Teaching Teachers

Tonight wrapped up the end of another (two week long) teachers' English training course.

This was the 4th or 5th one I'd been lucky enough to be asked to do; but no matter how many times the Busan Education Training Institute (BETI) offers me these opportunities, I'm always nervous going into them.

They have been different each time I've done them to be fair.  

The first one I did was a "how-to" camp on teaching Content Based Instruction (CBI).  Since I had been doing that from the moment I got to Korea, it wasn't too much of a stretch for me.  I just took a lesson and "taught" it to the teachers.

The second time I was a lecturer it was just a conversation class.  So I was only responsible for coming up with little gimmick activities that would, as you can probably guess, get the teachers to talk.

The next one I presented at I also had to attend.  It was a bit strange, but Mrs. Jang was talking and she asked me to join her.  We spoke about "effective co-teaching" - which I'm very confident we do most successfully!

The one after that was a doozie!  (You may remember I had to prepare a twenty-some-odd page manuscript.)  I was one of 4 lecturers who was presenting on a set topic.  I was fortunate and unfortunate to get the topic of "Opinion".  Sounds easy, right?  We all have our opinions and most times we like to share them.  I just needed to create activities that would give us the groundwork to share our opinions.   For the most part it went well.  Until my second to last lesson, which had me wanting to run away crying.  But I didn't cry and soon it was over.

And that brings us to this one.  My 5th.

When the director asked us what topics we wanted, you can believe I emailed her immediately to let her know that it would be most desirable if I did NOT have opinion again.  She was nice to go along with my request and I was assigned "Real Life English".  However, this time I didn't have to prepare the materials.  Aoife did that - she works at BETI and was also going to be teaching this course/topic, but at another location - I just had to make the materials and ppts.

This course was a dream!

I was nervous at the start of it - unsure if I had done an adequate job preparing materials: activities, warmups, etc.  But despite being told I talk too fast (fail), it was the best one I've ever done.

The teachers in the course were amazing!  Some of them I had had before in previous courses!!  It was great to see them again and continue to help in their English development and passion.

They were so active and involved.  It was really wonderful to be a part of.

And they were some of the nicest people I've met!  

They gave me a Korean name.

We went out for dinner as a group.

And tonight, on our last night, we had a little goodbye party full of snacks, games and topped off by ending an hour early.

*

Truly the best teachers' training course I've ever done!!  And we're all going to meet up and hangout again!!  Cool group this one was! ^^

*the pictures are from a game activity we did.  Each person in the class provided a characteristic (for us: long hair, braces, big lips, thick eyebrows, hairy, looks smart, glamorous body) and then using those words, each person drew their own interpretation.