon, for example). http://www.whatthebook.com/ This is the cheapest way to order books in Korea. It also gets delivered right to your house! I think they have the largest collection of used English-language books in the country.

Thanks to Colleen for taking the time to sit down with us and share all this great information! If you have any questions about living in Korea, please feel free to comment and I will get back to you ASAP!

Watch Colleen's South Korea video where she shares more about her experiences teaching in South Korea. Just click here. 

What's so great about teaching English overseas?

Read on to see what the Aclipse team thinks is so great about teaching overseas!

1. The People I met & the Friends I made
Nicole Ostrowski, Nagoya, Japan 2 years
Aclipse Recruiter, San Francisco
What did I like best about my experience living and teaching English in Japan? Probably what I enjoyed most, would have to be all the people I had met. The Japanese were so warm, and took me in and I learned so many cultural delights about the country and the people first hand. Additionally, I met so many foreigners living in Asia, and I feel very lucky that I have developed so many lasting relationships with friends from all over the world: London, Sydney, Toronto, Chicago, Boston, and many other places. An overseas work experience leaves an indelible impression that will always stay with you!

3. Language Lessons
Sean Daley, Chiang Mia, Thailand 4 years
Aclipse Recruiter & Campus Outreach Director, Boston
It was a huge rush for me to live overseas and learn another language. Since I had never spoken a second language successfully before, I was thrilled to find out that once I was surrounded by it every day, I was able to pick it up quite fast and even had a real knack for the pronunciation. It was always fun to spark up a conversation on buses, in stores or restaurants with someone who really did not expect me to be able to speak their language-especially if they had just been talking about me to their friend!

2. My Students
Misty Crooks, Takasaki 2.5 years, Kyoto, Japan 1.5 years
Aclipse Recruiter, Boston
My favorite thing about teaching overseas was the excitement of the students. On my last day, students wrote these little notes about my class. The funny thing was, the notes were for the students to keep, but they wanted me to autograph them. Suddenly there was a mad rush of small people, and I was engulfed in a sea of faces and pieces of paper. I was signing notes and saying parting words to the children when one boy roughly pulled the arm of his shirt up and asked me to sign his arm. Then they were all doing it, and I was writing slogans and drawing pictures of hearts and dogs and cats on small arms. For once in my life, I, Misty Crooks, was a rock star!

4. Traveling
Colleen Hartley, Yongin City, South Korea 2 years
Aclipse Recruiter, Boston
My favorite part of living in South Korea was the sense of discovery. I love traveling to new places and finding out what is special about a new country. While living in Korea, I came across so many beautiful things. I visited so many different places from green tea fields to Hwaseong Fortress in Suwon, an oil lamp museum and the DMZ, from the big city of Seoul to WeolChul Mountain in Jeollanam Province!

5. Cultural Differences
Zach Lahey, Hyderabad, India 6 months
Aclispe Recruiter, Boston
Beyond the fact that I was learning and growing on an everyday basis, my favorite part about living abroad was the cultural, social and even environmental differences that I encountered on a daily basis. During the first few months of living in India, the foremost hurdle was handling how I always stood out no matter where I went or who I was with at the time. Sure, it didn’t assist my cause that at 6’5” I towered over everyone and had a massive mop of hair. I learned to embrace the situation and as a result, I learned significantly more about India and its people by introducing myself and extending myself to all those whom I encountered.

Sound great to you? Interested in teaching overseas? Check out the next step!