Training at ECC

On Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday I attended a training session at the ECC (English Centre for Children) headquarters. All the new teachers starting December 1st were there, 11 in total. Most were teaching in Seoul, but a few were assigned to smaller cities such as Daegu and Daejon. ECC headquarters is only three subway stops away from my school, so it was convenient for me and Matt. For other teachers, however, it took an hour or more to get to the training (those from outside Seoul had special accommodations for the session). The other teachers all seemed friendly; two were from the UK (Matt included), one from Ireland, one from Canada, and the rest were Americans.

A typical ECC school

The training sessions were led by a YBM employee named Robert. Robert, who was from Australia, was a great fit for the training. Some of the material was dry, but he did his best to make it interesting for us. Other parts of the presentations were actually quite entertaining. Aside from teaching material and methods we also talked about Korean culture and history. It was a good intro for those of us who were not very familiar with the country.

On the last day of training we presented mock lessons to the rest of the teachers, and it was their job to act like children. We had a fun time pretending not to know English and trying to disrupt the lesson plan. My topic was for an advanced class (maybe ages 10-12), and the material was a bit dull – I talked about computer vocabulary (arrow, screen, cursor, cable). It was still good to get practice time in front of a class of “students” and to formulate a lesson plan. Each class level comes with a student book and a teacher’s guide, so most of the planning is done for us. We just need to find creative ways to make the information stick, like games, partner work, interactive dialogue, etc.

I don't know that one mock lesson really prepares you for this!
During our lunch breaks and after the sessions ended (around 6 pm) many of us went out together for meals. I was glad to have other people to hang out with, especially since they were new to teaching and to Korea as well. I enjoyed spending time with them, but I doubt most of us will be great friends this year. I say that simply because of logistics; if it takes an hour plus to get from Jamsil to another YBM teacher’s apartment in a different part of Seoul, then I don’t think we will have many opportunities to meet up. Hopefully we will still keep in touch and maybe get together occasionally on the weekends.

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