Orientation - Jeonju University

How do you prepare 650 newbies for life as a teacher in Korea? As best you can! The rest is about luck, pluck, initiative, persistence and a little bit of charm (also known as ‘kissing butt’).

After being shipped to Jeonju University (“the place for superstars”), we were assigned rooms and given a list of classes and activities for the next nine days. The predominant activity we took part in was not on this list – extra-curricular soju drinking. That stuff is potent, but was the fuel for nine straight days of socialising with our fellow teachers from around Korea. It was an amazing week – I met some amazing people, had some amazing experiences and experienced some amazing hangovers. At 20% alcohol and 50 pence a bottle can you blame me?

We learned how to deal with elementary, middle and high school students; how to incorporate role plays and interactive learning; how to deal with our co-teachers; a brief history of Korea and finally to speak a little bit of Korean. This class wasn’t so popular as by 7pm when the class started most teachers had eaten, finally recovered from their previous nights hangover and were heading out to do it all over again. Learning the Korean alphabet wasn’t quite as high on the priority list as it should have been! I made it to two classes but decided against the other two.

I was very sad to see the end of orientation, but it was time to hit the real world and put everything into practice. Eek!