Teachers Share their Experiences While Living Abroad!

Training Week: Intense but Rewarding

The best way I can describe training week was that it was kind of like boot camp. You need your stamina! It’s an intense five days packed with information about Chungdahm and its curriculum. As a fresh college graduate completely new to classroom teaching, it felt a bit overwhelming at times, but by the end of the week, I felt somewhat accomplished and like I had a solid foundation going into my first week of teaching!

I arrived in Seoul a few days before training in February, so I could explore the city without the stress of training. It was so cold, I ended up staying in my hotel and enjoying the convenience of delivery services provided throughout Seoul. I received my training schedule during this time, so I was able to familiarize myself with the map and metro system prior to Day 1 of training. I was also able to complete the “pre-training” course online which you must complete and pass in order to successfully complete the training week.

Managers in any job have one main purpose: to be the absorbing sponge between two hard materials. They are like the spine of the corporate system: bridging the brain with the rest of the body to work with ease and efficiency. However, it is not an easy job balancing the needs of the teaching staff along with the wants from the higher ups. So, having had both good and bad managers, I would like to tell you about one of my best experiences with management at Chungdahm.

Moving to Korea can be really intimidating. There are plenty of questions racing through your head, such as "Where am I going to live? How am I going to get to school? Will people understand me? Will my students like me?" We all worry about things we cannot control, so to lessen the nerves, at Chungdahm Learning you will receive a lot of guidance and help that will make your life easier and more comfortable. 

Hello everyone! My name is Giselle and I recently began teaching in Korea this past November at ChungDahm Learning's Daechi branch in Gangnam, Seoul.  I am from California in the U.S. where I attended the University of California, Riverside for 5 years. During those 5 years, I always worked with international students and in my third year of college it was when I decided that I wanted to teach English abroad upon graduating.  It was through these experiences of being an English tutor for international students that I felt really fulfilled. I particularly found it easy to get along with Korean students which is why I decided to pursue a teaching opportunity in Korea. I even attended Yonsei University in Seoul for a semester and fell in love with the city. When I got back to the US, I enrolled in extra courses on campus to obtain my TESOL certificate - Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages. I finished all the courses the summer after I graduated and on the last day of my certification program I was thrilled to find out I was offered a contract to work for Chungdahm.

In my two part blog series I will go into detail about my first days in Korea and going through ChungDahm's training week (featured below), along with moving into my new apartment and adjusting to live as a full-time teacher (part 2).  

Hi! My name is Morghan, and I’m a brand-new teacher with Chungdahm Institute. I’m from the east side of Washington (state) and I went to school at Western Washington University, which I’ve only recently graduated from. Upon graduating I decided I wanted to teach in Korea for a simple set of reasons: I wanted to explore, I’d never been to Asia before, and I wanted to take a risk and do something completely new. Korea seemed like the perfect country to gain quality teaching experience, all while being able to travel. Plus, school was expensive, and I can save a lot of money here.

My name is Romy Darius and I am from the city of Toronto, Canada. I graduated from York University with a Bachelor's Degree in Political Science and obtained a TESOL Certificate and this past August, I decided I wanted to teach English in Korea. The opportunity to teach students abroad intrigued me due to my love of teaching. I have never lived outside of North America, so this was my perfect chance to not only gain experience teaching, but, to engage in another culture and make a difference in the lives of others.

Training week is your introductory course into teaching in Korea for ChungDahm Academy or April Institute. For one week, you will be with ChungDham trainers at the beautiful training facility in Jamsil before getting moved to your working branch. Living in Korea is amazing but it is important to make sure to pass training week first. Here are my 3 key points for passing training week:

After managing at a ChungDahm Academy for 4 years and working as an Aclipse Marketing Assistant for 3 years, I get a lot of questions about living and teaching in Korea. For many applicants, moving to Korea will be their first experience living away from their homeland, so it is completely natural to have many questions about what it is like to live here. This blog is aimed to help answer and alleviate some of those concerns about working for ChungDahm as well as living in Korea. If you have any questions about Korea, feel free to use Aclipse’s Connect with a Teacher Program.

 “There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure." ― Paulo Coelho

Having come from a difficult job, organizing and managing children’s mental health treatment, I was pretty well shaken up. It was a very stressful job, and I had low self-esteem because of it. I felt as though nothing I could do would be good enough, and my direction in life was uncertain. I needed a different perspective. I considered joining the military, but decided against it because of the intense environment, and long contract. I did know however that I wanted to see the world and I knew that this would be the best time in my life to do so. Deciding to, and traveling to teach in Korea, I had a great number of fears. I was afraid I wouldn’t be successful in my new career, whether I was making a good choice, whether I could be a good teacher or not, and if I would be accepted by my new coworkers. These fears were resolved through time and effort, but I know that a lot of people struggle with them when choosing to move to a foreign country.