The Canadian Connection

OK I hate to sound bias by bringing up this agency, but I do know a lot about it so I might as well! Like I said in my very first blog, I'm going to teach English in South Korea for a year. The company I'm going through is called Canadian Connections, and I heard about them through the Asian Affairs department of my University. They are a company based in Ontario, Canada (believe it or not!) and basically they take college grads from native English speaking countries ( IE the US, England, Australia, New Zealand) and ship them over to different Providences in South Korea to teach English to Korean students. When teaching with Canadian Connections you get to choose the size of the providence to live in and what kind of school you'd like to teach. For example, I chose to teach in the Jeollanamdo providence ( an average sized city) in the Southeast region along the coast. Also, I got to choose teaching elementary, middle, or high school students (I went with the elementary kiddies). Along with this you get the option to teach at a public or private school. I heard teaching in the private schools can be kind of sketchy. First of all, you have to live AT the school, sometimes the teachers don't get paid on time (or at all!), and the pay isn't as good. SO, naturally I went with the public school. It's a year long program, but you can extend the contract up to three years. The school pays for living accommodations and the plane tickets for both ways, (not to mention a monthly pay check). You teach up to 20 hours a week, and have a teaching assistant and translator in the room with you. Now, the first thing I asked when hearing this was, "why even have a native English speaker there when a translator's chillin in the room the whole time?". Well, the main purpose of having native English speakers there is so the students can hear how to properly pronunciate English words. And what better way to do so than by using actual native speakers in the class room?! And I'm sure the language barrier will be a bit of a set back both in and out of the classroom, but it's all about adapting (and using street smarts CONSTANTLY). All together, it will be quite a change but it will definitely be a great character builder! But if any of this sounds enticing poke around the Canadian Connections website, teachers in Asia are in great demand so if you decide to e-mail any of the program coordinators for further info they will be very happy to help!

And here is the rest of it.